The African Agenda on Migration: new perspectives and old constraints

Resumen

In the late 90’s the political dialogue about international migrations emerged at the top level of the relations between Africa and Europe.Both in discourse and practical terms, the majority of the cooperationon migration has been carried out in the field of fighting against irregular migration through two lines of action: increasing the migration control though a better border management and the readmission of migrants in an irregular situation in Europe. This was the priority of theEU and its Member States since the creation of the external dimensionof migration after Schengen Agreement. Other relevant topics in the discussion are legal migration, visa facilitation or the relation between migration and development. Depending on the topic and the actors there has been more consensus or dissensus. It is important to consider that the EU has been interested in developing the cooperation on migration with Africa in a bilateral scheme and it’s been working like that for the last 20 years. However, since 2018 we identify a possible change in trend with the proposal to develop an African Agenda on Migration,where Africa is proposing a common perspective on migration in the frame of the African Union. With this communication we analyze the concordances and differences between the European and the African approaches to migration.