ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book shows that the Europeanisation of refugee policies is characterised by a competition between two conflicting policy frames: the frame of human rights on the one hand and that of internal security on the other. In asylum and immigration policy, this transformation from an economic logic of cooperation to genuine political aspirations has gone along with the establishment of new forms of deliberation and policy-making, which differ from the traditional structure of Europeanisation based on the Community method. Coupled with pressure from the main refugee receiving countries, these factors have contributed to a securitisation of the asylum problem, which justifies a sort of regulatory competition among the member states for the most restrictive provisions. In a longitudinal perspective, the degree to which Europeanisation affected domestic policies was constrained by the intervening influence of domestic institutional and normative structures.
