Immigration, development, and European policies

The structural conditions just described clearly cannot support a thriving economy. In fact, what they sustain is a dependent economy, one in which people cannot make ends meet without support from migrant workers in the EU, whose remittances account for a hefty share of the national income. In Morocco and Tunisia, for example, these payments in 2005 accounted for 85 to 90 percent of gross domestic product (Gallina 2007, 303), outweighing foreign direct investment by a ratio of three to one.

Immigration is therefore closely bound up with the reality of countries of origin, making it possible to solidify economic relations sustained by community networks (what Bruno Amoroso refers to as anelli di solidarieta). These networks are “’much more effective than any aid provided by international organizations or by way of foreign direct investment: they act as lifeblood for communities all across the world, and particularly in the Mediterranean” (Amoroso 2007, 511; my translation); they support economic initiatives and forms of cooperation, which in turn generate investments in infrastructure (rural power grids, roadways, water resource management) or local cooperation projects, as in the countries of the Maghreb.

In the Barcelona Declaration of 1995 these same community networks became integral to a novel codevelopment strategy aimed at achieving “increasing cooperation among different areas in such a way as to empower rather than sap them” (ibid., 504). But this grand vision did not pan out. Ten years into the Barcelona Process, the codevelopment goal had already been reduced to the idea of creating a free-trade area, and hence to a strategy for advancing the interests of the European economic powers by way free-market policies and within the scaffolding of the United States’ military hegemony.

What in particular played a large role in hindering the progress of the codevelopment policy was European protectionism, which came in various forms, including agricultural subsidies and import quotas. This takes us to the shortcomings of the European policies for democratizing the Mediterranean’s southern shore.