Introduction: From Crisis to Critique

This Forum aims to uncover the socio-politics of the ‘migration crisis’ in the Mediterranean. The contributions explore the idea of the ‘migration crisis’ or ‘refugee crisis’ in the Mediterranean from the starting point that as scholars of the Mediterranean we can do two things: one, we can look at the way crisis introduces processes of bordering to our analysis, limiting our gaze and analytical curiosity to a specific space and a specific time; or two, we can take these limits as an opportunity to explore the wider socio-politics, geographies and economies that contribute to producing this so-called ‘crisis’ and in turn what socio-politics, geographies and economies are produced and their implications.

What is currently being debated as the Mediterranean ‘refugee crisis’ has been in the making for a long time. Portraying the latest developments by reducing them to an ‘influx’ of refugees into ‘Europe’ does not allow us to understand the crux of the problem: persistent insecurities in the Mediterranean. This es-say traces the evolution of EC/EU policies toward the Mediterranean, suggest-ing that if the EU’s attempts at practicing common security vis-à-vis the Medi-terranean failed, this was not because the model is not fit for a different geog-raphy occupied by a different ‘culture’, but because the model was not applied fully in the Mediterranean context. Put differently, what we are currently expe-riencing is not a ‘refugee crisis’ but the culmination of a series of policy choic-es by EC/EU policy-makers and their authoritarian Mediterranean partners.

Mediterranean Politics

The current ‘migration crisis’ is framed as a moment of reckoning in the EU’s dealings with its Mediterranean neighbourhood. Yet to what extent is crisis the most useful tool to account for migration and European border control practices in the current context? An exclusive focus on crisis, we argue, is misleading. To a large extent, the current crisis management builds on pre-existing practices and enables their consolidation. For us this is an invitation to discuss the relation between crisis, routine and consolidation in Euro-Mediterranean migration policies and practices. This intervention shows how ‘crises’ are spatio-temporally limited and used to further pre-existing migration control practices and techniques of governing. As such we interrogate what it means to talk of crisis versus routine in the field of Mediterranean security practices.

Create legal entry points into the EU and start recruiting labour through EU embassies in Africa. But don’t forget to take into account the individual aspirations and capabilities of the migrants. Here are some recommendations for policy makers seeking a solution to the Mediterranean crisis.

2017

International conflicts and instabilities in Middle East, Central Asia and Northern African countries have involved a high human cost in terms of refugee crises and the displacement of people both in these areas and beyond. These situations, combined with the hardening of border policies of States worldwide and in Europe, in particular, have left no other options to persons than embarking on perilous journeys across the vast Mediterranean region by both land and sea. This policy report aims to contribute evidence-based findings to suggest to governments more constructive ways of dealing with these migratory crises. In actual fact, some of the challenges that States perceive when identifying the strategies to manage the situation seem to be based on obsoleted ideas concerning our societies. These could indeed be much more inclusive towards newcomers than what political and legal frameworks have actually allowed until now.

Far from the 'space of mobility' once described by Fernand Braudel, the Mediterranean has become a 'space of crisis' where migrants and refugees risk their lives to reach Europe. The crisis narrative however is oblivious of the fact that the Mediterranean has always been a region of migration. This chapter shows that previous policies have built irregularity as a defining feature of the Mediterranean migratory regime. The securitization and the externalization of EU migration policies in the region have contributed to crystalizing this feature. The chapter also emphasizes that in the post-Arab uprisings period, EU policy continues to be risk averse.

This intervention traces how Europe is being (re-)produced through 'crises' on three scales. Firstly, at the level of national territory, looking at the crisis-ridden Greek state. Secondly, through everyday border practices on the island of Lesbos and, finally, in the Mediterranean that acts as Europe's primary locus for its aggregate (and often experimental) bordering practices.

RUDN Journal of Sociology, 2019

The European Union (EU) throughout its history has been the destination of diverse migratory flows. Therefore, migration has acquired special relevance by occupying a prominent position on the EU’s political, economic, cultural, and social agenda. The most recent migration crisis of 2015 represents a multidimensional challenge with severe consequences that affect, first, the institutional foundations of the EU (governance, security, solidarity of member states and institutional stability) and, second, the migratory policies of receiving states and the EU itself. This crisis is characterized, first, by the high number of illegal migrants that cross the Mediterranean, and, second, by the humanitarian tragedy and insecurity, which make the sea a grey area and an international reference in the migratory processes. The migration-security equation became a field of applied research and analysis, and at the same time a focus of political debate and public opinion. The article aims at analysing the crisis of 2015 and its consequences, which is done by means of the methodological approach based on the consequences that this phenomenon entails for the EU and for certain member states. The response of the EU is limited primarily to securitization by strengthening the external borders, turning towards internal security rather than respecting international and Community Treaties and promotion of their values, which contradicts the anticipated leadership of this global actor. The authors believe that it is necessary to implement new mechanisms in addition to ensuring greater effectiveness of the existing ones.

Connections: The Quarterly Journal, 2004