4(28)2020

Diego Caballero Vélez,1 Ekaterina Krapivnitskaya2

The EU migration policy securitization process: From a domestic to a foreign dimension

Abstract

This article addresses the foreign policy strategies of the European Union (EU) after the 2015 refugee crisis. It investigates to what extent the EU migration policy is part of the European foreign policy. The paper outlines that the migration policy was not prepared for collective action failure at the domestic level, and, in order to overcome it, it is transferred to the external dimension of the EU. It argues that migration, previously considered being part of the state’s domestic affairs, transformed from an issue of domestic policy to the foreign one. Thus, the authors study the interconnection between migration and security as a key element for understanding this “foreignization” process. The development of close cooperation with third countries in the field of migration regulation has become one of the priorities of the overall migration policy of the European Union. However, the EU has not gained much success, and the migration crisis even more clearly indicated the need to develop an external dimension to the management of migration processes, but in a more pragmatic approach that would ensure the EU’s security interests. The basis for the external dimension of EU migration policy is relations with third countries and linking development assistance with security and border protection issues. The paper analyses EU parliamentary debates before and after the 2015 refugee crisis; by doing so, the interconnection between migration and security is assessed, leading to a further understanding of the EU migration “foreignization process”.

Keywords: EU migration policy, refugee crisis, migration, EU external dimension, foreignization

JEL Classification Codes: K37, F22, F55

DOI: 10.33119/KSzPP/2020.4.6

Proces sekurytyzacji polityki migracyjnej UE.
Od wymiaru wewnętrznego do międzynarodowego

Streszczenie

Artykuł poświęcony jest strategiom polityki zagranicznej Unii Europejskiej (UE) po kryzysie uchodźczym 2015 r., a jego celem jest zbadanie, do jakiego stopnia polityka migracyjna UE jest częścią europejskiej polityki zagranicznej. Wskazano, że polityka migracyjna w wymiarze wewnętrznym nie została przygotowana na nieskuteczność wspólnego działania. Aby tę nieskuteczność przełamać, zdecydowano o przeniesieniu polityki migracyjnej do wymiaru zewnętrznego UE. Tym samym postuluje się, aby migracje, które wcześniej uznawano za domenę polityki wewnętrznej państw członkowskich, z problemu polityki wewnętrznej stały się problemem polityki zagranicznej. W związku z tym autorzy badają wzajemne powiązania między migracjami a bezpieczeństwem jako kluczowym elementem zrozumienia tego procesu „zagranicznienia”. Rozwój bliskiej współpracy z państwami trzecimi w obszarze regulacji dotyczącej migracji stał się jednym z priorytetów w całej polityce migracyjnej Unii Europejskiej, jednak nie odnotowała ona na tym polu większych sukcesów. Zarazem kryzys migracyjny jeszcze wyraźniej wskazał na konieczność rozwoju wymiaru zewnętrznego zarządzania procesem migracji, lecz tym razem zastosowano bardziej pragmatyczne podejście gwarantujące zabezpieczenie interesów UE w zakresie bezpieczeństwa. Podstawą zewnętrznego wymiaru europejskiej polityki migracyjnej są stosunki z państwami trzecimi i powiązanie pomocy rozwojowej z kwestiami bezpieczeństwa i ochrony granic. W artykule analizowane są debaty w Parlamencie Europejskim, które toczyły się przed i po kryzysie uchodźczym 2015 r., co służy ocenie powiązania kwestii migracyjnych i bezpieczeństwa, tym samym pogłębiając rozumienie procesu „zagranicznienia” europejskiej polityki migracyjnej.

Słowa kluczowe: polityka migracyjna EU, kryzys uchodźczy, migracja, wymiar zewnętrzny UE, „zagranicznienie”

Kody klasyfikacji JEL: K37, F22, F55

Introduction

This research is focused on the process of externalization that the European Union (EU) migration policy has suffered since the 2015 refugee crisis. It examines to what extent security has influenced the collective action failure of the EU migration policy and, consequently, its externalization. Thus, the aim of this paper is to analyze how migration has been securitized, leading to collective action failure among the Member States in the EU migration policy, and how, in order to overcome that lack of cooperation, it has been transferred to the EU foreign policy area.

