Ten years after Europe’s “Welcoming Culture,” the EU has outsourced asylum to North Africa — ignoring racism, repression, and human rights abuses in pursuit of short-term border control.
2015: The Summer of Hope
In 2015, Europe looked different. Train stations in Munich filled with cheering crowds who welcomed Syrian families with food, toys, and signs of solidarity. Willkommenskultur was born – an idea that Europe could still live up to its values.
But that spirit was short-lived. By 2016, leaders stopped speaking about solidarity and started talking about “upper limits,” “deterrence,” and “security.” The shift was brutal: instead of protecting people on the move, Europe began exporting its borders.
From Open Arms to Outsourcing
The EU-Turkey deal of 2016 was the start of a new era. Billions of euros flowed to Ankara in exchange for keeping refugees away. It was the blueprint for everything that followed.
When war broke out in Ukraine in 2022, the contrast was undeniable. Within weeks, the EU activated the Temporary Protection Directive, granting millions of Ukrainians residency, work permits, and free movement. Meanwhile, from 2023 on, wars in Sudan and Gaza displaced millions more – but they found no open doors, no EU-wide protection schemes.
As one European official admitted:
“Honestly, the sentiment is different since they are White and Christian.” (Washington Post)
The double standard was plain: protection hinged not on need, but on identity.
Tunisia: Racism, Repression, and Europe’s Blind Eye
Tunisia became Europe’s newest “border guard” in 2023, when Brussels signed a migration deal with President Kais Saied. The timing could not have been worse. Saied had already launched a racist campaign, claiming that Black Africans were part of a plot to “change Tunisia’s demographics.”
The results were violent and immediate. Migrants were beaten in the streets, evicted from their homes, and rounded up by police. Many were bussed into the desert, abandoned without water or food.
A Tunisian human rights activist recalls:
“After the president’s speech, it was clear the state had given legitimacy to violence. Families were thrown out, their belongings burned, then put on buses and dumped in the desert.”
In Sfax, the scene was just as grim:
“I saw migrants forced into olive groves, sleeping under trees for months. The Interior Minister even said publicly he preferred them there rather than in the city – just to keep the streets clean.”
Even solidarity was criminalized. Tunisian citizens who rented homes to migrants or drove them a few kilometers in a taxi found themselves accused of “harboring foreigners” and, in some cases, jailed.
Human rights groups condemned this institutionalized racism, but Europe chose silence. Instead of conditioning cooperation on rights, Brussels handed Saied money and legitimacy.
Libya: Outsourcing Cruelty
Libya is where Europe’s externalization turns into outright brutality. While deals started in the early 2000s under Berlusconi and Gaddafi, since 2016, the EU has poured money into training and equipping the Libyan Coast Guard. Between 2017 and 2021, more than 88,000 people were intercepted at sea and mostly forced back to Libya.
Europe justifies this as “saving lives.” In truth, it is outsourcing humanity – handing money and power to militias with utter contempt for human rights, while ignoring the suffering and cries of those in desperate need of protection.
There, they face indefinite detention in centers run by militias – places of torture, forced labor, and sexual violence. In 2019, an airstrike on the Tajoura detention center killed at least 53 migrants. International investigators have warned these abuses amount to crimes against humanity.
Amnesty International’s European Office director Eve Geddie was blunt in 2025:
“The EU’s migration cooperation with Libya is morally bankrupt. It makes Europe complicit in ongoing human rights abuses.” (Amnesty International)
Yet Europe justifies this as “saving lives.” In truth, it is outsourcing humanity – handing money and power to militias with utter contempt for human rights, while ignoring the suffering and cries of those in desperate need of protection.
Egypt: Quiet Partner, Silent Crises
Egypt’s role is quieter, but equally troubling. The country now hosts more than 1 million refugees, including over 670,000 Sudanese. Most live in limbo, barred from stable jobs and facing hostile bureaucracy.
