Paper short abstract:

The paper will examine EU’s refugee policy, demonstrating how hotspots might actually lead to radicalisation and militarisation of refugees. By adopting a security oriented approach, the aim of the paper is to show that the securitisation of refugee policy increases in fact long-term insecurity.

Paper long abstract:

Since 2011, the Mediterranean has become EU's ultimate frontier against the turmoil in its southern neighbourhood. A growing flow of refugees and migrants risk death to reach Europe, yet they keep banging on the wall of a 'Fortress Europe', amidst increasing securitisation of the debate around migration. The contradiction between the gradual erasure of borders within the EU and the fortification and securitisation of its outer frontier has generated a two-tier policy that draws a second 'invisible' (front)line in the European South. As EU moves towards creating hotspots in first-entry countries in European South, the latter increasingly become a 'first line defence' against 'unwanted intruders'.

EU policy raises several issues of humanitarian, legal and institutional nature. However, this paper will employ the same security-oriented arguments, that EU promotes, to showcase the non-viability of this policy. Taking into account the size of the migrant flow and the fact that less than 50% of the decisions on asylum are positive at first instance, the hotspots will largely resemble refugee camps and refugee-camp dynamics are expected to develop in and around them. Drawing on refugee (camp) militarization literature, the paper will examine the characteristics of the refugee population, the state capacity of the host countries, the living conditions in and around the hotspots and the tensions with host communities. Under these conditions of confinement and hostility, radicalization and militarisation is certain to ensue, leading to the same insecurity that EU strives to avoid.