In the last years, the EU migration policy has acquired a huge external dimension. When it comes to the beginnings of the EU migration policy externalization, in the 2000s it acquired an international dimension (Oliveira Martins, Strange, 2019). In 2015, due to the Syrian war, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) informed that the number of people who crossed the Mediterranean was 216.1 thousand in 2014, 1 million in 2015, 362.8 thousand in 2016, and 172.3 thousand in 2017 (Pachocka, Vizvizi, 2018: 456–457), triggering a major humanitarian challenge in the EU. This situation supposed to be a re-elaboration of the EU migration policies effect dimension, not only being considered just as a domestic policy but also an external one.

During the 2015 refugee crisis, the Member States did not agree on the way of facing up the humanitarian challenge. On the one hand, some countries, such as Germany, adopted a “welcome” and relocation policy. On the other hand, other countries, such as Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, and the Czech Republic, the so-called Visegrad Group, showed strong opposition to relocating refugees on their territories. In recent times, due to perceptions towards migrants as a threat, governments with anti-migration agendas have been elected across Europe (Oliveira Martins, Strange, 2019). In this regard, the EU had to deal with a lack of cooperation and collective action failure.3

Collective action literature (see Kok et al., 2011; Olson, 1965; Carbone, 2007; Caballero Vélez, Pachocka, 2020) has been focused on the reasons for the lack of cooperation among actors, leading to a situation of collective action failure. Accordingly, in the area of the EU migration policy, the lack of consensus among the States in dealing with migration challenges such as the one in 2015 has triggered collective action failure in this policy domain. In the case of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), it is argued that the “development of EPC (European Political Cooperation) and its associated practices drew upon interests of European foreign policy elites, including in voiding action at the national level” (Smith, 2011: 563). Despite the EU migration policy, the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) is considered as a policy area in which normally the States share common interests so there are chances for collective action to succeed. In this regard, since 2015 the EU has launched some legal measures such as the 2016 Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy in which migration and displacement are included and considered as security challenges (Anholt, Sinatti, 2019).

This article argues that, in some cases, some policy areas with a low degree of integration, such as the migration and asylum area (see Caballero Vélez, Pachocka, 2020), are “transferred” to others with more capacity of cooperation at the EU level, such as the CSDP. Nevertheless, in this research, it is studied to what extent migration has been securitized in the EU foreign policy. Accordingly, “the external effects of EU policies may be the result of intentional action on the part of the EU and its Member States, or they may be unintended consequences of other intentional activities” (Lavenex, Uçarer, 2004: 420). In our case, the EU’s attempts to face up with the 2015 refugee crisis led to migration policy spillovers to the external dimension.

The research framework is based on a frame analysis of the speeches of the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy before and after 2015. The following sections bring two main contributions to the literature: 1) it shows how migration is perceived as part of the CSDP due to its perception of security; and 2) how collective action is enhanced in the CSDP area in migration issues.

The securitization of migration in the EU

The 2015 EU refugee crisis

Only by the end of 2015, more than a million asylum seekers had arrived at the shores of Italy and Greece. More than three thousand died during the dangerous voyage, despite the best rescue efforts of Frontex and the coastal services (IOM, 2016). Many experts consider this unprecedented refugee crisis as the most serious challenge to Europe in the post-war period (Harding, Oltermann, Watt, 2015).

In order to address the influx of migrants and combat irregular migration, the EU implemented different external measures aimed at reducing the number of irregular border crossings of the Mediterranean leading to a large number of people’s deaths, such as management and control of the external borders, cooperation with third countries, use of technology, sanctions applied to migrant carriers, and also internal ones carried out after the entry of immigrants into the territory of an EU country, for instance, sanctions applied to employers of irregular migrants. Nevertheless, the experts have widely criticized the actions of the EU and its Member States’ leaderships because of their inability to assess the scale of the ongoing crisis in time, to develop a strategic approach to its settlement, and to overcome the disagreements between EU institutions and the Member States regarding the distribution of responsibility, including financial one, to receive asylum seekers and refugees (Papademetriou, 2015). On 13 May 2015, the European Commission presented the European Agenda on Migration (European Commission, 2015a), a political program document that contained priority tasks and a number of immediate actions for the European Union in the field of regulating migration flows, relocation and resettlement, strengthening the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and protecting the external borders. It is worth noticing that this document was announced by the first vice-president of the Commission, Franz Timmermans, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and the vice-president of the Commission, Federica Mogherini, and the third to speak was Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU Commissioner for migration (previously the Greek Minister for Defence and Foreign Affairs). This order of speakers demonstrated the intention of the EU leadership to solve the crisis by using both instruments of migration policy and foreign policy means. In fact, from the very beginning of the migration crisis and the development of the European Agenda on Migration, Federica Mogherini insisted on the use of foreign policy instruments for its settlement. This position of the EU was reaffirmed during the G20 summit in November 2015, when the G20 leaders stated that the scale of the current refugee crisis is a global problem with serious humanitarian, political, social, and economic consequences (G20 Leaders…, 2015; European Commission, 2015e).

