The Strategic Use of Resettlement in the EU and its (Limited) Impact on the Adoption of the EU Resettlement Regulation

This paper investigates why the European Union initiated joint action on refugee resettlement in 2016, despite several member states already ranking among the world’s top refugee-receiving countries. It argues that the politicisation of asylum after the 2015 “refugee crisis” created a window of opportunity for EU institutions and member states to strategically frame resettlement as a tool of crisis management. Drawing on theories of agenda-setting and norm contestation, the paper shows how strategic considerations—rather than purely humanitarian motives—were central to elevating resettlement to the EU’s political agenda. These included: (1) using resettlement to deter spontaneous refugee arrivals; (2) deploying it as an incentive for third-country cooperation on migration control; (3) mobilising it to generate reputational benefits for the EU; and (4) invoking it as a symbol of control and responsiveness during a period of perceived political instability. However, these strategic motives were only weakly institutionalised in the final EU Resettlement Regulation. The paper attributes this outcome to the influential role of the European Parliament (EP) during the policymaking phase, where it resisted the instrumentalisation of resettlement and promoted a rights-based and humanitarian framing. Although often seen as a comparatively weak actor in migration governance, the EP’s close collaboration with the UNHCR endowed it with epistemic authority and normative influence in the legislative process. By tracing these dynamics, the paper contributes to broader debates on the strategic use of humanitarian norms in EU migration governance and on the conditions under which norm contestation constrains the politicisation of refugee protection.