The discussion was grounded in a new anthology that examines how several European countries—including Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway—have linked development cooperation with migration policy. Bringing together research findings, country perspectives, and policy reflections, the conference explored how national experiences can inform broader European debates. Against the backdrop of evolving EU priorities, including the Pact on Migration and Asylum, discussions focused on how migration and development objectives can be better aligned in practice, particularly through external partnerships, development cooperation, return and reintegration, and migration governance.

Agenda and keynote speakers

A welcoming remark was delivered by Mr Hugo Verbist, Ambassador and Special Envoy for Migration at the Federal Public Service for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation in Belgium.

The seminar continued with a presentation on EU priorities in external migration engagement under the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. The presentations were delivered by Ms Bogdana Sybikowska, International Relations Officer, Directorate-General Migration & Home Affairs, and Mr Samuel Simon Pulido, Head of Sector in the Migration and Forced Displacement Unit, Directorate-General for International Partnerships, both speakers at the European Commission.

In addition, country perspectives outlining Dutch, German and Belgian experiences in linking migration and development were presented by the authors of the anthology, professor  Arjen Leerkes and Anna Knoll at ECDPM, but also Raffaella Greco Tonegutti at Enabel. One issue highlighted was return programmes, where development aid is used to create incentives for migrants to return to their countries of origin. The Dutch presentation by Leerkes noted, for example, that while this approach aims to align development cooperation with migration policy goals shared that such policy can create unintended incentives, such as attracting migrants to access return programmes.

The day concluded with a policy-oriented panel discussion bringing together Jonathan Chaloff and Jason Gagnon, both at OECD, and professor Melissa Siegel,. Moderated by Ms Hanne Beirens, Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges, the panel explored what states actually do in practice, which approaches have proven effective, and how to navigate questions of legitimacy and trade-offs. A key point of consensus was the importance of investing in data for monitoring and evaluation, ensuring that policies and practices are grounded in evidence.

Expert insights from the Dutch chapter  

To further explore these questions, we asked Melissa Siegel, co-author of the Dutch chapter in the anthology:

From an EU perspective, what is the main challenge in making migration partnerships both effective and credible from a development perspective?

  • The EU presents itself to partner countries as a normative actor — one that promotes human rights, sustainable development, democratic governance, and the rule of law. It also presents itself as a migration management actor that needs third-country cooperation to reduce irregular arrivals. These two roles are increasingly hard to inhabit simultaneously in the same bilateral relationship, and the tension between them is not resolvable through better communication or smarter programme design. The specific difficulty is that the two things the EU wants — effective migration management and credible development partnership — require fundamentally different things from the relationship. Effective migration management requires leverage, speed, and transactional logic. You need a partner government to take specific actions — accept returns, control departures, cooperate with border enforcement — and you need it to happen in politically visible timeframes. That pushes towards conditionality, bilateralism, and flexibility about who you deal with and on what terms.

When development resources become visibly contingent on migration cooperation, partner governments, civil society actors, and recipient populations update their understanding of what the relationship actually is — and they are right to do so. 

  • Credible development partnership requires the opposite: predictability, country ownership, long time horizons, and insulation from short-term political pressures. Its value derives precisely from the fact that it is not subject to revision every time a migration crisis reshapes domestic politics in a member state. When development resources become visibly contingent on migration cooperation, partner governments, civil society actors, and recipient populations update their understanding of what the relationship actually is — and they are right to do so. There is a genuine incompatibility of these two logics operating through the same instruments and the same bilateral relationships at the same time.
  • The challenge is compounded by the EU's own institutional fragmentation. Development cooperation sits primarily with DG INTPA and the EEAS; migration management with DG HOME and the Council working groups that represent interior ministries. These institutions have different legal mandates, different relationships with partner countries, and different conceptions of what success looks like.
  • The EU can have effective development partnerships or it can have coercive migration management through development channels, but it cannot credibly have both. 

Limited evidence and high expectations

One of the central conclusions of the anthology is that development aid is increasingly used to achieve migration policy goals, such as reducing irregular migration and strengthening return and reintegration systems. However, as the research findings show: while expectations are high, the evidence of impact remains limited.

The shift is not from “no link” to “link” — but from a broad development-oriented nexus to a more operational migration-governance agenda.

During their presentation, the editors Henrik Malm Lindberg och Iris Luthman emphasised that the shift is not from “no link” to “link,” but rather from a broad development-oriented nexus towards a more operational migration-governance agenda. This shift has been driven by multiple factors, including migration crises, electoral dynamics, government changes, EU-level instruments, and increasing pressure to secure cooperation on return, readmission, and external migration engagement.

In conclusion, the anthology underscores that coordination alone is not enough. While whole-of-government approaches can bring actors together, true coherence requires more: clear priorities, aligned incentives, and greater transparency about trade-offs.