MIGRASYL

MIGRASYL (“Migration & asylum challenges in the Euro-Mediterranean and Africa”) focuses on the study of Mediterranean third countries as a field of experimentation on the issue of migration and as a bridging link between Southern Europe and the Sahel. Mediterranean migration has become a major concern for academic researchers, European policy makers and public opinion. Since 2011, major political upheavals on the Southern shore of the Mediterranean have brought about a crisis situation with new long-term socio-economic and legal consequences at a Euro-Mediterranean level. These changes require the renewal of the paradigms and frameworks of thought. The Mediterranean is a particularly relevant laboratory for the development of new migratory configurations. It is at the crossroads of the South-North migration route and also those of South-South, East-West. It is composed of neighbouring countries that are especially affected by migration because of their geographical location at the "forefront" of arrivals of migrants and refugees from Africa and the Middle East. MIGRASYL’s ambition is to promote the third countries’ migration policy domain that it is in urgent need of investigation. This area is a crucial empirical field for analyzing the complex interrelation concerning push factors and policies managing migration, asylum and refugees in the EuroMed. In the long term, MIGRASYL aims to build a unique multi-partner digital platform, gathering national migration observatories. With this international project, and over a 18 months period (November 2017 – April 2019), MIGRASYL will constitute a network of Euro-Mediterranean and sub-Saharan partners (France, Italy, Spain, Greece, Austria, Turkey, Mauritania, Senegal, Tunisia, Morocco, Lebanon, Malta) thanks to workshops dedicated to the challenges of international migrations and to the evolution of asylum law in this geographical area. These workshops and the MIGRASYL consortium meeting will aim at organizing and structuring an international H2020 project which will be submitted to the European Commission in 2018 or 2019, in the framework of the Societal Challenge “Europe in a changing world – Inclusive, innovative and reflective societies”, « 1. Call on Migration and the refugee crisis ». The MIGRASYL researchers will conduct fieldwork on 3 geographical areas: Southern Europe, the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, which are all impacted by important migratory flows and by the hosting of asylum seekers. MIGRASYL ambitions to gather partner institutions in the field of socio-anthropology, political sciences, law, history, demography and geography. This core partnership will be complemented by a network of associations, NGOs and Euro-Mediterranean civil society players. MIGRASYL’s outcomes will include empirical knowledge on social assistance schemes of host and transit countries, based on interviews and statistical data. Policy-makers will benefit from an analysis of the coherence and effectiveness of European policies on migration, compared with the development of migration policies in third countries. MIGRASYL will highlight good practices of institutions active in the defense of migrants and migration governance, at local, regional, national and international level, in order to combat irregular migration. It will also provide an analysis on the unexplored link between migration and sustainable development policies, particularly for Africa.