18 June 2012

on a P E R S O N A L note


Engaging in destructive discussions on whether or not a certain institution should exist, whether or not a particular cooperation should take place and whether certain policy initiatives should be pursued or rather not is a tedious undertaking. After all, institutions will not seize to exist, cooperation will not be resigned and policy initiatives will not be abandoned in response to the theoretical considerations of the ivory tower. They exist as long as they serve the odd overt and covert purposes of those parties and actors involved.

This research intends to take a constructive approach. It attempts to investigate the prevailing overt and covert interests that feed in and sustain the cooperation between the EU and the ECOWAS in the area of migration policies. Challenges and problems are used as helpful guides towards more fruitful areas for policy initiatives, not as a hint to forestall the cooperation. This constructive approach on what could be possible and how it could be possible is based on the unique insight granted by the organizational staff of the EU and the ECOWAS and exemplarily the German and the Ghanaian governments as respective member states.