Crossing the Border: The Connection Between EU Defense and Humanitarian Policy Leading Up-to and During the European Refugee Crisis.

Abstract

This thesis investigates the overlap of EU defense and humanitarian policy prior to and during the European Refugee Crisis beginning in 2011. It uses a historical lens to determine whether the EU has attempted to establish federative authority over issues of defense and immigration and to what extent policy has come to fruition on the ground. It also seeks shed light on the influence that outside organizations, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in specific, have had in determining the establishment of federative EU capabilities. I also compare the different responses of three EU border countries to the influx of refugees during the European Refugee Crisis and seek to determine whether these responses were impacted by EU federative capabilities, or whether these responses would have occurred even without greater assistance from the EU. This research determined that the EU has for decades attempted to establish its own defense force that would exist separately from, while operating in conjunction with, NATO capabilities. Given NATO’s lack of interest in responding with substantial force during the crisis, an EU force could have been used to ensure ample assistance to countries facing overwhelming immigration and would have ensured greater compliance with EU immigration and asylum policy. I sought to determine the impact of the EU’s insufficient resource coordination on the responses of individual nations, and what impact the individual responses had on the status of refugees and EU policy. My research found that individual states reacted to a lack of assistance from the EU by implementing their own policies often in violation of EU law and that the EU has responded by attempting to implement further federative policies.