The eu’s miGrATion relATions wiTh menA counTries 153
MENA countries. In 2011, the Commission proposed to develop mobility
partnerships with Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.
The Council also sought to develop approaches that could encourage
voluntary return. In addition, there was interest in the more eff icient use
of remittances channelled towards productive investment. Remittances
from migrants far exceed off icial development aid as a source of funding for
developing countries (World Bank 2011). These are private f lows and their
uses cannot easily be controlled or necessarily channelled towards produc-
tive investment. Governments, international organisations and NGOs can
encourage remitting behaviour through incentive schemes and improved
f inancial infrastructures, and can also seek to channel remittances towards
productive investment.
For those migrants already living in an EU member state, the Council
expressed the intention to secure better integration of the legally resident.
This would extend rights and obligations, comparable to those of other
EU-citizens, and opportunities to participate in education and vocational
training, to legally resident non-EU nationals living in EU member states.
Central to the EU approach has been the development of readmission
agreements. The member states have urged the Commission to step up
the negotiation of readmission agreements and to consider ways in which
f inancial and technical assistance could be used to develop reception capac-
ity and ‘durable solutions’ to asylum and irregular migration in developing
countries. This issue of readmission has been right at the top of the EU
agenda and has been linked to mobility within mobility partnerships – i.e.,
a clear link between migration as danger and migration as risk within the
EU approach.
4.5 Issue linkages
The discussion so far has demonstrated both the complex multi-level govern-
ance of migration in the EU, and also the external dimension of EU action
on migration within the GAMM. This necessarily raises what can be called
‘issue linkages’ – i.e., action in one policy area has important implications for
action in other areas. A key issue in the discussion of migration as a ‘danger’
to be guarded against and as a ‘risk’ to be managed is the link between
migration and development. Research suggests that, if international-
migration relations between the EU and MENA states are to contribute
to successful poverty-reduction strategies, then a short-to medium-term
effect can be an increase in migration as a result of boosting the motives