The Politics of Negotiating EU Readmission Agreements: Insights from Morocco and Turkey

The subject of this article is the politics of instrumentation of EU Readmission Agreement (EURA) negotiations with Morocco and Turkey. Refusing to sign an EURA for more than ten years, they share a similar position of 'hard bargainers'. Recently though a 'negotiation turn' took place, Turkey initialling an EURA in June 2012 and Morocco committing to sign an EURA within the framework of a Mobility Partnership (MP) in June 2013. Unpacicing the role of EU incentives and third countries' preferences, this article reveals that beyond the function of this instrument to co-opt third countries in EU's fight against irregular migration, a series of obstacles forced the EU to revise the design of EURA and to take into account domestic and regional factors. This article engages with the meanings and representations carried by EURAS in third countries and implications for the logic of consequences and appropriateness within the framework of EU external migration policy.