Thus, the EU States have faced a new challenge consisting of the need for equal distribution between all the EU countries of the flow of illegal migrants seeking international protection in the EU. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her interview in August 2015, “the asylum issue could be the next major European project” (Nougayrede, 2015). In order to alleviate the pressure on the frontline Member States, the European Commission proposed to activate the emergency response mechanism under Art. 78.3 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU for the first time. There were made two emergency proposals: in May 2015, the Commission proposed to relocate 40,000 people from Italy and Greece over two years (European Commission, 2015b) and in September, as the migratory situation in the Central and Eastern Mediterranean had intensified, the Commission proposed to relocate 120,000 people from Italy, Greece, and Hungary over two years (European Commission, 2015c). Consequently, in relation to the first proposal on 14 September, 2015 there was adopted Council Decision 2015/1523, establishing provisional measures in the area of international protection for the benefit of Italy and of Greece, applying to a total of 40,000 persons in need of international protection, arrived in Italy or Greece after 15 April 2015 (Council Decision…, 2015a). After this agreement was adopted, the influx of asylum seekers continued to increase. Thus, it was necessary to activate a new emergency mechanism to alleviate pressure faced in frontline countries. In relation to the proposal of the Commission for a second emergency mechanism aimed to relocate further 120,000 asylum seekers from Italy, Greece, and Hungary, on 22 September 2015, the EU Council adopted Decision 2015/1601, applicable until 26 September 2017 (Council Decision…, 2015b) despite the fact that Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, and the Czech Republic voted against. In the course of the adoption of the document, Hungary also refused to be included as a beneficiary of the relocation scheme.

Trying to prevent irregular migration flows to the Member States, the EU has also strengthened cooperation with Turkey by stipulating a Joint Action Plan, which provided for readmission of irregular migrants coming from the Turkish territory and not applying for asylum (European Commission, 2015d). The EU-Turkey cooperation continued with a statement in which the parties agreed that irregular migrants arriving in Greece from Turkey would be returned to Turkey, and for every Syrian migrant being returned to Turkey, another Syrian would be resettled directly to the EU (Council of the European Union, 2016). Also, the Turkish authorities took over to block the channels of smuggling and illegal transportation of people to Europe. For its part, the EU agreed to pay compensation to Turkey, expedite the abolition of visas for Turkish citizens entering the Schengen area, and reactivate Turkey’s stalled EU accession negotiations. Anyway, this agreement by no means strengthened solidarity within the EU: the existing contradictions only intensified. It was also widely criticized for the difficulty to fulfill the obligations, and for the fact that is making the accordance on the return to Turkey of irregular migrants seeking asylum, the EU moves away from the compliance with international conventions on refugee rights signed by European countries.

The securitization of migration after 2015

In order to improve the effectiveness of the defense and security of the Union and its Member States, the protection of civilians, and management of migration and crises, on 28 June 2016 the EU adopted the Global strategy for the foreign and security policy (EUGS), which replaced the European Security Strategy of 2003 (EEAS, 2016). The document demonstrates a significant reorientation of the CSDP towards countering “new challenges and threats.” In these circumstances, the intention to use the CSDP to counter the influx of irregular migrants, outlined in the EUGS, requires the deployment of missions of a new type: those on large territories crossing state borders, combining hard power with humanitarian measures that involve interaction with other EU services. Against the background of recent trends, the distinction between internal and external security is blurring, which may also affect the instruments of the general security and defense policy. For example, it is likely that the military means available to the CSDP will be used to solve non-military tasks, as it was in the case of the EU operation in the Mediterranean Sea, EUNAVFOR MED (Sofia), launched in May 2015, which was aimed to combat the irregular transport of migrants to Europe by using warships to counter irregular migrant carriers (Fedorov, 2017).

