Migration and Security in the EU: Back to Fortress Europe?

Abstract

An analysis of the linkages between immigration and security must consider three basic issues and tasks. First of all, it must look at the definition of the concepts in use: threat, referent object and the logic or rationale that brings both concepts together. Secondly, the framing of immigration within the discourse on security issues is to be tackled. And thirdly, it must take into account the measures and public policy instruments related to that framing. This article focuses on these three interrelated issues and explores those questions with particular reference to the EU area. The first part reviews the scholarly literature that explores the linkage between migration and security in order to identify what is known as the ‘threat’, the referent object and the rationales established in discourses since the 1990s. During this decade the EU began to develop its ‘common’ immigration policy, while at the same time critiques of the emerging securitisation of migration were developed. The second part of this research traces the effects of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 on discourses and public policies in the EU. The analysis of post 9/11 developments in the EU provides evidence to deny on the hand, that EU institutions’ discourses on immigration policies consider this phenomenon as an existential threat and, on the other hand, to reject that extraordinary measures or courses of actions had followed those terrorist attacks. A global approach towards migration is underway although in need of political impetus.