Explaining the Crisis of the European Migration and Asylum Regime

Abstract

Since 2013, the European migration and asylum regime has entered a phase of crisis, which reveals the deep interdependencies between its different components (including intra-EU mobility) and the unbalanced nature of its normative foundations. This original structural fragility had not fundamentally compromised the overall functioning of the regime until two major exogenous factors (the economic crisis, with its asymmetrical impact on the eurozone, and the wave of political instability and conflicts on the southern shore of the Mediterranean) brought its intrinsic limits to the point of rupture. The ongoing, highly contentious process of reform of the European migration and asylum regime is an unprecedented and crucially important test of the capacity of one the European Union’s key sectors to evolve under pressure and to adapt to a rapidly and deeply changing geopolitical, economic and demographic environment.

Keywords:

• European Union
• EU migration policy
• EU asylum policy
• European migrant crisis

Notes

¹ Mody, “Germany Should Exit the Euro”.

² Tocci, Imagining Europe.

³ Famously by European Central Bank’s President, Mario Draghi, in a worried statement about Greece (Fleming and Giles, “Draghi says Eurozone has Tools”).

⁴ Geddes and Boswell, Migration and Mobility in EU; Pascouau, Politique migratoire de l’Union européenne.

⁵ Recchi, Senza frontiere.

⁶ Roman, “Mediterranean Flows into Europe”.

⁷ Krasner, “Structural Causes and Regime Consequences”, 2.

⁸ In particular, Hollifield (“Migration and the ‘New’ International Order”) has shown the peculiarity of the European migration regime in a global perspective; see also Koslowski, “European Union Migration Regimes”.

⁹ Monzini et al., “Schengen’s Soft Underbelly”.

¹⁰ Bigo, Polices en réseaux.

¹¹ Glorius et al., “Mobility in Transition”; specifically on Romanian migration, Anghel, Romanians in Western Europe.

¹² Van Selm, Refugee Protection in Europe, and Kosovo's Refugees in European Union.

¹³ Thielemann, “Burden Sharing”.

¹⁴ Lavenex, Safe Third Countries; Pastore, "L’expérience italienne de Schengen”.

¹⁵ Hasenclever et al., Theories of International Regimes, and “Integrating Theories of International Regimes”.

¹⁶ Hellmann et al., “De-Europeanization by Default?”; Ette and Kreienbrink, “The Unbearable Lightness of Complying”. The precise identification of the driving forces and leading actors behind the three interconnected political projects would require much more in-depth and focused attention. This is, in fact, a crucial and neglected historiographic question that goes far beyond the limited scope of this article.

¹⁷ Spain, Italy and Greece are the first beneficiary of the ISF allocations, respectively receiving, for the period 2014-2020, €262,122,082, €244,888,658 and €241,844,038. Complementary to the ISF, the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) has replaced the Refugees and Integration Fund. For the same period, Spain, Italy and Greece have respectively been allocated €259,701,877, €313,355,777, and €259,348,877 (European Commission, “Managing Migration”).

¹⁸ For an overview of the concept of ‘migration transition’, see De Haas, Migration Transitions.

¹⁹ Pastore, “Aenas’ Route”; Boswell, “The ‘External Dimension’”; Lavenex, “Shifting Up and Out”.

²⁰ European Commission , Third Biannual Report, and “New Schengen Rules to Better Protect”.

²¹ For one of the first specific studies on the impact of the crisis on labour mobility, see Holland and Paluchowski, Geographical Labour Mobility.

²² Cameron, “Free Movement within Europe”.

²³ ICF-GHK, A Fact Finding Analysis.

²⁴ Mason and Oltermann, “EU Freedom of Movement Non-negotiable”.

²⁵ Schneider et al., European Refugee Policy; Garlick, Strengthening Refugee Protection; Thielemann, “Refugee Protection in Europe”; Schneider and Angenendt, The European Asylum Crisis.

²⁶ Particularly harsh and explicit criticism came from the British government: see Travis, “UK Axes Support”.

²⁷ Pastore, “Mediterranean Shipwrecks”.

²⁸ European Commission, A European Agenda on Migration, 4 and 8.

²⁹ European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation.

³⁰ Council of the European Union, Decision 2015/1601.

³¹ Pastore, The Migration and Asylum Crisis.

³² On 22 September, Germany informed EU institutions that this measure had been extended for another 20 days. In Germany’s assessment, the serious threat to the internal security and public policy persisted as the pressure at its internal borders had not decreased. On 9 October, the German authorities communicated a second extension on the same grounds for a further 20 days, as of 13 October, and their intention to continue, depending on further developments, on the basis of the Schengen Borders Code (European Parliament and the Council, Regulation No 562/2006, chapter II, art. 23-24). On 23 October 2015, the Commission issued an Opinion stating that the initial reintroduction of controls at internal borders by Germany and Austria, as well as the subsequent prolongations, were in compliance with the Schengen Borders Code (European Commission,“Opinion of 23.10.2015 on the necessity and proportionality of the controls at internal borders reintroduced by Germany and Austria”).

³³ Merkel, “Merkel ZDF Interview”; German Federal Government, “Asylum and Refugee Policy”.