In November 2016, the EU Council presented the Implementation Plan of the Global Strategy in the field of security and defense (Council of the European Union, 2016b), which defined three main tasks in relation to the CSDP: response to external conflicts and crises, strengthening the security capacity of EU partners, protection of the Union and its citizens. As an example, in relation to the migration crisis, the EU launched the military operation EUNAVFOR MED (Sofia), the civilian mission European Union Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM) in order to strengthen the border control capacity of the new Libyan authorities, and the ultimate goal of actions aimed at solving the migration crisis was the protection of EU citizens from threats associated with the irregular influx of people, including extremism and terrorism. Thus, the crisis management activity of the EU appears as a broad concept, including not only “classic” conflicts but also emergency situations associated with new challenges and threats (Fedorov, 2017). Considering the blurring of the distinction between internal and external security (Pachocka, Vizvizi, 2018), the Implementation Plan also emphasized the need to enhance the coordination of the CSDP instruments with the EU units operating on its territory and around.

Over the past few years, one of the main challenges for the EU has become the problem of overcoming the consequences of the migration crisis of 2015, which affected most of the EU Member States. The increased frequency of terrorist attacks, the creation of new ghetto neighborhoods, the growing popularity of right-wing parties demonstrates the importance of the problem of overcoming the consequences of the migration crisis in the EU. The development of security discourses and policies in the area of migration is often presented as an inevitable policy response to the challenges for public order and domestic stability of the increases in the number of (irregular) migrants and asylum-seekers (Lodge, 1993; Huysmans, 2000). In fact, at the EU-level debate, migration has been associated with threats and challenges to security (Pachocka, Vizvizi, 2018). As Gattinara and Morales (2017: 275) states: “in the last decades, debates on immigration addressed border control issues and focused on the perceived connections between security, criminality, and immigration. Immigration became more than an issue solely associated with the labor market and social integration and came to be identified as a crucial part of national security agendas of receiving countries.”

Ineffective actions of the EU in settlement of the migration crisis have led to the fact that European countries began to discuss the issue of the future of Schengen and the EU itself. Especially, it was already evident in 2015, when the United Kingdom demanded to reform the EU, including the limitation of migration flows (Watt, 2015). The growing dissatisfaction of Europeans with the influx of refugees and the ineffectiveness of the migration policy pursued by the governments of European countries are changing the balance of political forces in European states. The popularity of extreme right-wing and nationalist parties is growing almost everywhere, and, in some countries, they have already replaced the ruling parties. This is an alarming trend that can lead to a dramatic change in the political climate in Europe. Therefore, the European Union perceives the refugee problem as a serious international challenge and a direct threat to the security of its Member States. To resolve the acute migration crisis and its consequences, the EU follows the path of improving and creating new institutions for managing the migration crisis, expanding the cross-regional dialogue on migration in the Mediterranean, Africa, and the Middle East. Perceiving irregular migration as a security threat, the EU securitizes its migration policy and transfers it to the CSDP domain.

Migration and the European foreign policy

The external dimension of the EU migration policy: The “foreignization” process

Migration and asylum in the EU have historically had a domestic focus rather than an external one. The development of an integrated CEAS has had as a goal, a common asylum system, by which a common asylum system in the EU may be guaranteed. In this case, it is important to point out areas such as the Schengen Agreement. The European Security Strategy (ESS) (Council of Europe, 2003) was launched in 2003 with the purpose of establishing goals and principles in the EU foreign and defense policy. The ESS has a clear external dimension as many of its purposes and goals were related to the EU external action area. Nevertheless, migration was not considered as a main key in the ESS, so one may argue that in that period, it was not part of the EU external dimension.

In the framework of the 2015 refugee crisis, some Member States perceived the massive influx of migrants as a security threat. In this context, not a common EU response to manage the situation as agreed and, consequently, specific national measures, such as an increase in border control, were set up. Accordingly, the EU implemented measures to control external borders and migration flows (European Council, 2020).

