Innovation in Migration Management

Five months before the Pact on Migration and Asylum (the Pact) enters into force, the European Commission has published the first European Asylum and Migration Management Strategy, which defines the priorities that will guide the agreement’s implementation over the next five years. While the Pact is based on two pillars, a more resilient internal system and a more assertive externalization, the strategy is more focused on the latter, posing the risk of an unbalanced implementation. In addition, the Commission and the member states have claimed that the Pact would reflect a new paradigm, but the only major “novelties” lie in the recognition of a more informal EU migration policy carried out bilaterally by member states with partner countries and in the acceptance of a wider use of soft-law tools to avoid institutional procedures and safeguards.

A (Not So) New Framework

The European Asylum and Migration Management Strategy reflects the shift in the EU’s approach to migration that started with the first von der Leyen Commission’s call for a “more pragmatic and realistic approach”. This call was the basis for the Pact, and it was recently reiterated when 19 member states demanded “innovative solutions” to deal with migration. As a result, the Commission announced it was working on a “new paradigm” based on stricter rules and a more “assertive and comprehensive” migration diplomacy. To grasp its implications, and its strong focus on enhanced external migration management, the EU’s internal shortcomings that elevated this approach in policymaking must be considered.

On November 11, 2025, the Commission published its first Annual Report on Migration and Asylum, which assessed the migration and asylum situation in each member state and proposed an annual solidarity pool to support member states under “migratory pressure”. Assistance is to be given in one of three ways: through relocation of asylum seekers, financial contributions of €20,000 per asylum seeker not relocated, or technical assistance. This is a crucial component of the Pact, as it aims to correct the lack of burden-sharing among member states, a key weakness of the EU’s migration regime. Yet, just after the report’s publication, several heads of state announced their unwillingness to participate in the pool, instead reaching a deal on reduced contributions and, at the same time, agreeing on stronger measures to carry out repatriations.

The tightening of EU migration policy did not happen overnight. It is, rather, the result of the institutionalization of factors that existed for over a decade and that now affect almost every member state. The most prominent factor is disagreement over more solidarity. Member states’ reluctance to embrace burden-sharing measures has been evident since 2015, when national governments refused to participate in the Juncker Commission’s proposed relocation scheme. Since then, a focus on internal reform has given way to externalizing the issue through several measures such as the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF), the EU-Turkey Statement, the Migration Partnership Framework, and, more recently, the “Team Europe” approach. Persistent internal resistance and an overwhelming politicization of migration spurred this emphasis on externalization. Europe could not agree on a more resilient internal regime, leaving tightened asylum rules and pressure on third countries to manage EU-bound migration flows as the only solution on which member states could agree.

Obsolete Outsourcing

Despite the announcement of a new paradigm, there is no real innovation. The Commission’s search for new policies to tackle migration and asylum issues is encouraging member states to continue pursuing, and even boost, bilateral agreements with third countries—and to do so by using trade, aid, and visa schemes to maximize leverage.

At the same time, the Commission’s European Migration and Asylum Management Strategy notes that the key principle guiding its approach for the next five years is migration management as a joint responsibility for all actors along migratory routes. This concept should be the basis for equal partnerships, as the Pact for the Mediterranean, the EU’s new umbrella policy for its Southern neighborhood, notes. But current policies are unilateral in nature and focused on the bloc’s objectives. In addition, continuing externalization in the forms pursued over the last decade is a highly risky approach, particularly since it has elicited thin results. Yet there seems to be no willingness to change. The EU’s further expansion of negative conditionality tools, exemplified by the weaponization of trade cooperation by overhauling the Generalized Scheme of Preferences, a provision under which poorer countries could benefit from reduced or zero tariffs, is a recent example of the bloc’s push for stronger externalization. Thanks to a deal between the Council and the European Parliament, it will now be possible for the EU to suspend trade benefits for partner countries not cooperating on the return and readmission of migrants.

This strategy risks perpetuating vicious cycles of instability and opens ways to counter EU influence. Niger represents a case that highlights such risks. In 2015, under EU pressure and following the deaths of 92 people en route to Algeria, the country passed a law, under then-Interior Minister Mohamed Bazoum (who would later become president), to counter irregular migration. Its implementation has led to substantial financial support from the EU, which allocated around €671 million under the EUTF to support migration management (Niger was among the Migration Partnership Framework’s priority countries). The law was strongly criticized for endangering human security and disrupting informal economies inside and outside the country. Eight years later, the military junta that deposed Bazoum scrapped it soon after assuming power, claiming it was a symbol of EU post-colonial interference.

Another Route

A majority of member states advocated for and now supports the Pact’s stricter approach to migration and asylum, and its focus on externalization. But different policies still exist. Italy and Spain, for example, are affected by similar flows of people but approach that challenge in different ways.

The Italian government under Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has pushed strongly for stricter migration rules and has played a leading role in searching for “innovative solutions”. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has praised this as "out-of-the-box thinking", reflected in, for example, a 2023 protocol with Albania that allows Italy to conduct extraterritorial processing of asylum requests. This was the first attempt by a member state to offshore the asylum assessment process. Italian courts found this to violate EU law, but the Pact’s entry into force will likely impact that ruling. Rome already passed a bill earlier this year that authorizes the transfer of migrants intercepted at sea to third countries with which Italy has special agreements.

Spain, under Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, is taking a different approach. It recently approved the regularization of 500,000 undocumented migrants currently living in Spain, providing them residence permits, albeit subject to conditions. As Sanchez explained, the move was based on moral grounds and a pragmatic assessment of the country’s economy and demography.

Member states all too often deal with migration as a political battleground rather than a policy area that involves broader factors. Italy and Spain rely on irregular workforce in fields such as agriculture, construction, and hospitality, but Madrid is showing that a new paradigm, one that is not based only on harsher anti-migrant measures, may effectively address the interests of all parties.

To the Benefit of All

The EU’s response to the 2015 border management crisis was to shift attention to Africa, transforming the bloc’s border management crisis into an emergency for that continent and mobilizing resources to externalize the process of migration management. But 10 years later, and given the limited results of that approach, real policy innovation is needed. Instead of making ineffective strategies the core of a new paradigm, the EU must fix its internal flaws and strengthen collaboration with third countries. It must move from negative conditionality toward a wider strategy that includes legal pathways for migrants and capacity building (e.g., for readmission and reintegration) in partner countries. At the same time, member states should consider their own interests, such as sustaining welfare systems and spurring economic growth, in setting policy. Spain may provide a blueprint for that. Europe will be able to find a sustainable solution to its migration and asylum challenges only by shifting from a one-sided model to equal partnerships.