Valletta Action Plan

The Valletta Action Plan was adopted on 11–12 November 2015 at the Valletta Summit on Migration in Malta, bringing together European and African heads of state and government alongside the European Union, the African Union, and UN agencies including UNHCR and IOM. It was negotiated against the backdrop of the 2015 migration crisis, during which arrivals across the Mediterranean — particularly via the Central Mediterranean route from Libya — reached record levels.

The plan organises commitments around five priority domains:

• Addressing the root causes of irregular migration and forced displacement (development, conflict prevention, jobs).
• Enhancing cooperation on legal migration and mobility, including student and labour schemes.
• Strengthening protection of migrants and asylum seekers along routes.
• Preventing and fighting irregular migration, migrant smuggling, and trafficking in human beings.
• Improving cooperation on return, readmission, and reintegration of migrants without a right to stay.

The summit also launched the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF for Africa), initially endowed with around €1.8 billion in EU funds plus member-state contributions, to finance projects across the Sahel and Lake Chad, the Horn of Africa, and North Africa regions. The Trust Fund became the principal financial instrument associated with implementing Valletta commitments.

Valletta is often discussed alongside the parallel Khartoum Process (covering the Horn of Africa route, launched 2014) and the Rabat Process (West African route, launched 2006), which serve as its regional dialogue platforms. Critics — including humanitarian NGOs and several African governments — have argued that implementation skewed heavily toward border control, return cooperation, and externalisation of EU migration management, while progress on legal migration channels remained limited. Subsequent EU policy, including the 2020 Pact on Migration and Asylum, built on lessons and tensions from the Valletta framework.