Weaponised Migration: How People on the Move Become Pawns in State Diplomacy

The manipulation of migration as a geopolitical tool is not a new concept, but in recent years, states have increasingly exploited the vulnerability of displaced people to advance their political agendas. Migration should be about seeking safety and opportunity, but it has become a tool of coercive diplomacy and hybrid warfare, particularly at the EU's external border.

States such as Türkiye, Belarus, and Morocco deliberately engineer migration flows to destabilise neighbouring countries. They do so by actively pushing people on the move toward borders or by lifting restrictions and barriers that prevent people from moving across the EU’s external border. The aim behind this strategy is to coerce the EU into certain financial, political, or economic concessions - or to simply destabilise democratic institutions. This tactic - known as the weaponisation of migration, instrumentalisation, or coercive engineered migration - turns innocent people into bargaining chips in diplomatic power struggles. 

Poland-Belarus Border

Since 2021, Belarusian authorities have orchestrated migration flows into Poland to pressure the EU, creating humanitarian crises at the border. People on the move chartered to the Polish border find themselves trapped in freezing forests and face brutal pushbacks. 

Spain-Morocco Border

In 2021, thousands of people on the move could suddenly cross into Spain’s Ceuta enclave. This was widely seen as retaliation by Morocco after Spain hosted a Western Sahara independence leader. Many people on the move were forcibly deported or left stranded.

Greece-Türkiye Border

Türkiye has repeatedly leveraged the threat of opening its borders to Greece in negotiations with the EU. In February 2020, thousands of people on the move were encouraged to move toward Greece. Greece met people on the move with smoke grenades, abuse, and military forces at its border. Greece also suspended asylum procedures and thus set a precedent for future cases of weaponised migration.

In response to the frequent weaponisation of migration by neighbouring states, the EU introduced the Instrumentalisation Regulation in December 2021. This regulation allows member states to derogate asylum processes when confronted with weaponised migration, for example by extending deadlines to register people on the move. Thus, people on the move - not the responsible stakeholders - bear the harmful consequences of the instrumentalisation regulation.

Weaponised migration is widely considered a tool of authoritarian states when bargaining with liberal democracies. However, democratic states such as Greece and Italy have frequently utilised migration flows as leverage in negotiations with EU member states and institutions. In 2015 and 2016, Greece attempted to coerce the EU into providing better financial aid programmes and to reform the Common European Asylum System. The latter objective was also driving Italy’s engineered migration flows in 2011, 2015, and 2017.

People on the move are not invaders or weapons - they flee war, persecution, and poverty. Yet, they are manipulated, stranded, and mistreated as states play political games. Instead of protection, they face barbed wire, rejection, and suffering. States must be held accountable for manipulating and weaponising migration dynamics, otherwise, people will continue to suffer as pawns in international power struggles.

Words by Leonard K