Europe’s role in North Africa: development, investment and migration

The authors of this Policy Contribution propose five ways in which EU policymakers can contribute to development in North Africa and build partnership

Publishing date: 08 April 2017
Authors: Guntram B. Wolff Uri Dadush Maria Demertzis

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This paper was prepared for, and presented at, the informal ECOFIN meeting of EU finance ministers in Malta on 8 April 2017, with the title Boosting private investment in North Africa and beyond: what role for European Institutions?

Africa’s population is projected to reach almost 2.5 billion by 2050. Migration from Africa to the EU is relatively stable, at around 500,000 migrants per year, or 0.1 percent of the EU population, yet irregular immigration into the EU has increased recently.

Development is often seen as the way to reduce migration but the development-migration nexus is complex. At low levels of development, migration might increase with rising GDP per capita. This applies to most of sub-Saharan Africa.

By contrast, North African countries are among the continent’s more developed economies. Their geographical positions make them natural partners for the EU. The region is diverse but political instability has been a common feature that in recent years has hindered economic development. Cyclical factors and deep-rooted structural weaknesses have also contributed to weak economic performance. Conditions for business are relatively poor and trade barriers in some sectors have prevented integration either between these countries or into global value chains. The authors of this Policy Contribution propose five ways in which EU policymakers can contribute to development in North Africa and build partnerships on trade, investment and migration.

About the authors

Guntram B. Wolff

Guntram Wolff is a Senior fellow at Bruegel. He is also a Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. From 2022-2024, he was the Director and CEO of the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) and from 2013-22 the director of Bruegel. Over his career, he has contributed to research on European political economy, climate policy, geoeconomics, macroeconomics and foreign affairs. His work was published in academic journals such as Nature, Science, Research Policy, Energy Policy, Climate Policy, Journal of European Public Policy, Journal of Banking and Finance. His co-authored book “The macroeconomics of decarbonization” is published in Cambridge University Press.

An experienced public adviser, he has been testifying twice a year since 2013 to the informal European finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ ECOFIN Council meeting on a large variety of topics. He also regularly testifies to the European Parliament, the Bundestag and speaks to corporate boards. In 2020, Business Insider ranked him one of the 28 most influential “power players” in Europe. From 2012-16, he was a member of the French prime minister’s Conseil d’Analyse Economique. In 2018, then IMF managing director Christine Lagarde appointed him to the external advisory group on surveillance to review the Fund’s priorities. In 2021, he was appointed member and co-director to the G20 High level independent panel on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response under the co-chairs Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Lawrence H. Summers and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. From 2013-22, he was an advisor to the Mastercard Centre for Inclusive Growth. He is a member of the Bulgarian Council of Economic Analysis, the European Council on Foreign Affairs and advisory board of Elcano.

Guntram joined Bruegel from the European Commission, where he worked on the macroeconomics of the euro area and the reform of euro area governance. Prior to joining the Commission, he worked in the research department at the Bundesbank, which he joined after completing his PhD in economics at the University of Bonn. He also worked as an external adviser to the International Monetary Fund. He is fluent in German, English, and French. His work is regularly published and cited in leading media.
Uri Dadush

Uri Dadush is a Non-resident fellow at Bruegel, based in Washington DC, and a Research Professor at the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland where he teaches courses on trade policy and on macroeconomic analysis and policy. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South in Rabat, Morocco and Principal of Economic Policy International LLC, providing consulting services to international organizations. He was a co-chair of the Trade, Investment and Globalization Task-Force of the T20 and Vice-Chair of the Global Agenda Council on Trade and Investment at the World Economic Forum.

He was previously Director of the International Economics Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Prior to that he was Director of International Trade, Director of Economic Policy, and Director of the Development Prospects Group at the World Bank. Based previously in London, Brussels and Milan, he spent 15 years in the private sector, where he was President of the Economist Intelligence Unit, Group Vice President of Data Resources Inc., and a consultant with McKinsey and Co.

His books include: Trade Preferences, Foreign Aid and Self-Interest; Trade Policy in Morocco: Taking Stock and Looking Forward (with Pierre Sauve' , co-editor); WTO Accessions and Trade Multilateralism (with Chiedu Osakwe, co-editor); Juggernaut: How Emerging Markets Are Transforming Globalization (with William Shaw); Inequality in America (with Kemal Dervis and others); Currency Wars (with Vera Eidelman, co-editor); and Paradigm Lost: The Euro in Crisis. He is presently working on a book on the crisis in the world trading system.

His columns have appeared in the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Il Sole 24 Ore, Le Monde, Liberation, L’Espresso and El Pais.

He has a BA and MA in Economics from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a PhD in Business Economics from Harvard University.
Maria Demertzis

Maria Demertzis is a Senior fellow at Bruegel and part-time Professor of Economic Policy at the Florence School of Transnational Governance at the European University Institute. She was Bruegel’s Deputy Director until December 2022. She has previously worked at the European Commission and the research department of the Dutch Central Bank. She has also held academic positions at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in the USA and the University of Strathclyde in the UK, from where she holds a PhD in economics. She has published extensively in international academic journals and contributed regular policy inputs to both the European Commission's and the Dutch Central Bank's policy outlets. She contributes regularly to national and international press and has regular column that appears twice a month in various EU newspapers and on Bruegel’s opinion page.