Using a Scalar Perspective for Approaching European Migration Policies Reform: A (Provocative) Reflection on the Case of the International Alliance of Safe Harbours

The historical-political context and the steps toward IASH

The European Union, after the so-called ‘2015 migration crisis’, was characterised by growing discontent towards the immigrant presence in member states’ territories (Connor 2016). This unrest was created both by the worrying number of terrorist attacks raged in European cities and, strictly intertwined, caused the rise of populist and xenophobic behaviour of political elites (Gluns & Wessels 2017; Helbing & Meierreiks 2020; Baláž, Nežinský, and Williams 2021) . This was the case in Italy, for example, where after the election of 2017, a coalition composed of the League and Five Star Movement obtained a large majority in the Italian parliament. Matteo Salvini, the League party’s political leader, was appointed Minister of Interior, position critical to the management of the migration phenomenon in its security conjugation. The piece de resistance of the new Minister was the criminalisation of NGOs, particularly of Search and Rescue operations. With the same gait, Luigi Di Maio, political leader of the Five Star Movement and Salvini’s main ally in the government coalition, called NGOs dealing with rescuing migrants in the Central Mediterranean ‘sea taxi’s. Similar trends can also be found in other EU countries. 

The same year, the Italian and Libyan authorities, under the auspices of the EU Commission, signed a disputed agreement with the Libyan coast guard to control migration flows towards Europe in return for vessels, training and financial resources. The deal will be renovated the following year in response to the general sentiment in Italian politics and seeks to answer the EU’s will to externalise borders. In the aftermath of the agreement, mayors, civil society organisations, elected members of the European Parliament, and citizens staged protest manifestations on the streets. However, they also bolstered more structured actions. In particular, it is interesting to cast light on the meeting set up by the mayors of Naples and Palermo, two of the most prominent Southern Italian cities, and Riace. Active in diverging reception and integration practices in their cities, they established a discussion arena around EU migration policies and decision-making to which several cities and municipalities, civil society organisations and NGOs from Italy, France, Spain and Germany joined quickly after. This venue has been called the ‘Palermo Charter Platform process’ (Ataç, Rygiel, & Stierl, 2021; Maffeis, 2021; Lacroix, Furri & Hombert, 2022). The municipality of Palermo was pivotal in this process, mainly in the person of its former mayor, Leoluca Orlando. Since 2015, when in the public communal conference “Io Sono Persona”, he declined the lines for the Palermo Charter. The mayors and its supporters affirmed international mobility as an unalienable right in this text. Thanks to its visionary intent, the document became a reference point for the welcoming cities movement and several militant networks (Maffeis, 2021). 

The Palermo Charter Platform process, in a period of conservative and xenophobic migration policies, thus, move its steps from the Palermo Charter in gathering welcoming cities, Search and Rescue NGOs, civil society organisations, church groups and members of progressive municipalities (Ataç, Rygiel, & Stierl, 2021). The aims were to foster the creation of safe harbours and ‘corridors of solidarity’ (idem.: 9) and promote international mobility as an unchallengeable human right. In a period of political ‘darkness’ and inhumanity, cities have stretched a transnational solidarity network bypassing state  interference in imaging alternative solutions for welcoming migrants and innovating EU migration policies. The outcome of the shared belief has been the production of the ‘From the Sea to the city!’ campaign (Collective Authorship Consortium, 2021). In this document, the signatory cities set the objectives of the network: 

“The campaign is articulated around five objectives: (1) a combined effort to lobby the European Commission on migration policy; (2) the creation of a framework of action linking Search-and-Rescue operations and city welcoming; (3) advocating for direct sources of EU funding for both cities and civil society organisations; (4) the creation of legal corridors for the mobility of asylum seekers within Europe; (5) securing access to fundamental rights in housing, health and other welfare domains” (Lacroix, Furri and Hombert, 2022, p. 9).

After the inevitable pause imposed by the pandemic, 33 cities reconvened in Rome in June 2021 to sign the joint declaration of International Safe Harbours. The next meeting of the Palermo Charter Platform will be held in 2023.