During the 2015 refugee crisis, the Member States could not reach strong agreements on refugees´ relocation, even with the EU attempting to launch several measures towards a more integrated CEAS. One of the core elements for this was the re-conceptualization of migration as a security threat. In this situation, cooperation was not reached, leading to a collective action failure scenario. In order to solve this, in the framework of the crisis, a process of “foreignization” of the migration policy took place. By “foreignization”, this article means the process of transferring the migration policy to the EU foreign and security domain to overcome the problem of collective action failure. As far as the Member States perceived the refugee crisis as a security issue, a common solution at the domestic dimension of the migration and asylum policy could not have been reached. To this extent, the EU considered the “security dimension” of migration as a core element to take a common action among the Member States.

The process of “foreignization” may be seen in two major EU legal measures explained in the previous sections: a) the European Agenda on Migration, and b) the 2016 EU Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy. In both measures, the security nature of migration is outlined; in addition, it is shown how to face up challenges such as the 2015 refugee crisis.

a)European Agenda of Migration: migration becomes a component of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) that is part of the external action of the EU. Accordingly, border management is strengthened by deploying some missions in countries such as Niger and Mali. One of the main purposes will be addressing the causes of irregular migration and the protection of people in need.

b)2016 EU Global Strategy for Foreign and Security Policy (EUGS): in the case of the EUGS, migration and displacement are taken as key security challenges (Anholt, Sinatti, 2019). When it comes to migration, one of the main EUGS attempts is to address the “roots” of migration, and especially to work with origin and transit countries of migrants and refugees.

Due to the perception of migration as a security issue, migration is taken as a foreign challenge. If migration is considered as an area of the Common Security and Defence Policy (CDSP) (a well-integrated policy), the Member States will be less likely to have divergences and more likely to find a common solution. In order to provide a common response to the migration challenges after the 2015 refugee crisis, the EU has transferred migration to the foreign and external action area.

Collective action failure in the EU migration policy
and policy transfer

In the international relations arena, in order to understand to what extent states may cooperate in a certain field, collective action literature has been provided as being very useful. In this regard, from a realist perspective, states depend on their own behavior, which is to say, states’ own incentives in cooperating will depend on the perceived benefits and costs of their pursuing a certain action. Based on the same rational behavior, the group size paradox refers to the importance of a group size in order to provide the public good, as Olson (1965: 36) clearly postulates: “The most important single point about small groups… is that they may be very well able to provide themselves with a collective good simply because of the attraction of the collective good to the individual members. In this, smaller groups differ from larger ones. The larger a group is, the farther it will fall short of obtaining an optimal supply of any collective good, and the less likely that it will act to obtain even a minimal amount of such a good. In short, the larger the group, the less it will further its common interests.”

According to the group size premise, collective action failure or, in other words, “the under-provision of the public good,” is likely to happen when the group size is larger than:

a)Individuals will receive fewer benefits.

b)There are more actors, so the probability of free-riding increases.

In order to explain collective action failure, scholars have been focused on a rational choice model, especially in a maximizing benefits/minimizing costs calculus.

If we consider the EU as a group of states, one may argue that with the process of enlargement in the past decades (as the number of Member States have increased), it has been more difficult to find common solutions to some problems. In the case of the migration and asylum policy (as mentioned in the above sections), some states from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) such as Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have been reluctant to cooperate at the EU level (see Caballero Vélez, Pachocka, 2019, 2020). If we take into consideration the group size paradox as a model to explain collective action failure, one may argue that the 2004 process of enlargement by which these countries became part of the EU has led to difficulties in finding common solutions in some policy domains. In this context, the bigger the group is, the less likely it is to find a common solution as Members’ preferences differ.

In this paper, it is argued that collective action problems in some specific fields may lead to the “transfer” of a policy domain to another one, in which collective action is more likely to happen. When it comes to the policy transfer, “studies on policy transfer distinguish between the transfer of general principles guiding the exercise of a policy, norms, specific policy instruments, policy programs, procedures, and institutional transfer involving, for example, the creation of specialized administrative agencies dealing with asylum and immigration” (Dolowitz, Marsh, 2000, as cited in Lavenex, Uçarer, 2004: 420). Thus, Lavenex and Uçarer (2004: 420–421) distinguish four forms of policy adaptation and transfer:

•Adaptation through unilateral emulation.

