The Nijmegen Centre for Border Research, University of Nijmegen (NCBR), The Dutch Institute for Morocco ( NIMAR ) and INSEA of the University of Rabat organise an international round-table expert meeting on the Borders of Migration in the liminal spaces of the EU-African borderlands

“Re-visiting Rabat: Reflecting on the politics of bordering migrants in the liminal spaces of the EU-African borderlands”

January 4-5 2008

Rabat, Morocco

Somewhat more than a year after the Euro-African political ministerial conference that took place in July 2006 in Rabat, Morocco and in the wake of the coming EU-African summit, we take the opportunity to have a public-academic discussion meeting on the EU- African cooperation and relations in terms of the EU border regime, bilateral agreements and immigration towards the EU. The context for the 2006 political conference was marked by as it was announced "the intensifying humanitarian crises caused by a constantly increasing flux of irregular sub-Saharan immigrants towards Europe". The Rabat Conference aimed at establishing a ''shared responsibility'' and ''closer cooperation'' between''migratory countries of origin, transit and destination''. In this conference we aim to reflect critically on the geopolitics of this conference and its proposals. As the number of arrivals at places like the Canary Islands, Lampedusa and Malta has grown over the last years and more lives of immigrants are lost at the frontiers of the EU, the issue at hand has only become more pressing, if not alarming. Since the Rabat conference,but in effect already in the 1990s, various programmes have been launched that exchanged information and experience, invested military resources in border surveillance, and created an EU-wide border-control authority in the form of Frontex. Yet each time control increased at particular entry-points or new control techniques are implemented, the flow of migration moved to another point or human traffickers and immigrant networks respond with counter-strategies. These cat-and-mouse geopolitics often have the sinister effect of creating more return on investment for human traffickers, and hence further illegalisation of the migration activity, and it has produced the need to find ever difficult routes, even at the risk of becoming lethal routes. Moreover, it has lead to the growing of transit-migrants in various African cities, migrants that are stopped by African border controls on their way to the EU and are, out of necessity, staying semi- permanently in various northern African countries. The number of migrants dying at the gates of the EU has only but increased the last few years. The Mediterranean"wall" made of water and razor wire still persists, and what is more, it has proliferated in the African continent. What is more, the wall only reproduces, perhaps even legitimises for some, the right to be fearful or even xenophobic for African migrants. What then, could be an alternative vision or perspective for the border regimes of the EU when it comes to migration from Africa? How open should and can the borders of the EU be? How to maximise openness, without the fear of losing sovereignty, welfare and identity?

The following themes will be discussed in this seminar:

LOCATION AND VENUE

University of Rabat., INSEA, Madinat Al Irfane, BP. 6217, Rabat-Instituts, Rabat, Morocco Tél: 00 212 37 77 09 15 Indicated as A at Google Map location of Venue

CONTACT