As a response to the migration crisis, the EU has not only revised its policies but also mobilized resources, introduced new tools, or adapted the existing ones to the changing context. While the debate at the policy level is burgeoning, instruments have been limitedly explored. What kind of geopolitical dynamics are EU migration policy instruments producing? How do they contribute to redesigning the EU-African geopolitical space? The article combines a policy instruments approach with a spatial perspective on the EU migration policy. Through the analysis of the 2015 EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, it raises the argument that migration policy instruments are powerful spatial practices that are shaping the EU-African geopolitical space by coordinating the EU’s and Member States’ priorities and understandings of migration. Overall, the paper suggests that research on the EU external relations, particularly in the realm of migration, should not only pay more attention to policy instruments but also map them in the targeted territories to avoid “cartographic traps” and better understand the impact of the policies under scrutiny.

To what extent can a decentred approach improve our understanding of migration governance? In the field of public policy, it ‘highlights the diverse and contingent meanings that inform the actions ...

During the first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic, European Union (EU) member states competed over scarce countermeasures. Regarding vaccines, a few member states launched exclusive joint endeavours, yet eventually, the EU centralised vaccine provisioning. The EU’s external vaccine diplomacy proceeded almost inversely. After stepping into the breach in global health governance, European leadership faltered and global collaboration progressed more slowly. This article explores Europe’s diverging trajectories in the regional and global provisioning of Covid-19 vaccines. Focussing on the European Commission’s leadership, we investigate to what extent it promoted regional and international cooperation and with what success. We also explain which factors enabled and constrained Commission leadership. Employing a controlled comparison and process tracing, we find that Commission leadership was more extensive and impactful in regional than in global vaccine provisioning. Member state support was the main enabling condition. Without support, institutional capacity and resources were insufficient for impactful leadership.

This special issue explores migration governance through funding while providing unique empirical insights into its design, rationale, use and implications. We embed the rise of funding as a governance tool within the broader debate on the externalization of migration control and the role of conditionality in inter-state relations. We then inductively identify three distinct types of migration governance through funding: earmarking, conditionality, and the whole of government approach. Finally, we explore the impact of governance through funding on migration governance and on diplomacy more broadly, highlighting three dimensions: accountability, transparency, and effectiveness.

Coordinative Europeanisation is a powerful frame to explain the rapid response of EU institutions in times of permanent emergency. So far, though, little is known about sub-national actors’ role in this process. Moving away from a state-centric approach, this article investigates the role of sub-national actors through the case study of the digital provision of services to asylum seekers. Given the field’s high salience and state-centric nature, this article elucidates the critical role of European sub-national actors, particularly at the municipality level, to accelerate the digital provision of services to refugees. Comparing 3 European cities (Paris, Palermo and Malaga), we argue that sub-national actors can play a role in coordinative Europeanisation and that 2 main mechanisms may enable it. In the cases observed, discursive coordination around humanitarian duty facilitated the emergence of similar digital solutions across countries. Subsequently, horizontal and vertical networking was used by sub-national actors to legitimise their actions and enhance their anchoring in processes of coordinative Europeanisation.

Despite the bilateral commitment to engage in ‘regular dialogue on issues related to mobility, migration and asylum’, EU incentives have failed in leveraging Algeria to secure cooperation notwithstanding seemingly converging interests. What explains the Algerian endless resistance to the EU’s pressure and incentives? This paper claims that a focus on the historical development of the Algerian security regime improves the understanding of its non-cooperative approach vis-à-vis the EU.