Abstract
The migration crisis was and, in some aspects, still is one of the biggest challenges that the European Union (EU) has faced recently. In the crisis peak in 2015/16, most of its member states were affected in different ways. This paper contributes to the ex-post dialog of this transboundary crisis and attempts to present the level of readiness to solve wicked problems and manage a transboundary crisis, looking at the perspective of two countries—Slovenia and Croatia. The paper focuses on the following areas of migration governance: (1) border management, (2) reception policies, (3) migrant protection regimes, and (4) national security, which represented the main issues for transit countries and are embedded in the capacity assessing tool Survey Tool used in the paper. With its set of questions and using a multiple case studies methodology and comparative analysis, the paper’s results show the rather immature level of mass migration capacities at both transit levels studied. In the absence of migration crisis studies, the proposed paper retains its originality and adds value, especially in multi-level systems, in assessing the complexity of the crisis from a national perspective and providing the numerical assessment of crisis management capacity.
Highlights
Following the large influx of migrants that led to a migration crisis in the EuropeanUnion (EU) in 2015, the entire Union and its member states were under immense pressure, requiring various coping strategies for wicked problems
Notwithstanding possible methodological shortcomings, it attempts to provide an explanation for the phenomena of the migration crisis in both countries, following a constructivist and existentialist logic (Stake 1995), aiming to answer the following research question: To what extent are the national levels of Croatia and Slovenia prepared to respond to the wicked problem of the European migration crisis and why? To answer this question, the empirical analysis will (1) examine the degree of readiness to respond to a transboundary crisis by using a Survey Tool (Boin et al 2017) and (2) draw on multiple sources of data, such as document analysis of decisions taken by governments, the European Union (EU), and other actors in the run up to the crisis
The research question of the paper was: To what extent are the national levels of Croatia and Slovenia prepared to respond to the wicked problem of the European migration crisis and why? Based on our elaboration using the Survey Tool (Boin et al 2017), the dashboard illustrates the relative lack of maturity in the mass migration domain on both national levels of Croatia and Slovenia, especially in the transit pressure context
Summary
Following the large influx of migrants that led to a migration crisis in the EuropeanUnion (EU) in 2015, the entire Union and its member states were under immense pressure, requiring various coping strategies for wicked problems. The nations solved the crisis on different ends, such as entry, transit, or destination. This article aims to frame the crisis management policies of the 2015–16 migration crisis of two transit countries on the Western Balkans migration route, Croatia and Slovenia. In managing the migration influx, both countries secured their national borders. Croatia secured the EU’s external border, and Slovenia, because of its geographical location, secured the Schengen external border. Notwithstanding this fact, we have to acknowledge that most of the migration influx has already been documented as entering the EU in Greece; the countries under study cannot be considered as countries of entry (OECD 2017, 2018)
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