Failing forward in EU migration policy? EU integration after the 2015 asylum and migration crisis

By advancing integration through incomplete agreements, the European Union (EU) has created the very conditions for the emergence of crises, and this has, in turn, spurred on further agreements to deepen integration. Employing this theoretical lens, this article examines EU co-operation in asylum and migration that culminated in 2015 to determine whether crises are, in fact, integral to a cyclical process of EU integration rather than occasional events caused by external shocks. This is done by examining the failures and crises that emerged in migration and asylum policy up to 2015 and the agreements struck at EU level to address them. It is found that despite nominal action to address the weak monitoring mechanisms in use to date and incremental reinforcement of the constellation of institutions operating in this area, no solution has dealt with the critical lack of solidarity and absence of centralized institutions at the root of these issues.