Commenting on Palermo Charter Platform’s aims

Not commenting on the aims of the Palermo Charter Platform Process may represent a vulnus in the general understanding of the importance of such an example for conceiving the renewed role of the city (networks) in moulding a changing reality of migration governance. In particular, points 2 and 4 represent the most extraordinary potential innovation in EU migration governance policymaking. The re-directing of EU funding towards municipalities and civil society organisations is a long-lasting claim of the main ‘sponsored networks’. In part, it already occurs thanks to specific programs and lines of funding (URBACT, AMIF, and ESF are well-acknowledged). They progressively expanded the possibilities of municipalities to implement and secure access to social services for immigrants, as expressed in point 5. Yet, the two other points open a serious contention about the boundaries of the current European policymaking structures. 

Linking Search & Rescue with the solidarity city movement rearranges the current organisation of migration governance in Europe. The field may be enriched by the presence of NGOs and civil society organisations within the ‘control room’, resulting in solutions more attuned to the needs of the territories and of people being rescued and welcomed. It may also imply the opening of the black box of migration policy mechanisms. Creating an alternative space of opportunity for political actors in the decision-making architecture re-arranges the equilibria of political powers at all levels of policymaking. Even if national politics and policy can, at the moment, decide local paradigms of reception and integration, more vigorous thrusts of divergence are changing the terms midway. The role of the nation-state seems remodelled, shifted not only upward, downwards, or outward (Guiraudon & Lahav, 2000) but ‘crumbled’ across levels, as exemplified by the divergent funding logics the TMNs have obtained in time to substitute statal financial shortcomings. Such a ‘digging up’ shapes new ways through which new actors can change actual policies, institutions and structures. Strictly intertwined with what is said is the creation of legal corridors of movement within the Europe Union. It must be interpreted as an outdoing of the logic of the Dublin regulation and a partial but substantial divergence from the authoritative national responsibility in the field of migrant reception and redistribution. It may result in the defeat of the border paradigm in the name of recognising a ‘right to immigrate’ and not only that of migrating.

Conclusion

Delving into the logic of upscaling migration governance in transnational municipal networks implies considering divergent practices implemented by municipalities throughout the European Union. At the same time, it means abandoning all the preconceived ideas of political spaces of policymaking to free more room for innovation in policy paradigms and solutions fostered at the EU level. The implementation of the TPD in the last year has demonstrated that it is not helpful to continue using pre-wrapped fixes for ever-lasting problems. The emergency paradigm takes with it issues that, after decades, are not yet solved. The TPD will reveal the same political problem of will in redistributing responsibilities among member states that are bundling the EU migration governance system. The author proposes an exercise of imagination: he suggests abandoning an MLG framework in conceiving the policymaking arrangements and starting to envision the migration governance structure from a scalar perspective.

The example of the Palermo Charter Platform and the ensuing International Alliance of Safe Harbours help those who want to look at things from another angle. The proposed case shows that it is possible to change a system stuck in the political quagmire of will only if abandoning the preconceived ways of thinking about it. Furthermore, it displays the importance of actors’ agency in creating opportunity structures for innovating policies. The mayors took on a growing role in projecting cities as protagonists of the (political) world of migration governance to come. Mayors have created arenas for confrontation and coordination that are remodelling aspects of policymaking architecture. They know better than anybody what happens in territories and what can improve the condition of migrants and citizens in their daily community life. Even if institutions are not keen to provide them with the space for innovating policies and practices, they do it for themselves. 

To conclude, the scalar perspective is of fundamental importance because it sheds light on the dynamics of migration governance in European states. Moreover, such a scalar understanding provides new space for the reallocation of funding whereby they are needed. It allows competency shortcomings to surface and strengths to emerge, that municipalities can exchange and circulate around. As shown,  understanding migration governance from a scalar perspective permits us to conceive  governance mechanisms that align with a global reality of chaotic phenomena that interact in a turbulent way on different political levels populated by interconnected actors with interconnected aims.