Migration and Political Discourse: Comparing the Visegrad Group and European Union Institutional Narratives [védés előtt]

Abstract

Over the last decade, migration has been a significant topic of debate among European politicians, political parties, academics and journalists. With the mass arrival of third-country nationals to the European Union, many different arguments, proposals, and approaches to managing migration have emerged. The complex nature of the issue, coupled with the high influx of irregular arrivals, has led to intensified disagreements both within and between member states and the European Union's decision-making institutions. This study analyses the temporal and thematic alignment between the securitisation discourse of the Visegrad Group and major terrorist events and the following change in the EU-level discourse on the migration crisis, particularly the European Council, Council of the EU, and European Commission. In addition, the study evaluates the consistency of communication among European Union institutions. Furthermore, the study considers three interrelated frameworks to examine these dynamics: securitisation, agenda setting and the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF). Additionally, this study contributes to the academic literature by analysing the collective response of the Visegrad Group and the shift in the discourse of the European Council, Council of the EU and European Commission. Our analysis shows that the Visegrad Group's communication focused predominantly on security rather than humanitarian issues. Also, this study suggests that the high politics route offers a valuable framework for understanding how the securitisation narrative developed from the Visegrad Group to the European Union institutions during the migration crisis. Lastly, the European Council, Council of the EU, and European Commission demonstrated discursive alignment with the Visegrad Group's securitisation framing, particularly in late 2015 and autumn 2016.