Migrations in the Mediterranean

Front matter

IMISCOE Research Series

Ricard Zapata-Barrero Ibrahim Awad Editors

Migrations in the Mediterranean

Part I Geo-Political Mediterranean Relations

Looking at the EU-Turkey Deal: The Implications for Migrants in Greece and Turkey... ccc ei cei ic bee sc eue sheer ia

Elif Demirbas and Christina Miliou

Hindering Democracy Through Migration Policies?

An Analysis of EU External Migration Policies’ Impacts

Luisa Faustini Torres

Migration Across the Mediterranean: Shaping Italy-Libya

Mathias Hatleskog Tjønn and Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert

Stefania Panebianco and Giuseppe Cannata

Gemma Aubarell Solduga

Part II Governance, Politics and Policies Fi

Hassen Boubakri viii Contents

S Media, Public Opinion and Migration Policies Maysa Ayoub

9 Gendered Asylum in the Black Mediterranean: Two Eleanor Paynter

10 Activists Escaping Lebanon: Disruption, Burnout, and O A tek SEER ekki bande RRR eA Rae Carmen Geha

11 Ecologies of Conflict and Coexistence in the Mediterranean: Tamirace Fakhoury and Miriam Aitken

Part II Taxonomies of Motion and Drivers

12 Root Causes of Irregular Migration in the Eastern Ahmet İçduygu and Birce Altıok

13 Mobilities Among Marginalized Youth in Morocco: Boutaina Ismaili Idrissi, Rachid Touhtou, and Carles Feixa

14 The Continuity of Migration Drivers: A Historical Perspective Naiara Rodriguez-Pena

15 Capturing Irregular Migrations Through a Macro-sociological Lens: The Harga Process in Twelve Steps from North Africa tò OG) re AAA Mohamed Saib Musette and Mohamed Maamar

Part IV History, Cities and Social Transformations

16 Connecting Places, Connecting to Place: Migrants’ Use Franz Buhr, Amandine Desille, and Maria Lucinda Fonseca

17 The Fenced Off Cities of Ceuta and Melilla: Mediterranean Xavier Ferrer-Gallardo and Lorenzo Gabrielli

18 Mediterranean Migrations and Cities with Their Cultural Yvan Gastaut

Contents

Infrastructure Development and Environmental Change:

A Case Study of Forced (Im)mobility in the Mhamid Oasis (Southern Morocco)...

Karolina Sobczak-Szelc

Part V Economy and Labor Markets

The Political Economy of Egyptian Migration to Europe WAG LUNG: os waded cea eee Ge bos Saeed eed es Ibrahim Awad

The Institutional Channeling of Transnational Economic Hassan Bousetta, Hicham Jamid, and Ismail Oubad

‘No Man’s Land’: Reflecting on and Theorizing Migrant Apostolos G. Papadopoulos and Loukia-Maria Fratsea

Transnational Migrant Entrepreneurship Policies in the Maghreb Samir Djelti and Ricard Zapata-Barrero

Concluding Remarks: Applying Med-Thinking Proviso to Set Ricard Zapata-Barrero

Chapter 1 (Y Introduction: Mediterranean Migration A Studies — A Research Agenda

for the Coming Years

Ricard Zapata-Barrero (3) and Ibrahim Awad

1.1 Blurb of This Co-edited Book

This volume seeks to cover the overall Mediterranean regional dimension on migrations. The basic purpose is to provide a basis for future research synergies by showcasing a plurality of perspectives to and applications of Mediterranean Migrations. This provides a direct opportunity and a reflective invitation to think the Mediterranean as a category of analysis for migration studies, which involves both a regional approach to migration and as “scale thinking” of geo-political governance (Zapata-Barrero, 2022). This broad geographical scope, coupled with cross-cutting and inter-disciplinary contributions, as well as the key-fact that this volume seeks to integrate regional, national, and North-Eastern-South complementarities are the distinctive features of its focus. It links Mediterranean and Migration Studies by articulating three sub-regions (Southern Europe, Northern Africa and Middle East) or the so-called Southern and Eastern Mediterranean (SEM) countries in the EU parlance. This Mediterranean scale of analysis (see special issue co-edited by Zapata- Barrero & Faustini, 2019) invites us to conduct most of our research findings towards a region-making process, detaching what is particular of this region of the world, but also what is common to migration and that we can also encounter in other regions. What is probably the most striking feature of this particular domain of

