Europe’s Renewed Migration Agreements: The Lingering Coloniality of Migration Governance

08.05.2025 , in ((Gestion migratoire, Politica)) , ((No commenti))

European Governments are increasingly turning to bilateral migration agreements instead of depending on multilateral and national pathways. As UN-led efforts lose their grip, these deals give states a way to tighten control and manage migration through carefully chosen partnerships with countries of origin. They may seem efficient, but they risk bringing back all-too-familiar patterns of colonial inequality. Without strong human rights protections, these agreements are likely to repeat postcolonial power plays that marginalize migrants.

A recent World Bank publication (2024) heralds a ‘second golden age’ for bilateral migration agreements (BMAs). As of 2023, Germany’s envoy for bilateral migration agreements has signed BMAs with Kenya, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, India, Uzbekistan, and Morocco (Bieler et al. 2024). Moreover, the UN’s Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM) agreement encourages states to use bilateral migration agreements, even though its objective (5) provides little guidance on their format or legality.

Known and Lesser-Known Facts About Bilateral Migration Agreements

Post-US-election multilateralism is falling prey to budget cutbacks and ideational change, developments that have interesting consequences for bilateralism. As a Dutch Minister announced, even bilateralism is undergoing scrutiny for what is efficient and what is not:

“(W)e aim, in addition to agreements on migration, (…) to make agreements on combating irregular migration, human trafficking (…), and helping migrants return home and reintegrate. This approach will enable us to build long-term relationships with countries of origin (…)”

Bilateral arrangements are attractive for different reasons, which the field of political economy has researched, mostly because they offer ways to bypass political impasse and inefficiency (Fitzgerald et al. 2014). For that reason, bilateral agreements are highly selective of categories (highly skilled, seasonal, talented, vulnerable) and rarely come without strings attached (return, readmission).

At the best of times, bilateral agreements are the first responders to crisis situations like 9/11, the Arab Spring or the Russian aggression against Ukraine. Only during the Syrian war, did states choose the UN Global Compacts approach, though BMAs remain a preferred policy intervention (Acosta 2019). As they resurface, important questions emerge: How have the different migration dynamics shifted among national, bilateral, and multilateral? And most importantly, how can these agreements be more aligned with treaties like the UN Human Rights Conventions?

Overcoming the Coloniality of Bilateral Migration Agreements

If their recent surge has been appraised (Chilton and Woda 2022), their coloniality weighs heavily still today. During decolonization, West Africa and France stayed connected through the circular mobility of teachers, instructors, and politicians. Such freedom of residency and economic activity was guaranteed by the 1964 ‘treaty of establishment’ (Beauchemin et al. 2014). Yet, as a result of the 1970s oil crisis, France revoked these mobility rights  (Vickstrom 2019), with the exception of the young professional mobility agreements (YPA).

Under President Sarkozy, agreements on the joint management of migration flows and solidarity (AJM) were designed as an alternative to a harsh crackdown on family reunification migration. (Adepoju et al. 2010). As part of this shift, a primer on France’s AJM requires West and North African states to readmit citizens staying in France unlawfully. This feature aligns France’s migration policy with the EU Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM).

Similarly, France requires that any advance on work migration is ‘earned’ by the third country cooperating with the EU by reducing irregular flows. As a form of privilege, these agreements allow for recruiting out of sectors normally not admitting third-country nationals.

Exceptionally, among the seven countries that signed such an agreement with France, Senegal was the only one to be able to list occupations with a surplus of workforce. Senegal could thus address domestic unemployment, while France used the agreement to fill labor shortages. Despite this rare ‘true’ mutual exchange of interests, French companies saw no great gains in employing migrant workers through these agreements  (Le Coz and Hooper 2021).

Bilateral Agreements Level Out Privilege?

In principle, France’s agreement on the joint management of migration flows (AJM) removes post-colonial privileges from all its partners to level the playing field. In this case, the AJM seems to align with the EU New Pact on Migration and Asylum, which prohibits Member States from exploiting those minimizing irregular migration. Yet a closer look suggests that France might be infringing on this EU duty of sincere cooperation by continuing to favor countries like Senegal or Benin and granting their nationals in an irregular situation in France an exceptional admission. As a result, deportation orders for Senegalese and Beninese citizens are regularly not enforced.

This practice reflects an unequal treatment that not only undermines EU migration policy, but also underscores what Vlase (2024) calls ‘epistemic inequality’ of the colonial era. Senegal’s historically ‘special relationship’ with France, dating back when it hosted the federal government-general of French West Africa  (Dimé and Jaji 2023), continues to shape migration governance today.

Migration Agreements Depoliticize the Drivers of Migration

Already before the end of colonial rule, France stopped its colonies from diversifying commercial ties with Britain and Italy, Nigeria and Ghana (Chafer 2003). When France started withdrawing its activities, the public sector in urban Dakar, Yaoundé, and Tunis became privatized and poverty rose. Extensive raw material deals and overfishing exacerbated unemployment, driving West African migrants on dangerous sea crossings to Europe. As a result, French colonialism remains co-responsible for the transregional migration flows to Europe.

Today, France’s political right advocates for eliminating BMAs, because they offer unwanted additional migration pathways within France’s Code of Entry and Stay (France, Senate Report 2025). If France were to take inspiration from A. Tendayi’s proposals for ‘migration as decolonization,’ it would regularize, collectively, the stays of North and West African migrants.

Towards Fairer Partnerships in Migration Governance

Bilateral migration agreements seem trapped between ‘successful signature or backlash’ (ISPI 2024). Beneath their surface, another legacy lures, as they risk reproducing the privileges of a colonial past. BMAs should not exist in isolation; their provisions must comply with international and EU law.

The well-intentioned aim of these bilateral agreements is to soften the impact of restrictive immigration law reforms through exceptions, which clash with the duty to comply with EU migration law. Removing the remains of colonial rule and complying with EU law need not be mutually exclusive.

A level playing field can be achieved by aligning the duty of sincere cooperation under EU law with efforts to remove exceptionality, even if that means moving away from nationality-specific quotas and regularizations. Reflecting this, the UN Global Guidance on BMAs (2022) calls on states to ensure alignment with international agreements. Taking this call more seriously would subject the exceptionalism of bilateral deals to global monitoring and review.


A second blog post will discuss the bilateral migration agreements viewed from the lens of international law.

Marion Panizzon is a Senior Research Fellow at the World Trade Institute at the University of Bern, a former nccr – Trade Regulation project leader and nccr – on the move associated researcher. She has contributed to the study of legal frameworks for bilateral migration agreements.

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