EU-Niger partnership : discussing EU’s externalization of migration control from actants lens

The international summit on migration between the European Union (EU) and African countries on November 2015 - Valletta Summit - strengthened cooperation between countries of origin, transit and destination. Following this Summit, the European Union Emergency Trust Fund (EUTF) was created and Niger has become a priority country for the EU. EU-Niger political dialogue enabled to establish a comprehensive approach including security, development and migration issues in order to address the root causes of irregular migration. While European Commission policy officers refer to Niger as a model of cooperation with African third countries , our paper is concerned with EUTF actions that extend the reach of EU migration control to Niger and involve non-state actors, in particular the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Referring to the concept of the externalization of European borders regime and controls (Gammeltoft-Hensen, 2006), our paper questions field dynamics of cooperation, competition and pedagogy (Frowd, 2014) in the implementation of migration control between Nigerien and international agent’s. For this purpose, the research is based on an inspired ethnographic research and multiple interviews with European officials (DG DEVCO, ECHO, HOME, EEAS), UN representatives (OIM, UNHCR), local and national Nigerien governmental officials, carried out from April to August 2018 in Brussels and Niamey