North african labour flows and the euro-med partnership

The aim of this article is to analyse the extent to which the EuroMediterranean partnership offers a constructive co-operation initiative that could help reduce the incentive to migrate from South of the Mediterranean. In its economic components, the EuroMediterranean partnership seeks to create the conditions for exchanging goods, rather than factors of production, between the North and the South of the Mediterranean. The viability of such partnership needs to be explored in the present context of growing labour force in Mediterranean countries, and the effect of liberalisation in stimulating structural changes and labour displacement effects that would further increase the incentive to migrate. It will also need to be considered in the light of the positive role that migration can have for labour sending countries.