Reacting to recent migratory 'crises': the EU and collective securitization

This articles provides an interpretative approach to explore the relationship between the EU and the reaction to recent migratory ‘crises’. It is the argument of this work that the governance of recent inflows is related to policy debates and processes that have not always to do with migration per se or with the specific configuration of the EU’s policy integration in this domain, but with dynamics of collective securitization. This angle is original, in that processes of collective framing provide a new nuance to the rigid divide between who gets the upper hand between the EU and the Member States in the governance of migration. Also, the approach is promising in two other ways. First, an interpretative angle allows to appreciate the variation of the EU’s reaction and a wider perspective on what constitutes ‘progress’ or ‘regress’ in the EU’s reactions to migration crises. Second, collective securitization does not stop at considering the shifting of national authority to the EU or that of the EU back to Member States, but ponders and problematizes the iteration of their relations, questioning, for example, the truism that more integration is always preferable.