The “pull factor” mentioned here is a reference to Spain’s decision earlier this year to give legal status to undocumented migrants living in the country. The argument is that granting these rights created an incentive for migrants from outside the EU to risk their lives by crossing the border.

Yet the EU also has numerous agreements with authoritarian governments in which these countries are expected to stop migrants and refugees from crossing the EU’s borders. This outsourcing of migration policy has fuelled human rights violations.

The EU’s agreement with Tunisia, for instance, has been called a “blueprint for complicity” by Amnesty International. The European Network Against Racism has found evidence these agreements also reproduce a racial logic that privileges whiteness.

Alongside these agreements, the EU’s new “Return Regulation”, agreed in June this year, promises to facilitate deportations and expand coercive measures against migrants and refugees. The regulation was approved by the European Parliament amid chants of “send them back” by right-wing MEPs.