The New Pact on Migration and Asylum: Another Step in the EU Migration-Security Continuum or Preservation of the Status Quo?

Abstract

In 2020 the New Pact on Migration and Asylum was presented as a normalization of EU migration, asylum and border management policies in the EU, a much-needed reform which is supposed to strike a balance between security, solidarity and protection of human lives. The aim of this article is to investigate to what extent the proposed reform is changing the modes and trajectories of the securitization of migration in the EU. In doing so, it focuses on specific security logics promoted in the text, discussing how different iterations of security are strengthened and/or marginalized in the EU securitizing framework. Building on the approach of ‘securitization as the work of framing’, the article indicates that the pact has strengthened the risk-management and resilience-centred security logics while at the same time downplaying the role of humanitarianism. It also reveals a strong role for ‘exceptionality’ as a security logic, which has gained prominence especially in relation to crisis management and a wider application of militarized and robust measures.