Sergio Carrera
Journal of Middle East Studies
Jan 24, 2013
Following the outbreak of what has become commonly known as “the Arab Spring,” the European Union (EU) proclaimed its intention to strengthen its external migration policy by setting up “mutually beneficial” partnerships with countries in North Africa ― the so-called “Dialogues for Migration, Mobility and Security.” These Dialogues have been placed at the heart of the EU’s renewed Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM), the Union’s policy framework encompassing the international relations components of EU immigration policy. A growing body of scholarly literature and policy debates has focused on the GAMM since then. One of the key questions has been the extent to which this new official narrative covering the EU’s immigration-foreign affairs nexus can effectively meet its purported goals of initiating a new phase of EU’s immigration policy not solely by centering on the fight against illegal immigration, but rather by establishing a truly “global” policy coverage and understanding of the issues at stake in human movements across borders and by playing more efforts at establishing legal channels of immigration and protecting migrants’ human rights.
The Levant 