The 2015 EU-Africa Joint-Valletta Action Plan on Immigration: 'Shared Solidarity' and Its Various Meanings

Abstract

In the wake of the arrival of almost one million Syrian asylum seekers in the summer of 2015 in Europe, the EU called an extraordinary summit with African Union member states in November of that year in Malta with the view of finding a longlasting solution to what has been called “the migration crisis.” The Summit produced an agreement, the Joint Valletta Plan of Action (JVAP) that was said to herald a new policy era. Using policy discourse analysis, this article argues that interests defined as vulnerability interdependence were the determinants of this agreement. They are embodied in the concept of “shared solidarity.” Specifically, while parties held onto their interests (security for the EU and economic resources for the Africans), there was a new sense especially on the part of the Europeans, that both parties needed each other (cooperation) to advance these interests. Unlike past agreements, concrete and immediate steps were taken with the creation of an Emergency Trust Fund.