ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the role of expertise in the handling of the European refugee crisis. The background for this is the events of spring and early summer of 2015, when the EU and its member states were faced with an escalating refugee crisis. Foremost in the crisis register in a political sense are the difficulties EU institutions and member states face in seeking to solve the crisis, in both a short- and a long-term perspective. Member states are torn between different ways of managing asylum and migration issues and have chosen widely different strategies in the immediate physical, legal and political handling of the situation. Some bear a heavy burden in terms of being first-receiving countries of migrants, while others admit a disproportionate number of asylum seekers, and some refuse to even consider more supranational power that could be used to create a more “equitable” situation. Solidarity and (re-)distribution are needed in any coordinated and interdependent political system. Where collective decisions are taken, there is also a need for some policy of allocating and sharing burdens and costs of the policy provision. This requires the utilising of expertise that can provide relevant facts, analyses and projections on future developments as a basis for decision-making. Projections on migration flows, different categories of migrants and refugees, costs, the economic sustainability of arrangements, legal obligations as well as moral and ethical issues will all be issues of importance for the political process. While such policies ultimately need to be undertaken through the democratic process, in this chapter the aim is to understand more of the role of expertise in such crises, as well as the political “use” of expertise.
