External Financial Governance: Migration Management and Solidarity with Non-EU Countries through EU Funding

Responsibility sharing remains elusive in the global refugee protection regime. Funding is one of the means mobilised by the EU to share responsibilities globally. However, funding is increasingly used to pursue migration management objectives instead. Our hypothesis is that EU funding could play a crucial role in enhancing global responsibility sharing and has the potential to operationalise policy objectives. We test this hypothesis through analysis of the policy design and administration modes of EU migration-related funding directed to Afghanistan. We adopt an interdisciplinary approach, combining theoretical concepts of EU law, such as an integrated European administration, with theories of political science, such as polycentric and multi-level governance. We combine doctrinal legal research with empirical research, incorporating findings through semi-structured interviews with institutional and civil society experts at EU and national levels in Afghanistan. Through an evidence-based evaluation of EU funding’s impact to steer policy and realise inter-state solidarity, our research will yield proposals to reform EU migration funding. Conceptually, we will assess what the management of EU funding reveals about the changing nature of the European administrative system; the role of the EU as a global actor; and global responsibility sharing. The research implementation will create intersectional synergies with societal partners (civil society, administrations), while evidence-based proposals for the reform of EU funding will have an impact beyond academia. The project will advance the career of a refugee scholar. It will enhance their theoretical, methodological and linguistic knowledge through training, acting as a springboard toward doctoral research in the Netherlands.