156 Andrew Geddes
about border security. This chapter has analysed the development of the
EU’s international-migration relations and some of their implications for
MENA states. The basis for the analysis has been an evident tension between
understandings of migration as a danger and migration as a risk. It was
argued that these equate to ‘migration as danger’ leading to security-driven
approaches, and ‘migration as risk’ leading to attempts to ‘manage’, create
‘dialogue’ and establish ‘partnerships’. These then lead to different relations
to issues that are linked to migration, particularly security and development.
However, it was also suggested that this distinction between danger and risk
should not be seen as a simple dichotomy. In fact, facilitating some forms
of migration while guarding against the supposed danger posed by other
forms is a long-standing dilemma for the world’s major capitalist countries
when designing and implementing their migration. Migration is not simply
either a danger or a risk; it is both of these things at the same time. It is this
inter-relationship between notions of risk and of danger that underpins
the development and consolidation of Europe’s international migration
and that has been evident in EU relations with MENA partner countries.
The chapter has also shown that boundary build-up and boundary shift
have been key aspects of recent European integration as border controls have
been intensif ied. The external dimension of migration and asylum policy
that has been the focus of this chapter can be seen to represent a new phase
in the pursuit of territorially focused strategies to achieve security. This has
four implications. First, timing and tempo are key aspects of this chapter’s
discussion of policy development. There has been a rapid pace of develop-
ment and change as the EU and its member states seek to respond to the
dilemmas of boundary shift and build-up. This chapter has demonstrated
intense activity in these areas within a multi-level polity that changes in
important ways the nature and form of migration politics in Europe. It has
also shown the vulnerability of these new systems to ‘shocks’ such as the
migration effects (both real and imagined) of the Arab Spring. Second, there
are signif icant power asymmetries and imbalances between EU and MENA
states that lead to a perception that EU action is driven by the concerns of
EU member states to inhibit ‘unwanted’ f lows of asylum seekers and ‘illegal’
immigrants rather than to establish genuine dialogue. That said, it has been
shown that Libya and Morocco have been able to lever resources from the
EU on the basis of their centrality to EU border-control objectives. Third,
it may, at f irst glance, seem that a ‘balancing’ of priorities between control
and openness has been diff icult to establish. EU efforts have been particu-
larly concentrated on border controls and the ‘export’ of these controls to
neighbouring non-member states. This has been at the expense, so far, of