Nadia Petroni

The first efforts to cooperate in matters of asylum and migration at the European level can be mainly attributed to the mass inflow of asylum seekers during the late 1980s and early 1990s, following the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe. As an initial response to the […]

Irregular migration in the European Union (EU) dominates the current EU political agenda. It is also the top concern of European citizens, according to the latest Standard Eurobarometer (Spring 2019). EU member states, however, are not affected to the same degree, resulting in political friction with regard to how to deal with the challenges of […]

Since 2018, Italy and Malta have restricted access to their ports for NGO migrant rescue vessels. While both countries have faced criticism for this policy, it should be noted that since the 1990s, most EU member states have erected barriers along their borders to prevent irregular migration. There is, therefore, a degree of hypocrisy in […]

In September 2020, the European Commission published a new ‘Pact on Migration and Asylum’ aimed at addressing the issue of irregular migration in the EU. This article argues that the proposed measures will not help alleviate migration pressure on the EU’s southern member states. On 23 September 2020, the European Commission presented its much-awaited ‘New […]

Differing political cultures and migration traditions among EU member states have given rise to a variety of national policy approaches toward irregular migration. While in principle this diversity hinders agreement on common asylum and migration policies, EU member states are now increasingly converging toward more restrictive migration policies. National policy approaches are deeply rooted in […]