The fifth session of the Policy Forum Series focusses on the coherence between the EU’s trade and migration policies. The contribution of migration to sustainable growth and development and the need to facilitate safe and regular migration has been recognized in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Migration is also a key factor in filling the large and increasing skills shortages in the EU. At the same time, the recent reform of the EU’s asylum policy has reinforced the focus on deterring irregular migration and enforcing border control and this focus is also becoming stronger in EU trade policies: while EU trade agreements have long included clauses on readmission and the ‘fight against illegal migration’, the recently signed Samoa agreement with the OACPS is unprecedented in the level of detail with which it addresses the issue of return and readmission. In its 2021 proposal to reform the Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP), the Commission further suggested that failure to cooperate on return and readmission can be a ground for withdrawing trade preferences for developing countries. At the same time, cooperation to increase safe and legal migration routes and to foster the positive developmental impact of migration has remained limited. In this session, we take stock of recent initiatives to link trade policy to migration objectives and critically examine their impact on the coherence and sustainability of EU trade policy.

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