CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Buyck, Stephanie |
|---|---|
| Title | EU Asylum Policy: a Balancing Act? |
| Summary | This thesis uses the observation of different representations of asylum seekers in EU documents as a starting point to examine, against the backdrop of the concept of normative power Europe and the evolution of the EU as a human rights actor, how the EU attempted to balance protective, normative ambitions with more protectionist, exclusionary policies in its handling of the 2015-2016 “refugee crisis”. It establishes that the categorization of individuals seeking international protection in discourse can be used as a strategic tool, for example through the use of a security-focused or humanitarian narrative. It also establishes that the ‘refugee crisis’ was in fact a governance crisis of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). A discourse analysis of EU documents concerning the European Border and Coast Guard indicates a shift from a humanitarian narrative to a more security-focused narrative, which could be explained as the result of a clash between normative ambitions and limitations expressed by the technical environment. The analysis further determines that in the discourse on the reform of the Reception Conditions Directive asylum seekers are often strategically depicted as a threat, except not in the traditional way, but rather as a threat to the functioning of the CEAS. It is established that the description of policy decisions that support adherence to fundamental rights not as an expression of the EU’s normative ambition, but rather as decisions to safeguard the functioning of the CEAS system could be considered an attempt by the Commission to adapt its discourse to its technical environment. |
| Supervisor | Nagy Boldizsár |
| Department | International Relations MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/buyck_stephanie.pdf |
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