ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the three policy fields together because they are closely linked within the EU acquis: migration policies influence who can cross EU external borders and border management policies serve as a prerequisite to be able to manage flows of different categories of migrants and asylum-seekers. It looks at opportunity as 'the external policy context' (Bretherton and Vogler 2006: 24) of the migration, asylum and border management domains. The EU's capability to act externally on migration, asylum and border management is implicitly defined in the Treaties, which posit the EU's general capacity to act externally in all policy areas 'if there is a treaty based internal objective and if external action is necessary to achieve that objective'. The chapter draws on some of the existing literature to argue that each of the three policies emerged due to the interplay between international and EU level developments. It examines the EU's actorness and external engagement in the management of migration flows.
