The large influx of migrants entering Europe in 2015 consisted mainly of persons who had taken refuge in Turkey from the Syrian civil war. Their numbers, boosted by the initially welcoming signals from Germany and Sweden, encountered populist resistance in some EU countries and, in particular, determined opposition to the September 2015 decision of the EU Council of Ministers, acting on a proposal of the European Commission, to allocate refugees among member states. In an effort to stem this continuing "irregular migration," now including many asylum-seekers and economic migrants from other conflict zones (notably Afghanistan and Iraq), in March 2016 the EU concluded an agreement with Turkey to halt the migrant flow across the Aegean and accept returnees in return for financial assistance ((sic)3 billion, with another (sic)3 billion to come) for refugees in Turkey, admission to the EU of some of these refugees, concessions on Turkish visa-free travel, and speeded discussion on Turkey's EU accession. Implementation of the "Turkey-EU Statement" has met political obstacles but thus far has seemingly worked to greatly lessen the numbers of boat-people reaching the Greek islands. A separate migration path to Europe, across the Mediterranean from North Africa mainly to Italy, also burgeoned in 2015. These migrants came not only from the Middle East but also from the Horn of Africa (Eritrea and Somalia) and sub-Saharan Africa (especially Mali, Niger, and Nigeria), most of them channeled through Libya. EU efforts to intercept migrants at sea have served an immediate humanitarian purpose but do nothing to limit numbers-indeed may have helped to fuel a highly profitable human smuggling industry. The potential migrant flows from Africa-in the main economic migrants, though often driven by conflict as well-dwarf those from Syria and its neighbors. Not surprisingly, the EU has begun to explore ways to limit such migration at its source. This entails negotiation of compacts with the countries of origin, rather than, as in the Turkey case, with a buffer state. (Libya is in no condition currently to serve as an effective buffer, although that may be a long-run possibility.) Like the Turkey model, however, the compacts would require offsetting payments: substantial amounts of development assistance. As a first step, the European Commission has drafted a proposal to EU member states seeking their concurrence with such an approach, which it terms a "partnership framework." Excerpts from the relevant document, the European Commission's Communication on establishing a new Partnership Framework with third countries under the European Agenda on Migration-COM(2016) 385 final, Strasbourg, 7 June 2016-are reproduced below. The Communication is addressed to the European Parliament, the European Council, and the European Investment Bank. The African "partnership countries" envisaged in the proposal are Algeria, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Libya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Sudan, and Tunisia. Acknowledging a further large addition to the scale of the problem, three Asian partner countries are also mentioned: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan. The European Agenda on Migration, referred to in the title, was set out in an earlier Commission communication (COM(2015) 240 final, 13 May 2015). It covered measures for border enforcement and combating human smuggling and outlined the hoped-for Common European Asylum System-notably the formula for distributing refugees according to member states' population and income.