•Adaptation through externalities.

•Two forms of the policy transfer through conditionality, one where the changes fit the domestic interests, and one when the latter occur under pressure.

For the first two modalities, “the transfer process is a result of adaptation initiated by a third party to a set of existing or evolving policies, although no formalized requirement exists to do so. Such might be the case when alignment occurs with the EU because this is seen to be in the domestic interest and to make it possible to tackle existing problems more efficiently” (Lavenex, Uçarer, 2004: 420–421). This would be the case of the EU migration policy transfer to the foreign and defense area).

Analysis

Research design and analysis

Methodology and the case study

To analyze how migration is perceived as a security issue in the EU foreign policy, a content analysis based on word frequency has been used. Based on Habermas’ utilitarian frame “security” (1993), in order to assess the frame, a word list has been created on the basis of the hypotheses. Therefore, the frequency of the specific words will allow determining the degree of the security frame used in the EU parliamentary speeches.

In order to provide a correlation between security and the process of “foreignization” of migration, European Parliament speeches from the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy have been selected. In this paper, we seek to analyze the externalization process of the EU migration policy to the EU foreign policy. Accordingly, we argue that the CFSP and CDSP are domains within the European External Action Service (EEAS), so the analysis will be focused on the High Representatives before and after the 2015 refugee crisis.

Discourse selection and frame

To assess whether migration as a security issue is on the foreign policy narratives, we compare HRs speeches in the European Parliament, especially speeches correlated with EU-neighboring countries relations. Accordingly, by counting specific words related to the security frame, we expect to see how, after 2015, migration is considered a security issue and, consequently, part of the external dimension of the EU. Therefore, the 2015 refugee crisis is taken as a core event that changes the paradigm of migration from the internal to the external dimension. In order to analyze how security has been the key element for this change, we choose eight parliamentary debates (see the Annex) from HRs: Catherine Ashton (before 2015) and Federica Mogherini (after 2015).

For Helbling (2014: 24), on the migration field of study, “utilitarian frames are those used to justify a position based on whether that position may help an actor attain a specific goal or defend a particular interest.” One of the utilitarian frames sued by Habermas (1993) is security. Accordingly, the security frame refers to arguments such as internal and external security.

We argue that, in order to reach more cooperation among the Member States (final goal) and provide collective action in the migration policy, security is used by the EU to transfer the migration policy to its external dimension. By doing it, the Member States are more likely to cooperate as the EU foreign policy is a much more integrated area where the Member States often reach common solutions. Therefore, for the analysis, the utilitarian frame of migration is used as the securitization of migration has as a goal its own “foreignization.”

Research questions and hypothesis

According to the literature review shown above about migration/security and collective action, the research question reads as follow:

R1: To what extent is migration perceived as a security issue in the EU after 2015? Consequently, the following hypothesis arises:

H1: Due to the 2015 refugee crisis, migration experiences a securitization process.

In order to assess this hypothesis, the analysis (Table 1) shows the word frequency of the security narratives from Catherine Ashton (HR from 2010 until 2014) and Federica Mogherini (HR from 2014 until 2019).

Table 1. Frequency results

Frame	External Action HRs discourses on the EP
Utilitarian (security)	Catherine Asthon (before 2015)	Federica Mogherini (after 2015)
Illegal migrant(s)	1	0
Terrorism/terrorists	1	4
Organized crime	0	1
Smuggling/smugglers	1	8
Border control/border/borders/control	0	12
Threat	0	3
Security	0	20
Detention	0	10
Trafficking/trafficker(s)	1	12
Criminal organization	0	4
Total	4	74

Source: own elaboration.

Results

In Table 2, one may argue that hypothesis 1 is assessed by confirming that after 2015 migration has suffered from a securitization in its narrative.

Table 2. Findings

	EU foreign policy	Non-EU foreign policy
HRs	Security narrative	Non-security narrative
Catherine Ashton	no	yes
Federica Mogherini	yes	no

Source: own elaboration.

