Migration in the Mediterranean: The challenge between Africa and Europe

NIEM Analyses 2018

North Africa and the Western Europe countries such as France and Spain share a common history of colonisation. Current cooperation between those regions is happening in many domains. From economic exchange and cooperation to security challenges, such as providing stability on both banks of the sea by the military operations conducted by the European Forces in Africa or the intelligence exchange between the North African states secret services and their partners in Europe. The migration challenge is considered as one of the most important subjects in the common agenda between North African states such as Morocco, Tunisia and Libya and The European Union.

The migration situation in this region is complicated. The source of this complexity lies in many factors related mainly to the political situation and its instability. The geopolitics of Africa with its ethnic complexity and terrorist organizations activities in addition to the demographic explosion linked with the lack of natural resources and geographical factors that lead to an extreme desertification. All those facts make Africa a platform of permanent migration to Europe. This analysis will tackle the sources of this dilemma and its outcomes in Europe with the potential solutions proposed by both sides of the Mediterranean Sea to control it.