GRITIM-UPF (Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration), Department of Social and Political Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Catalonia, Barcelona, Spain

e-mail: ricard.zapata@upf.edu

Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, The American University in Cairo, New Cairo, Egypt

e-mail: iawad @aucegypt.edu

© The Author(s) 2024 1 R. Zapata-Barrero, I. Awad (eds.), Migrations in the Mediterranean, IMISCOE Research Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03 1-42264-5_1

2 R. Zapata-Barrero and I. Awad research is that in the Mediterranean the mobility of people originates and may have effects in three continents at the same time. This makes it unique.

This volume aims to map and strengthen current research development trends from a multiplicity of disciplines and geographical angles (North and South, East and West). The main ambition is to offer a body of knowledge that responds to the quest of unifying the Mediterranean and recognizes the multiple historical socio-political economic and geopolitical relationships that unite the shores. Another main objective is to contribute to knowledge about past and current exchanges in the Mediterranean region, which should foster understanding and cooperation.

This collaborative book addresses a wide range of issues related to the Mediterranean migration research agenda, covering relevant areas and topics in five main parts, going from Geo-political Mediterranean Relations (Part I) and Governance, Policies and Politics (Part II), Taxonomies of Motion and Drivers (Part IID, to Cities, History and Social Transformations (Part IV), and Economy and Labour Markets (Part V). By focusing on these multiple angles of the same reality, the volume could make a valuable contribution to migration studies, where the Mediterranean is probably one of the most studied areas, but still considered a weak category of analysis. This is probably one of the reasons why Eurocentrism and state-centrism, Western-centrism, are still deeply rooted in the political, policy, but also research spheres. If we want to contribute to the opening up of Mediterranean regional studies, we must necessarily question our positionality and adopt an epistemological multipleperspectivism in defining problems, analysing them and envisaging possible future scenarios. The volume aims to articulate a systematic and accessible body of accumulated knowledge capable of developing a comprehensive regional understanding of migrations and related associated population movements in the Mediterranean.' As a handbook, this volume promotes the potential of migration and human mobility for the economic, environmental, cultural, political and social development of the Mediterranean, and succeeds in placing Mediterranean migration studies within the global migration agenda. It is noteworthy that the vast majority of the authors of the chapters are from Mediterranean countries, on the North, South and East shores of the sea.

Migrations in the Mediterranean will undoubtedly be of interest to a large number of scholars, both junior and senior researchers, as well as policy-makers and senior representatives of civil society organisations, international foundations and organisations. Given the variety of contributors in terms of background, geographical distribution, and multi-varied approaches, it should also be of particular interest to scholars working on the economics, politics, and international relations of the Mediterranean, and social scientists in general.

'By “associated population movements” we mean those population movements in which “asylum seekers” request asylum but are unable to do so, thus remaining as migrants. This is quite a mainstream feature in the Mediterranean. There is a growing number of citizens from countries in Africa and even Asia who cross the Mediterranean but are not recognized as refugees. UNHCR refers to these migrant groups as “mixed migration flows”.

1 Introduction: Mediterranean Migration Studies — A Research Agenda for... 3 1.2 What This Book Is About: Main Themes and Objectives

Mediterranean and Migrations are probably two sides of the same coin. Migrations in the Mediterranean is as old as the spatial awareness of the Mediterranean. The movement of populations constitutes the bedrock of Mediterranean history. But patterns and dynamics of this mobility, political and governance reactions have changed over time. Cities, empires, colonial, economic, social and cultural relations of the past still shape current migratory and associated population movement patterns and the geopolitics of governance. Even if today, the views of these flows are mostly unipolar, from South to North, from East to West, reality illustrates that there are some new emerging trends that announce the multipolarity of human movement. These include the return of migrants, transnational relationships linking the shores of the Mediterranean, but also skilled and lifestyle migrants from North to South, from West to East. Different patterns of migration and associated population movements are emerging, and more traditional patterns are analysed within a mix of drivers.