Since 2023, arrests and deportations have escalated. In 2024, Amnesty International documented 800 Sudanese deported from Cairo, Giza, and Aswan. Many had fled atrocities as horrific as those in Ukraine, but instead of solidarity they found detention and exclusion.
A coordinator of the Madad Initiative for Marginalized groups in Cairo told me:
“Sudanese refugees are fleeing atrocities as horrific as those in Ukraine, yet here they face detention, deportation, and daily discrimination. Europe knows this but chooses silence – because for Brussels, keeping refugees out matters more than protecting their rights.”
Egypt’s broader climate is no less repressive: civil society silenced, journalists jailed, opposition crushed. But Europe continues to provide money and political cover, valuing Egypt’s role as a “buffer state” more than the rights of refugees.
Borders Pushed South
A decade after Willkommenskultur, Europe has not just closed its borders – it has shifted them deep into Africa. Deals with Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt have created buffer zones where refugees are contained, abused, or expelled. Since 2014, more than 30,000 people have died or disappeared in the Mediterranean (IOM, 2024). Many others are trapped in deserts or detention centers. The EU has invested billions, but the real cost is paid in human lives.
As Harald Glöde from Borderline Europe, a German human rights organization, has put it:
“These so-called buffer zones represent the outsourcing of the EU’s inhumane border regime to North Africa – shifting responsibility away from Europe while trapping refugees in places of danger. By obstructing and criminalizing civilian search and rescue organizations (SAR), EU member states are complicit in the deaths by drowning of thousands of migrants in the Mediterranean. The aim of this approach is to deter more people from crossing to Europe. The EU’s supposedly high values are drowning along with the people affected.”
The Illusion of Success
EU leaders often highlight reduced arrivals as proof of success. Indeed, sea crossings dropped after 2016. But this “success” comes at a heavy price. By propping up authoritarian rulers, Europe fuels repression and corruption – conditions that inevitably drive more people to flee. By tolerating racism and severe human rights abuses in partner states, it undermines its own credibility as a global defender of human rights. At home, the obsession with deterrence empowers far-right narratives, deepening political polarization. And while Europe is aging and facing severe labor shortages, instead of treating migration as an opportunity, it keeps the door firmly shut.
How many times will Europe stumble into the same trap before it realizes that externalization is not a solution but a multiplier of instability?
Sudan is the clearest example of how this short-sightedness backfires. Through the Khartoum Process and EU funding for border control, Europe indirectly strengthened state structures and militias that later became central players in the current war. Today, the Rapid Support Forces – once a partner in “migration management” – are at the heart of a brutal conflict that has displaced more than 12 million people. Millions of those fleeing may eventually try to reach Europe, seeking the very protection that externalization was supposed to prevent.
This is the lesson Europe refuses to learn: every time it outsources responsibility to authoritarian regimes, it digs the crisis deeper. The short-term optics of fewer boats conceal the long-term reality – new wars, mass displacement, and more desperate journeys. How many times will Europe stumble into the same trap before it realizes that externalization is not a solution but a multiplier of instability?
Conclusion: Beyond Externalization
From 2015 to 2025, Europe has moved from open arms to fortress walls. It has chosen to work with authoritarian regimes, to ignore racism and repression, and to treat refugees as bargaining chips.
Short-term deals may stop boats today, but they fuel instability tomorrow. Alternatives exist: safe humanitarian pathways, fair responsibility-sharing, and cooperation built on rights rather than repression.
Hosting Refugees from Ukraine showed that Europe can act quickly and generously when it wants to. But the simultaneous wars in Sudan and Gaza revealed the limits of that solidarity. Protection was never about need – it was about identity.
Short-term deals may stop boats today, but they fuel instability tomorrow. Alternatives exist: safe humanitarian pathways, fair responsibility-sharing, and cooperation built on rights rather than repression.
The question Europe must answer is simple: Can it manage migration without betraying the very values it was built upon?
