A policy agenda whereby the EU outsources (or externalises) border and migration controls to non-EU states. These policies are often designed and implemented using tactics of secrecy and use technical language to conceal underlying policy objectives. Despite the documented human rights abuses that these policies enable, the process of externalisation is accelerating and expanding.
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Outsourcing borders: monitoring EU externalisation policy
Externalisation is problematic by design making it difficult for the public or civil society to combat or for any person, government or entity to be held fully accountable. These problems are inextricably linked and the externalisation agenda must be dismantled in full.
Most decisions being made behind closed doors without the opportunity for the public or elected officials to intervene.
It contributes to global inequality, which in turn causes people to move.
Operations continue despite notorious human rights abuses and unlawful practices.
There are major gaps between and among decision makers and actors on the ground, making it an incoherent and unaccountable system.
New funding, agreements and policies are constantly being developed, making it difficult for the public and elected officials to keep up with.
Statewatch | Analysis: Charting a course through the labyrinth of externalisation
Statewatch | Hardwiring the externalisation of border control into EU law
<aside> <img src="/icons/light-bulb_green.svg" alt="/icons/light-bulb_green.svg" width="40px" /> Call it like it is. While alternating descriptors such as “externalised border control” or “the external dimension of migration” can aid and reinforce understanding, continuing to clearly call out “externalisation” in messages can help us maintain a consistent and unified voice.
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Externalisation has developed from a repressive European immigration policy dating back to the 1980s that enables free movement within the EU by limiting the rights of so-called “third-country nationals”, tens of thousands of whom have died as a result. By insisting that immigration is a problem that must be combated and regulated, the EU turned a largely beneficial phenomenon into an unmanageable problem, with serious human and societal implications.
The EU responds to deaths and tragedies caused by Fortress Europe policies by calling for an expansion of the same policies.
The disruption of regular migration patterns has led people to seek more dangerous routes.
EU freedom of movement demonstrates official recognition of the positive effects of migration, yet externalisation seeks to limit movement between non-EU states.
Statewatch | Externalisation of migration control: from the 1990s to the present
Statewatch | Spanish Presidency’s call for “a preventive model” for migration: more of the same
An incredible amount of funding has already gone into externalisation, and it has no benefit on society as a whole. We must ensure that individuals understand the consequences, on the individual and collective levels, to compel them to act, and challenge states decisions.
People move to seek a better life only to face discrimination, detention, violent pushbacks and other human rights abuses.
Externalisation contributes to degrading social and political environments in their home countries.
Taxes are used to fund dictators and oppressive practices rather than EU communities’ needs and aspirations.
New measures adopted through externalisation give police and states more power which are then used for policing within the EU as well.
Violence is taking place in their name.
Policies cause mixed nationality families to be torn apart or face hostility.
Statewatch | Frontex to spend hundreds of millions of euros on surveillance and deportations
Statewatch | “Action file” on Tunisia outlines EU’s externalisation plans
<aside> <img src="/icons/light-bulb_green.svg" alt="/icons/light-bulb_green.svg" width="40px" /> Weave in the wins. Wherever possible, demonstrate avenues for change by highlighting victories, big or small, and outline the methods and actors that enabled them.
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The success of externalisation is inherently dependent on suffering ‘elsewhere’. It is predicated on the idea that EU priorities are more important than the safety, desires or lives of anyone outside the EU. Additionally, it directly contributes to continuously degrading countries, particularly within Africa, through coercive and dangerous agreements which give authority and funding to oppression and violence within those countries.
It functions to restrict movement and rights of “illegalised” people in the name of European “security”.
It legitimates repressive policy initiatives and the deployment of police forces to exclude and target non-EU nationals.
This stems from the EU setting its own agenda and forcing non-EU countries to comply.
They use these tactics to threaten non-EU states to increase deportations.
This in turn objectifies non-EU countries as passive actors used for migration control.
The EU funds and builds capabilities of authoritarian governments and coercive state practices in neighbouring states and beyond.
Externalisation reinforces European nationalism and racist ideals.
Webinar videos on the ongoing EU reforms and their impacts along the exile routes – MIGREUROP
Statewatch | EU: Linking development aid to deportation compliance under discussion in the Council
Externalisation may seem to many as a distant problem, when in reality, it causes instability and misrule both within and outside of the EU. It creates systems of dependancies based on unreliable factors, diminishes the credibility of “EU values”, and demonstrates how readily states can dehumanise and objectify people to reach political aims.
There have been several examples, such as the coup in Niger or the overthrow of Gaddafi in Libya, in which agreements have been dissolved by changes in governments.
It creates an political landscape in which people on the move become bargaining chips between EU and non-EU states.
The result-driven evaluation of externalisation’s success encourages countries to continue engaging in practices that violate human rights.