Historically, commercial and religious factors have driven migrations between countries on the Southern Shores of the Mediterranean. For instance, pilgrims from the Maghreb settled in Egypt on their way to or during return from Mecca. Migration also accompanied or was an outcome of colonial enterprises in the Maghreb countries. From Europe, especially Italy and Greece, migrants sought jobs in Egypt or participated in its modernization in the second half of the nineteenth century and first half the twentieth. Factors driving migrations and associated population movements in the Mediterranean today can be mixed: demographics, employment, integration, human rights infringement, instability of governments, climate change and environmental pressures, lifestyle, etc. Employment, specifically youth employment, is a challenge within Mediterranean countries, to the North, East and to the South and constitutes a distinctive feature of the Mediterranean regional system in the third decade of the twenty-first century. These economic, political, cultural and social factors are in need of scientific research, fostering a multidisciplinary debate while avoiding explicit or subtle Euro- and Western-centrism. There is a need to articulate a regional approach, incorporating a multiplicity of perspectives and understandings of the same phenomenon. The mixture of population movements, together with climate change-induced migration are also new drivers of contemporary Mediterranean Migration, as well as different geo-politics of migrations that arise from European Union and European States and other Southern and Eastern states’ interest.

The complexity of relations, the uncertainty of political circumstances and the diversity of social regimes around the Mediterranean require a regional approach, while linking the past with the present. There is a need to decolonise the Mediterranean by addressing the current tragic situations of migrant deaths in its waters, but also the blind spots, the amnesias, the silences and the politically constructed ruptures with a past that is still present through migratory and related population movements.

4 R. Zapata-Barrero and I. Awad

The main ambition of these 25 contributions is to provide a body of knowledge that responds to the quest of unifying the Mediterranean rather than dividing it and recognises the multiple historical socio political economic and geopolitical relationships that unite the shores. To contribute to knowledge about past and current exchanges in the Mediterranean region, which should foster understanding and cooperation, is also our objective.

1.3 The Mediterranean Scale: Scope of Migration Studies and Current Research Agenda

The Mediterranean scale of analysis is key in defining the scope of all the contributions. It invites us to disentangle what is specific to this region of the world, but also what is common to migrations and what we may encounter in other regions, and to direct most of the research findings towards a region-making process. It is true, for example, that the multi-scale nature of migrations in the Mediterranean, its unpredictability and its complexity are general characteristics of international migration in all regions. In the Mediterranean, however, migrations originate and can have an impact on three continents at the same time. This makes it unique. The Mediterranean is where three continents meet, but it is also considered the most diasporic region in the world (Gallant, 2016; 205), it remains the least peaceful region in the world (Global Peace Index, 2018) and by far the deadliest zone in the world (number of deaths in attempts to cross the Mediterranean) (latest UNHCR and IOM reports). The Mediterranean is probably also where activism, despite its criminalisation, plays a crucial role in saving lives, but also in shattering consciences and reconfiguring current power relations between and within states.

This volume seeks to map the current research agenda on Mediterranean migration by selecting current innovative perspectives and approaches with promising avenues for further research. It has brought together a community of scholars who are already contributing to the development of this field of research from all shores of the Mediterranean and beyond. The chapters address some of the most pressing issues in the field through both comparative analysis and case studies. The diversity of the authors’ disciplines enriches the unity of this co-edited book. This results in a great richness in terms of disciplines, theoretical perspectives, topics and methodologies.

