The EU’s External Migration Management Agreements in (non-)Crisis : How the European Migration Crisis Impacted the EU’s Approach to External Migration Management Agreements

Sammanfattning: The European migration crisis of 2015-2016 exposed a number of issues with the EU’s internal system for migration management, the Common European Asylum System. As a result the EU looked beyond its own borders to deal with what they had framed as a crisis. Amongst its responses were a number of external migration management agreements with third countries. Most notable and controversial was the EU-Turkey Statement. It was heavily criticised for things that were not new in external migration management agreements. Therefore, this thesis looks into how external migration management agreements changed with the migration crisis. Understanding the crisis as a framed situation in which the EU acted differently than normal, I will look at an external migration management agreement made during non-crisis—the Mobility Partnership with Moldova—and compare it to the EU-Turkey Statement made in said crisis. The similarities between these agreements show that the crisis accelerated a number of processes that had been going on in external migration management in the EU for years: informalisation and increasing focus on security. The differences show that in crisis the EU makes agreements hastily and as a result can loose its leverage over its negotiation partner.