Tackling the migrant wave: EU as a source and a manager of crisis

• Author: Fulvio Attinà
• Position: Professor of International Relations, University of Catania (attinaf@unict.it).
• Pages: 49-70

REDI, vol. 70 (2018), 2

TACKLING THE MIGRANT WAVE: EU AS A SOURCE

AND A MANAGER OF CRISIS

Fulvio aTTinà*

SUMARY: 1. INTRODUCTION.—2. THE DRIVERS OF THE PRESENT MIGRATION WAVE.—

3. EUROPE AS A SOURCE OF THE MIGRATION CRISIS.—4. THE EU IMMIGRATION

REGIME.—5. THE FIVE PHASES OF THE EU MANAGEMENT.—6. ASSESSMENT OF

THE EU MIGRATION CRISIS MANAGEMENT.—7. CONCLUSIONS.

1. INTRODUCTION

The domestic conditions of the countries of origin of the migrants are

generally assessed as the cause of migration. Ethnic violence, civil conflict,

political repression, bad governance, the corruption of the ruling class and

public servants, and, above all, the backward stage of the national economy

are seen as the undisputed causes of migration. The international sources

of migration, instead, draw little attention. The impact of the international

economic regimes, the role of international organisations and human rights

ideologies, and the synergic impact of these and other features of the world

system are understudied by the international studies community.

Migration broke in international studies and course books about 20 years

ago. A wave of authors, struck by the breaking of globalization in interna-

tional affairs, offered a chapter of their books to migration as one of the most

troubling issues of globalisation 1. Generally, the chapters informed about the

nature of migration and the increasing number of migrants. Recently, the

policies of the global institutions towards migration came to the front 2 but

these works have only a small impact on scholarship. Migration did not go

* Professor of International Relations, University of Catania (attinaf@unict.it).

1 See, for example, breTHerTon, c. and PonTon, G. (eds.), Global politics. An introduction, Oxford,

Blackwell, 1996; HeLd, d. and mcGrew, a., Global transformations. Politics, Economics and Culture,

Polity Press, 1999; snarr, m. T. and snarr, n. (eds.), Introducing global issues, Boulder, Lynne Rienner,

2002 and wHiTe, b., LiTTLe, r. and smiTH, m., (eds.), Issues in world politics, London, MacMillan, 1997.

2 aTTinà, f., The global political system, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011, and beeson, m.,

and bisLey, n. (eds.), Issues in 21st century world politics, Houndsmill, Palgrave MacMillan, 2014.

Revista Española de Derecho Internacional

Sección ESTUDIOS

Vol. 70/2, julio-diciembre 2018, Madrid, pp. 49-70

http://dx.doi.org/10.17103/redi.70.2.2018.1.02

© 2018 Asociación de Profesores

de Derecho Internacional

y Relaciones Internacionales

ISSN: 0034-9380; E-ISSN: 2387-1253

Recepción 2.4.2018, evaluaciones 16.4.2018 y 2.5.2018

50 FULVIO ATTINà

REDI, vol. 70 (2018), 2

on stage as a popular topic of research in international studies. It remains

mostly a topic studied by sociologists and demographers. The sources of the

increasing wave of migrants and the political response of state governments

and international organisations remains an understudied object. While the

governments of Europe, North America, and Australia frenetically deal with

migration 3, international law and politics scientists continue to be little con-

cerned with this issue.

In the early Nineties the community of the migration scientists did claim

that the age of migration was on, but only recently the phrase management

of the migration crisis became a great success in politics and the media. The

phrase points out the problem of responding to increasing migration and

curbing the negative impact in the inflow countries. The popular saying

advises that the immigrants arrive in waves to meaning that migration on

occasion turns into an unusual phenomenon. Indeed, migration is normal

because always the human beings use either to settle or migrate, and the mi-

grants use either to go and come back to their own country or to delocalize

themselves permanently in a foreign country. The phrase migration or mi-

grant wave means that migration turns to being unusual on occasion, i. e. on

some conditions a huge number of migrants, much larger than the usual one,

travel towards a definite area. There is reason to look for knowledge about

why a huge number of persons do so, why the routes of normal migration

become exceptionally crowded, and why a country or a group of countries

are the settlement place most sought by migrants. Similarly, the phrase age

of migration means that a set of conditions inexorably raise the size of the

migration flows for a long period of time or produce frequent waves of mi-

grants. Migration scientists divide the global and local or macro and micro

conditions they label as the causes, drivers, pressures, incentives, or sources

of migration. They offer evidence and theories about the causes that are men-

tioned later in this article, but at this moment, let’s go back to the migration

wave and migration crisis concepts and elucidate the linkage that exists be-

tween the referent objects of the two concepts since this linkage is at the core

of the analysis of the response of the EU political leaders and institutions to

the current flow of migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.

The policy-makers of the inflow countries respond to the migrant wave

by actions and rules aimed at getting through a situation that is not auto-

matically a crisis situation. The right allocation of resources to well-managed

policies of reception and integration will certainly reduce the negative effects

3 LiTTLe, a. and VauGHan-wiLLiams, n., «Stopping boats, saving lives, securing subjects: Human-

itarian borders in Europe and Australia», European Journal of International Relations, vol. 23, 2017,

num. 3, pp. 533-556; squire, V., Post/Humanitarian Border Politics Between Mexico and the US, Bas-

ingstoke and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; squire, V., «Governing migration through death in

Europe and the US: Identification, burial and the crisis of modern humanism», European Journal of

International Relations, vol. 23, 2017, num. 3, pp. 513-532, and wiLLiams, J. m, «From humanitarian

exceptionalism to contingent care: Care and enforcement at the humanitarian border», Political Geo-

graphy, vol. 47, 2015, pp. 11-20.