As co-editors, our premise is that, despite the existence of a burgeoning literature, this field is dispersed and unarticulated between the Mediterranean Studies and Migration Studies. The main scholarly purpose of Migrations in the Mediterranean is then twofold: The first is to provide a comprehensive representation of the body of knowledge that has accumulated in the last two decades of the twenty-first century. The second, and probably as a result of the first, it is to leave open this new research agenda on Mediterranean migrations for the coming years. In other words, this volume aims to encourage the reader to think carefully about where and with

1 Introduction: Mediterranean Migration Studies — A Research Agenda for... 5 whom most of our knowledge comes from and consequently informs politics and society. And who can use and benefit from this production of knowledge.

The general horizon is to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge and data and to find exploratory ways to reduce the gap between research findings and knowledge, public opinion and policies. In line with this rationale, we asked the contributors to both take a critical look at the current state of the art on Mediterranean migrations and to prioritise innovative ways of sources and knowledge production. That is, to give voice to what is most of the time silenced and/or excluded from mainstream narratives and practices. We then asked all contributors to engage substantively with Mediterranean migration studies in order to help shape this particular regional field of migration studies.

We have asked all the contributors to end their chapters with some final thoughts on how their own arguments and findings can contribute to the shaping of the Mediterranean region in terms of economic, political, social and cultural identity, and even in terms of shared values.

1.4 Summary: Main Objectives and the Rationale of the Edited Book and Basic Areas Covered

We can summarize the objectives following four broad principles: (1) To articulate a systematic, shared, innovative and accessible accumulated corpus of knowledge, capable of developing a comprehensive regional understanding of Migrations and associated population movements in the Mediterranean; (2) To encourage knowledge exchange between senior and young researchers of both sides of the Mediterranean, and of scholars working on Mediterranean Migrations and associated population movements all over the world; (3) To promote the potentialities of Migrations and Human Mobilities for the economic, environmental, cultural, political, and social development of the Mediterranean.; (4) To place Mediterranean Migration Studies within the Global Migration Agenda.

In the last few years, the Mediterranean gained more and more relevance in European and migration studies and, currently, it is a regional focal point where several types of large-scale human displacement converge. This is a multi-scalar (global and local) challenge with major effects on origin/transit/destination countries, border/integration/ diversity policies, and geopolitical strategies. Indeed, if we review the recent European policy agenda on Mediterranean Migrations and associated population movements the keywords identified would probably be unpredictability, complexity, and also lack of evidence-based narratives and policies on current migration dynamics and governance systems.

There is a paradox that, despite the great importance of migrations and associated population movements in the Mediterranean region, a volume tackling that specific research agenda does not still exist. Academic, social and political demands should be better substantiated by covering all the geographical area through a complete

6 R. Zapata-Barrero and I. Awad focus on Mediterranean Migrations, promoting multi-sited and comparative research, multi-level analysis, and intersectional studies.

This co-edited book is pioneer in this initiative contributing to develop an understanding of the migration dynamics, addressing taxonomies of motion and the diverse manifestations of human mobility, the drivers of migration and their interdependence, while also maximising its benefits to the Mediterranean area and coping policy mechanisms at origin and destination.

What encourage us is to frame this focus through different parts and chapters that may be innovative and may feature the historical Mediterranean time. The general aim is to illustrate the significance of the regional dimension of migrations through the research on the drivers, means and causes of migration dynamics and migration systems. This main goal will allow going a step further by promoting research dissemination contributing to a comprehensive understanding of current research agenda challenges.

Gallant, T. W. (2016). Afterword: Writing Mediterranean diasporas after the transnational turn. In M. Isabella & K. Zanou (Eds.), Mediterranean diasporas: Politics and ideas in the long 19th century (pp. 205—209). Bloomsbury.

Global Peace Index. (2018). Measuring peace in a complex world. Institute for Economics & Peace.

Zapata-Barrero, R. (2022). Mediterranean thinking in migration studies: A methodological regionalism approach. International Migration, 1-14.

Zapata-Barrero, R., & Faustini, L. (Eds.). (2019). Mediterranean migration research: Variable focal length, Special Issue Comparative Migration Studies, 7(26).

