The struggle for coherence in EU migration governance (Il difficile percorso verso la coerenza nella governance Ue della migrazione)

Within the EU, there is currently an explicit struggle to articulate and render coherent a range of policies, narratives, definitions and processes for governing migration, and in particular for the insertion of new governing logics and relationships under the heading of ‘new immigration policy’. The struggle to assert a coherent governance regime in the field of migration involves combining different policy narratives, institutional assumptions and relationships within the EU, and between EU and member states. In this article we identify and evaluate the key, often contradictory narratives, mediated among the institutions and broader dynamics of EU policymaking: (human) rights, security, economic needs, and social integration. These discourses interact to construct a new, identifiable policy terrain, of European migration governance.