This book fills a significant lacuna in our understanding of the refugee crisis by analyzing the dynamics that lie behind fifteen years of asylum policies in the European Union. It sheds light on why cooperation has led to reinforced refugee protection on paper but has failed to provide it in practice. Offering innovative empirical, theoretical and methodological research on this crucial topic, it argues that the different asylum systems and priorities of the various Member States explain the EU's lack of initiative in responding to this humanitarian emergency. The author demonstrates that the strong regulators of North-Western Europe have used their powerful bargaining positions to shape EU asylum policies decisively, which has allowed them to impose their will on Member States in South-Eastern Europe. These latter countries, having barely made a mark on EU policies, are now facing significant difficulties in implementing them. The EU will only identify potential solutions to the crisis, the author concludes, when it takes these disparities into account and establishes a functioning common refugee policy. This novel work will appeal to students and scholars of politics, immigration and asylum in the EU.

Integrating insights from foreign policy analysis, integration theory, and social theory and providing an in-depth analysis of both refugee and security policy, the book develops an innovative framework for analysis that is capable of accounting for an incremental 'de-Europeanization' in Germany's EU policy.

International migration is one of the most controversial political topics today which demands innovative approaches of global and regional governance. The book provides a fresh theoretical framework to understand European responses to the international migration of people and explains the dynamics of Germany’s migration and refugee policy during the last two decades. Against traditional theories and their inherent focus on the national political sphere, the book highlights supranational and multi-level political processes as increasingly important factors to account for national policy changes. Confronted with the most recent developments of international migration, the study offers students and practitioners the necessary background to participate in today’s debates.

This book discusses the domestic politics of treaty reform in the European Union, from the failed referendums on the Constitutional Treaty held in France and the Netherlands in May-June 2005 to the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon in December 2009. The chapters, written by some of the finest scholars in the field of EU/European politics, show how European integration has increasingly become a contested issue in a majority of Member States. Going beyond the view that national governments are the main, if not the sole, driving force in the process of European integration, this book shows that other actors and factors have played a central role in preference formation and inter-state bargaining. These include: political parties, public opinion, the media, presidents, constitutional courts and, more broadly, political systems, ratification hurdles and the general negotiation context. National Politics and European Integration combines empirical analysis and theoretical explanations for one of the most controversial periods in the history of the European Union. This important book will be of great interest for advanced students in EU studies, comparative politics and public policy.

Europe is currently experiencing a migration crisis, demonstrated by millions of displaced people unseen since World War II. This book examines the interface between extraterritorial border and migration controls taken by EU member states, and the rights asylum seekers acquire from EU law.Control measures such as the enforcement of visas, fines on carriers transporting unsatisfactorily documented migrants, and interception at sea are investigated in detail in an effort to assess the impact these measures have on access to asylum in the EU. The book also explores the rights recognisedby the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights to persons in need of international protection, inclusive of the principle of non-removal to a place of persecution, the prohibition of ill-treatment, the right to asylum, and the right to effective judicial protection.The fundamental focus of the book is the relationship between the aforementioned border and migration controls and the rights of asylum seekers, and importantly, how these rights limit the nature of such control measures and the ways in which they are implemented. The ultimate goal of the book is toconclude whether the current series of extraterritorial mechanisms or pre-entry vetting is compatible in EU law with the rights of refugees and forced migrants.

An unprecedented number of people is currently on the move seeking refuge in Europe. Large parts of European societies respond with anxiety and mistrust to the influx of people. Nationalist, anti-migrant parties from Slovakia over Germany to the UK have gained increasing support among the electorate and challenge the political mainstream. Europe is struggling how to respond. While the search for solutions is ongoing one pattern seems to be emerging: Fortress Europe is in the making. Unfortunately, few of these discussions and measures consider the structural root causes and dynamics of migration, the motives of migrants or societal challenges more thoroughly. This book seeks to address this deficit. Taking migration and asylum policies as a starting point, it analyses the various dimensions underpinning migration. In doing so, it identifies why receiving countries are in many ways part of the problem. To eschew an overtly Euro-centric perspective and stimulate a debate between science and politics, it contains contributions by academics and practitioners alike from both shores of the Mediterranean.

This study assesses the influence of German policy makers on EU policy and the impact of EU membership on foreign policy making at the national level. The book concludes that limitations remain on the Europeanization of German foreign and security policy and Germany's ability to play a leading role in military crisis management.