Crisification and depoliticisation: an analysis of the EU migration management policy-making

Migration and asylum are a political priority both at the European and at the national level, which have been evolving through a crisis-based logic since 2015. This crisification of the migration and asylum area (Moreno-Lax, 2023; Rhinard, 2019) has a deep impact on its policy-making, starting from the legislative deadlock due to political crises in the Council perpetuated by populist governments (Zaun & Ripoll Servent, 2022). Another important consequence is the lack of politics in the policy area (politics defined as the space for deliberation and debates, choice and agency, and resolution of conflicts and consensus building) leading to an uncontested securitised and restrictive approach towards migration, focused on the fight against irregular migration, and mainly returns and border management, and the impossibility to explore alternative policy options. In reaction to this succession of crises, the Commission has had to adapt its policy-making strategies. Several legislative reform proposals have been presented since 2015, and migration policy area is extremely prolific when it comes to non-legislative acts, or alternative policy frames, such as international agreement, the development of agencies, or the increasing use of EU funds to govern the area. In order to overcome or prevent crisis, the Commission mainly resorts to depoliticisation strategies, both when it comes to legislative procedures, and administrative governance. Those strategies enables it to remain involved in the policy-making and avoiding falling back into entirely intergovernmental dynamics, however they have important consequences on institutional balance and protection standards. Building up on the research I am currently conducting for my PhD, this paper aims at analysing those strategies adopted by the Commission based on different depoliticisation theories (Burnham, 2014; Flinders & Buller, 2006), through a comparative case-study on return and screening policies.