The Migration-Security Nexus in Short: Instruments and Actions in the European Union

Gemma Pinyol-Jiménez

doi:10.37974/alf.209

Abstract

In early 2011, the so-called 'Arab spring' opened a new period of change, expectations and challenges in several North African countries. Despite of the democratic processes started in that countries, to important sectors of European media and public opinion, it seemed that Arab riots had mainly become another push factor for irregular migration to the European Union. Furthermore, the crisis management of Tunisian migrants arriving to Italy, stressed the European system of free movement of people in the Schengen area in an unthinkable way just few weeks before.The aim of this paper is not to analyze the consequences of these events, neither in the Arab world nor in the Schengen performance. The main objective is to analyze the establishment of this migration-security nexus at the European level, and to examine how the EU deals with the security issue in relation with migration.

Highlights

In early 2011, the so-called 'Arab spring' marked a new period of change, expectations and challenges in several North African countries
Despite the democratic processes started in those countries, Arab riots were mainly seen as another push factor for irregular migration to the European Union by important sectors of European media and public opinion
The European Union is moving towards the construction of a common legislative framework to deal with migration and some of the more recent steps increasingly demonstrate that managing migration should incorporate a plural conception of security

Summary

Migration as a Security Issue in the European Union

The issue of migration has been subject to a process of securitisation since the 2000s. EU migration instruments have been developed to tackle the migration-security nexus, paying attention to national and regional security. Migration trends into southern Europe changed in the late 1980s and during the 1990s, when southern European countries received an increasing amount of migrants for the first time in their history. In the Tampere European Council, Member States passed on the first five-year agenda to start a process of harmonization in their immigration and asylum policies. Spanish and international attention were drawn to the two cities, when groups of organized people –mainly from Sub-Saharan countries– tried to overcome the fortified fences of these controversial Spanish enclaves in North Africa These events became even more dramatic when Morocco started to deport some of these Sub-Saharan nationals to. The EU and its member states have been compelled to implement tough immigration policies, which resulted in what people call ‘fortress Europe’.18 2005 could be considered as a turning-point because since the EU and its member states have developed instruments and actions to deal with migration, in a complementary and different way

EU Instruments and Actions to Tackle Security and Migration Issues

II.1 The Domestic Dimension of the Migration-Security Nexus

II.2 Inter-EU Cooperation: the Creation of FRONTEX

Conclusions