On the one hand, before 2015, the EU migration policy was not determined by a security narrative, as we can see in the above analysis, Asthon’s speeches related to foreign policy and neighboring countries, migration was not a key issue, in addition, a minimum number of words related with security were counted. On the other hand, after 2015, one may see how present migration has been in the HR of the EU foreign policy. Not only has migration been considered an essential element for foreign policy since the 2015 refugee crisis, but also as a security issue.

Having specified this, one may argue that, in the case of the EU migration policy, as in the 2015 refugee crisis, there was a situation of collective action failure, a policy transfer to the EU foreign domain was made. Nevertheless, in order to assess this assumption, further analysis and research should be done. This analysis provides some insights about how migration is considered a security issue in the EU foreign policy after 2015. Nevertheless, more research is needed to determine to what extent, in order to overcome a situation of collective action failure, security has played a determinant role in this policy transfer process.

Conclusion

The security issue related to migration and its regulation in the European Union had already risen by 2000, but after the refugee crisis which affected European countries in 2015, this question became one of the most important in the European Agenda. This research showed how the EU activity in the field of migration assumed an external dimension and then has been transferred to a common security and defense domain.

The migration crisis clearly demonstrated the collective action failure and incapacity of the EU Member States to cooperate on this thorny issue, which combines different problems necessary to be solved, compliance to the international reception standards for asylum-seekers and their integration, addressing illegal migration and national security issues, combating people’s smuggling, etc.

Of particular concern is, however, a tendency towards externalization of migration and asylum issues, which is possible because, in this domain, collective action is not reached properly in its domestic dimension. Thus, it could be transferred to another policy domain in which a common solidarity response is more likely to happen. One of the core elements in this process was the re-conceptualization of migration as a security threat.

Following these assumptions, we argue that the EU migration policy has suffered from a “foreignization” process to reach a common consensus among the Member States. Future research analyzing which variables may play a crucial role in the degree of “foreignization” would be necessary to understand better this transfer from one policy domain to another. Accordingly, some independent variables might be nationalism, populism, cultural diversity, etc.

Not only has this research shed light on the externalization process of the EU migration policy but also it has shown how, if collective action is not successful in one policy domain, it may be “transferred” to another more integrated policy area. Nevertheless, this article does not attempt to explain the EU migration policy transfer to the external dimension but to give some insights about to what extent security may have led to the externalization process of the EU migration policy. Future research should be focused on collective action failure and policy transfer, and in the case of the EU migration policy, analyze security as a key element in this transfer.

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Annex

Table 1. List of European parliamentary debates Catherine Ashton (before 2015)

Date	Title of the parliamentary debate	Source
19 January 2010	Situation in Yemen (debate)	https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+CRE+20100119+ ITEM-006+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language =EN&query=INTERV&detail=2-093
9 March 2011	Southern Neighborhood, and Libya in particular, including humanitarian aspects (debate)	https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+CRE+20110309+ ITEM-006+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language =EN&query=INTERV&detail=3-014-000
11 September 2012	Main aspects and basic choices of the common foreign and security policy and the common security and defense policy (Article 36 TEU) – Annual report from the Council to the European Parliament on the common foreign and security policy (debate)	https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+CRE+20120911+ ITEM-016+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language =EN&query=INTERV&detail=2-527-000
11 September 2012	Main aspects and basic choices of the common foreign and security policy and the common security and defense policy (Article 36 TEU) – Annual report from the Council to the European Parliament on the common foreign and security policy (debate)	https://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+CRE+20120911+ ITEM-016+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language =EN&query=INTERV&detail=2-573-000

Source: own elaboration.

Table 2. List of European parliamentary debates Federica Mogherini (after 2015)

Date	Title of the parliamentary debate	Source
11 March 2015	Unstable situation in Libya and its consequences (debate)	https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/ document/CRE-8-2015-03-11-INT-3-703-000_EN.html
9 September 2015	Migration and refugees in Europe (debate)	https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/ document/CRE-8-2015-09-09-INT-3-087-0000_ EN.html
1 February 2017	Managing migration along the Central Mediterranean Route (debate)	https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/ document/CRE-8-2017-02-01-INT-1-129-0000_EN.html
12 September 2017	Recent developments in migration (debate)	https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/ document/CRE-8-2017-09-12-INT-2-588-0000_EN.html

Source: own elaboration.

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