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Showing posts from August, 2026

Morocco, Europe’s Paid Policeman: Anatomy of a Migration Rent

The claim that Morocco does not serve as “Europe’s policeman” is difficult to reconcile with the facts. For more than a decade, the European Union has invested heavily in strengthening Morocco’s border-control capabilities, committing hundreds of millions of euros to migration management, with the overwhelming share directed toward security and surveillance mechanisms. These funds are neither accidental nor philanthropic. They form part of a clearly acknowledged strategy of externalizing European migration control, making Morocco one of the central pillars of the continent’s policy of containing migratory flows before they reach European borders. Rabat has thus become an indispensable partner in a system whose primary purpose is to keep migratory pressure at a distance from Europe itself. Algeria, by contrast, benefits from no comparable arrangement. It receives no European funding dedicated to border surveillance and has never agreed to delegate its migration policy to external intere...