The EU is edging closer to an investment and migration pact with Senegal, following a two day visit to the West African country by the bloc’s top migration and partnerships officials.
Migration commissioner Magnus Brunner and partnerships commissioner Jozef Sikela held talks with president Bassirou Faye on Tuesday and Wednesday (3-4 March) on a series of migration control and investment projects.
The EU and Senegal planned to negotiate a “strategic comprehensive partnership structured around three interconnected pillars: economic transformation through Global Gateway investments, peace, security and regional stability, and migration and mobility based on shared responsibility,” the two sides said in a joint statement on Wednesday.
For his part, Faye’s office briefed reporters that talks had focused on “youth training and professional integration, through a renewed partnership geared toward tangible results. Security and migration also featured prominently in the talks.”
Talks on a formal migration deal started in 2024, and although the structure of an EU-Senegal pact is likely to be less migration-focused than the EU’s other ‘cash for migration’ deals with north and west African states, border control will still be at its heart.
On Tuesday, the EU commissioners attended the inauguration of a new Maritime Maintenance Centre where new patrol boats and motorised vessels were handed over to the Senegalese National Police and Gendarmerie.
In a statement, the EU commission said that “these assets will reinforce maritime security and coastal surveillance capacities, improve the joint management of migration flows, and strengthen efforts to dismantle migrant smuggling and organised crime networks, while also contributing to the protection of human life at sea.”
The EU’s border control agency Frontex has already taken on an increased mandate in the waters off the coast of Senegal and its neighbour Gambia, with the commission adding that “strengthened security cooperation in recent years, including reinforced maritime and border operations, contributed to a decrease of around 74 percent in irregular departures last year.”
Sahel’s military juntas
The west African migratory route to the Spanish Canary Islands has become a priority for the EU’s border control efforts over the past two years.
The country has also become strategically important to the EU because of its proximity to the Sahel region, where a handful of military juntas, which have taken power in Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali in recent years, have forced French, German and other European troops to abandon missions combating Islamic terror groups.
That, in turn, has robbed the EU of much of its diplomatic influence in the region. EU officials, including former European Council president Charles Michel, have offered defence and security support to Senegal.
The EU is particularly keen to build strong relations with Senegal’s youthful president Faye, who won a landslide election victory in spring 2024, with Sikala describing his government as “a key democratic partner”.