Ricard Zapata-Barrero Full Professor in the Department of Political and Social Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Catalonia, Barcelona). His main lines of research deal with the relationship between democracy, governance, citizenship, and migrations. He conducts theoretical and empirical research in the Mediterranean area. He is the Director of GRITIM-UPF (Interdisciplinary Research Group on Immigration), and of the Master’s Program in Migration Studies at UPF. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the largest research network on Immigration in Europe IMISCOE and Chair the External Affairs Committee. He coordinates EuroMedMig (Euro-Mediterranean Research Network on Migration).

For more information about publications: https://www.upf.edu/web/ricard-zapata/

Ibrahim Awad is at present Professor of Global Affairs and Director, Center for Migration and Refugee Studies, School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, at the American University in Cairo. He holds a BA degree in political science from Cairo University and a PhD degree in political science from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, University of Geneva, Switzerland. He has worked for the League of Arab States, the United Nations and the International Labour Organization, holding positions of Secretary of the Commission, UN-ESCWA, Director, ILO Sub-regional Office for North Africa and Director, ILO International Migration Programme.

He is currently Chair of the Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development (KNOMAD), hosted by the World Bank, Chair of the Steering Committee of the Euro-

1 Introduction: Mediterranean Migration Studies — A Research Agenda for... 7

Mediterranean Research Network on International Migration (EuroMedMig) and Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He also serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals. For more information about his research activities and publications see: https://www.aucegypt.edu/fac/ ibrahimawad

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Chapter 2 A Looking at the EU-Turkey Deal: The ggi Implications for Migrants in Greece

and Turkey

Elif Demirbaş and Christina Miliou

The deal on refugees between the EU and Turkey, announced at the end of November 2015 — Turkey will curb the flow of refugees into Europe in exchange for generous financial help, initially of 3 billion Euro — is a shamelessly disgusting act, a proper ethico-political catastrophe. . . The opportunistic-pragmatic justification of this deal is clear (bribing Turkey is the most obvious way to limit the flow of refugees), but the long-term consequences will be catastrophic. Slavoj Žižek (2017)

The year 2015, known as the year of the global” reception crisis? (Amnesty International, 2016), has been marked by countless deaths in the Mediterranean as refugees attempted to pass the borders of the EU. The leading cause of this crisis was the Syrian civil war and the ensuing exodus of millions of refugees toward Western Europe. Due to the unwillingness of EU governments to accept refugees and their lack of preparedness for integration and protection, the magnitude of the Syrian refugee population sent alarm bells all over the region. Due to their

'We would like to thank our supervisors, Michael Collyer, Lizzie Seal, Bal Sokhi-Bulley, Jane Cowan, and Dean Wilson for the support and inspiration, as well as Birce Altıok, Nuno Ferreira, and Ahmet leduygu for their insightful and detailed recommendations and suggestions in writing this article.

The use of the word ‘global’ here actually shows how Eurocentric the literature on migration is. In actuality, the effects of the reception crisis have been mainly felt in the Mediterranean region. >The authors prefer the expression ‘the reception crisis” instead of ‘refugee crisis’ to place the responsibility on the receiving countries and not on the migrants themselves. See Christopoulos (2016).

E. Demirbaş (È<) Sociology Department, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK e-mail: e.demirbas @sussex.ac.uk

C. Miliou Law Department, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK e-mail: c.miliou-theocharaki @ sussex.ac.uk

© The Author(s) 2024 11 R. Zapata-Barrero, I. Awad (eds.), Migrations in the Mediterranean, IMISCOE Research Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-03 1-42264-5_2 geographical locations, Turkey and Greece assumed their roles as transit countries. While Turkey initially opened its borders to Syrian refugees, certain European countries in the EU, like Hungary, built barbed wires across their borders to stem the flow of people crossing (Thorpe, 2019).

