Funding the EU–Morocco ‘Mobility Partnership’: Of Implementation and Competences

Abstract:

This article explores the role of funding under the ‘Mobility Partnership’ (MP) concluded between the European Union (EU), various Member States and Morocco. As most academic literature and policy discourse assumes a link between funding and policy implementation, this article enquires into how funding can help us understand implementation and the priorities set therein, and what alternative understandings of funding we could develop.

By presenting evidence from the EU-Morocco MP, it is argued that looking at EU funding obscures rather than clarifies the priorities pursued in the cooperation on borders, asylum and migration. Drawing from the political sociology of public finances and from legal literature, this article understands funding as embedded in institutional, legal and political struggles over competences, and highlights the symbolic nature of funding.