The Outsourcing of European Migration and Asylum Policy in Niger
摘要
Situated at the crossroads of sub-Saharan Africa and the Maghreb, Niger has been a departure and transit zone for the past few decades. Following the fall of Gaddafi, the country became a strategic partner to the European Union and its Member States in the search for solutions to the so-called migration crisis. This position was consolidated by its participation in the Valletta Summit in Malta in 2015, during which an emergency trust fund for Africa was set up to stem migration flows from Africa to Europe. Niger is the main beneficiary of the financial mechanism that was put in place, ranging from direct budgetary aid to project funding from United Nations agencies, cooperation and development agencies and non-governmental organisations as well as police cooperation. In return, the country stands out as a reliable partner in the fight against irregular migration and the promotion of the right to asylum. Thus, in addition to the application of Law 2015–36 on Migrant Smuggling, the country innovated with an unprecedented mechanism (the ETM) for the transfer of asylum-seekers and refugees from Libya to Niger, where they are supposed to be resettled in Europe and Canada. In the same year, the UNHCR opened an office in Agadez to facilitate asylum applications in a situation of mixed movements. These actions aim to confine migrants and keep them away from Europe’s borders, against a backdrop of outsourcing of migration and asylum policies. Based on a legal and ethnographic approach, this chapter analyses the organisational changes that have arisen as a result of the EU’s engagement with Niger and the UNHCR in the field of asylum since 2015. The approach is mainly based on two mechanisms introduced after the Valletta Summit: the ETM and the provision of asylum in Agadez in the context of mixed migration. The analysis focuses on the issues of accountability, transparency and compatibility.