Regarding immigration policies, the focus of the EU member states shifted from countries of origin, like Syria, Afghanistan, and Sudan, to transit countries bordering the EU, like Libya and Turkey (Strik, 2019). The EU aims to create a “buffer zone” around its territory by signing readmission agreements with transit countries. The EU-Turkey deal (or the EU-Turkey Statement) is the product of such intentions (Strik, 2019). Even though EU Member State leaders and their Turkish counterpart signed the statement on 18 March 2016, it has generally been regarded as an EU tactic to slow migration flows.* With this deal, Greece and Turkey were suddenly positioned as the internal and external buffer zones. As a result, they were placed in the epicentre of managing millions of asylum-seekers and displaced populations, shaping European migration policies, and protecting Fortress Europe.

Readmission agreements have significant consequences for refugees. According to Amnesty International, ‘the demands being placed on third countries to prevent irregular departures to Europe put refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants in those countries at risk of prolonged and arbitrary detention, refoulement, and ill-treatment’ (2014, p. 13). Upon the sixth anniversary of the EU-Turkey deal, this chapter explores its effects and consequences on the subjects it aims to govern. By problematising it, the chapter demonstrates that the EU-Turkey deal has deep-rooted Eurocentric characteristics that perpetuate precarity. More specifically, through semi-structured interviews conducted in distinct fieldwork in Greece and Turkey, the chapter will scrutinise the deal’s implications on migrants’ right to seek asylum in Europe in the context of Greece; and, with a focus on migrants’ integration into the labour market, their right (or the lack thereof) to integrate within the host country, in the context of Turkey. Through a Foucauldian lens, it will adopt a macro perspective focusing on states’ policies towards migrants and a micro perspective, analysing migrants’ everyday lives and the precarities therein, exposing the current politico-legal structures that force migrants in both countries to live in a prolonged condition of precariousness. When analysing this topic, we understand the Greek and Turkish narrative as complementary to each other — and, hence, they are not presented as comparisons in this chapter — as the former uses biopolitical strategies to alleviate responsibility and deter future migrants, and the latter governs refugees via precarity to keep them within its borders as cheap labour.”

“The General Court of the European Union (2017) declared that the EU-Turkey Statement does not fall under the jurisdiction of the European Council nor any other institution of the EU, under the assumption that the agreement was between Member State leaders and not by the European Union. See NF, NG and NM v European Council (2017) and Gkliati (2017).

>It is noteworthy to add that similar financial benefits of precarious governance have been observed in Greece (see Manolada (Amnesty International, 2014), yet in the past years Greece is more prominent in externalising its migration than focusing on exploiting new cheap labour.

2 Looking at the EU-Turkey Deal: The Implications for Migrants in Greece... 13

The EU-Turkey Statement is, first and foremost, a migration management technique. By identifying other countries as ‘safe third countries’, it aims to stem the flow of refugees into Europe and transfer the burden of protection to them, in this case, Turkey. Whether Turkey is a safe third country or not attracts a great deal of attention in the literature on migration within the Mediterranean region (see Kaya, 2020). However, like many legal terms, the classification of ‘safe third country’ hides as much as it explains. We argue that the question is not simply if Turkey is a safe third country or not. Instead, from a Foucauldian perspective, we believe that the crucial question is what the effects of considering Turkey a safe third country are, and, as an adjacent to this question, why the EU is so adamant in ‘solving’ the “global refugee crisis’ with readmission agreements — such as the EU-Turkey deal — which are nothing but techniques of migration externalisation. This chapter problematises the implications of this deal by observing both sides of the Aegean Sea — Greece and Turkey. Firstly, it will explore the EU-Turkey Statement, elaborate on key concepts like ‘safe third country’ and ‘country of first asylum’, and then explore Turkey and Greece separately and in detail.

The two authors of this chapter have conducted fieldwork in Greece and Turkey — by Miliou and Demirbas, respectively — as a part of their PhD research. Demirbas looks at the effects of the EU-Turkey deal on refugees in Turkey and shows how refugees experience many forms of precarity, mainly in legal and economic insecurities. This precarity is a form of governmentality that creates and maintains insecurities within a seemingly secure system (Lorey, 2015). Governing through precarity creates a cheap labour force and a reserve army of labour out of refugees, which benefits the government and the capital owners by providing cheap workers and disciplining the native labour force by using migrants as leverage.

