The Refugee Crisis and the EU Border Security Policies

Abstract

This chapter examines the impact of the refugee crisis of 2015–2016 on the border policy developments in the EU. Following the conceptual framework outlined in this Handbook, three theory-driven scenarios were considered: ‘breaking down’, ‘muddling through’, and ‘heading forward’. Given the severity of the crisis which threatened EU flagship integration projects such as Schengen, member states would normally be expected to work towards common policies rather than take unilateral action. Yet, contrary to this assumption, the crisis has not resulted in a supranationalisation of the EU border security regime, but in a mixture of temporary and limited disintegration on the one hand (‘breaking down’), and incremental and marginal reforms of existing policies, on the other hand (‘muddling through’). Member states rejected distributional policies such as the refugee quotas proposed by the Commission, as they feared larger numbers of asylum seekers as well as supranational encroachments on their sovereign prerogatives. Contrastingly, national governments reached rapid agreement on a series of incremental policy reforms, which enabled them to reduce refugee influxes and prevent the disintegration of Schengen/Dublin, while also retaining strong control over the decision-making process.