UNITED IN SECURITIZATION A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Development of the EU’s New Pact of Migration and Asylum

Abstract

This study aims to research the development of the European Union’s (EU) latest migration and asylum policy, the New Pact on Migration and Asylum (NPMA), in order to evaluate the discursive events that perpetuate narratives of securitization throughout the policy development process. Common European migration and asylum policies have undergone many revisions and amendments since being introduced at the start of the twenty-first century. The high rate of policy reforms in this area is concurrent with the general securitization of migration throughout EU Member States. Consequently, the NPMA proposal and subsequent discussion, have featured narratives portraying migration as a security threat for the EU. Utilizing the theory of spiralling securitization, an ontological approach is used to understand the social construction of the narratives that either construct or deconstruct migrations as a threat. In order to analyse these narratives within the different documents related to the development of the NPMA, Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis method is utilized. Through the analysis of policy documents and press releases findings highlight the general presence of securitizing narratives throughout the development of the NPMA. The EU’s framing of irregular migration as a threat to national order and security result in regulations and directives that might undermines the right of asylum by discursively illegitimizing claims for refugee status.