Miliou explores how Greece has used biopolitical tactics of selective migration to alleviate the responsibility of protecting refugees and as a deterrence mechanism for future arrivals. Foucault perceives biopolitics as the process of “making live’ or ‘letting die’ (Foucault, 2003, pp. 62, 241). Jasbir Puar’s (2017) understanding of biopolitics suggests that biopolitics is not about ‘life’ versus ‘death’ but the debilitation of life. Similarly, while documenting the reception crisis, Pallister-Wilkins, observes that ‘human life [is] not considered equal but at the same time not allowed to die’ (Minca et al., 2021). Through such a biopolitical lens, it becomes evident that Greece uses the concept of the ‘safe third country’ as a mechanism of externalising migration by rejecting refugee statuses and avoiding to ‘make live’ and simultaneously avoiding to ‘let die’ through simply shifting the responsibility of protection to its neighbouring countries.

2.2 The EU-Turkey Statement

The sudden rise in the arrival of border crossers in Europe via Greece in the summer of 2015 was a significant moment for Europe to expedite and solidify its mechanisms for externalising migration control. With the Syrian war showing no signs of de-escalation, European Union leaders feared that the arrival of asylum seekers would continue at similar rates to those of the summer of 2015. Therefore, under the auspices of protecting the ‘disorganised, chaotic, irregular, and dangerous migratory flows’, the EU-Turkey Statement was put into effect to have better control and power over who has the right to enter and seek asylum (European Commission, 2016).

As most of the border crossers at the time were Syrian nationals fleeing internal conflicts, the EU-Turkey Statement specifically targeted those individuals. The statement focused on the sea borders between Greece and Turkey and indicated that Turkey would be responsible for taking back every Syrian who crossed the countries’ sea borders. Furthermore, the EU offered to accept one Syrian for every returned Syrian by offering regular pathways into Europe, prioritising those who had never tried to cross before (European Commission, 2016; International Rescue Committee, 2022; Smeets & Beach, 2020, p. 147). Additionally, the EU offered Turkey the opportunity of concession talks about a visa-free travel into Europe and an initial monetary aid of 3 billion euros to cover the costs of protection and support of all migrants within Turkey’s borders. Since then, though the concession talks have been stagnant, the monetary aid has been renewed for another 3 billion euros in 2018. Finally, an additional 3 billion has been promised to Turkey for 2021—2023 (European Commission, 2021b).

The legality of this statement was based on the concepts of ‘safe-third country’ and ‘country of first asylum’, which were grounded on the need for international cooperation to share the burden of responsibility and the protection of people in need (Kaya, 2020). The reasoning behind ‘the country of first asylum’ is to stop a continuous movement of refugees after having received refugee status or having been given a chance to claim asylum (European Council on Refugees and Exiles & Asylum Information Database, 2021; Strik, 2019). The concept of a ‘safe third country’ assumes that if a refugee can be granted asylum in a third country, the country initially responsible for them could transfer the responsibility of asylum to a third country. According to Ovacik, the concept did not arise until the 1980s; only when Western countries started worrying about the number of asylum seekers arriving in their territory was the concept first discussed (2020, p. 67; Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme, 1990). For the EU, the notion of the ‘safe third country’ is stated in Article 38 Directive 2013/32/EU. The Directive states that the sending country needs to ensure the following: (a) the receiving country will protect the life and liberty of the person seeking protection, (b) there is no risk of serious harm to the refugee if transferred to that country, (c) the receiving country follows the principles of non-refoulement, (d) the receiving country protects the right to freedom from torture and against the inhuman or degrading treatment, (e) there is the possibility to seek refuge and, if provided, the same protections are granted as those stated in the Geneva Convention, and (f) there are reasonable enough connections between the applicant and the country to justify their movement to that country. Finally, (g) each applicant needs to be considered case-by-case to evaluate whether that country would be safe for them, and they have the right to appeal against any such decision (Directive 2013/32/EU, 2013).