The EU-Moroccan Mobility Partnership has been understood as EU’s migration policy to keep off unwanted migrants from reaching the Schengen area. EU is noted to have induced its southern neighbors’...Show moreThe EU-Moroccan Mobility Partnership has been understood as EU’s migration policy to keep off unwanted migrants from reaching the Schengen area. EU is noted to have induced its southern neighbors’ cooperation by offering positive (or negative) conditionality. However, this paper claims that such an understanding remains Eurocentric and limited. The chronological development of the partnership demonstrates that Morocco complied with EU’s demands when deemed politically pragmatic, rather than based on the conditionality EU presented. Morocco implemented the partnership on border control to its advantage, politicizing the issue in accordance with the country’s geopolitical interests. On the other hand, Morocco was hesitant to institutionalize protection of migrants, including asylum seekers, in spite of EU’s growing commitment to the agenda. This paper claims that the emerging protection gap represents Morocco’s attempts to prevent EU from shifting an undue burden. By showing that Morocco acted with an autonomous agency, this paper shifts the scholarly attention from the North to the South and from positivist to constructivist understandings in accounting for international cooperation on migration challenges.Show less
