Migration, Security, and Externalization in the Mediterranean: EU–Türkiye Relations from the 2015 Crisis to the New Migration and Asylum Pact

Abstract

This study analyzes the transformation experienced by the European Union in the field of migration and asylum following 2015, within the Mediterranean context and through the cooperation established with Türkiye. The study discusses how the EU’s long-held discourse of a “Europe of norms and values” eroded under crisis conditions and was replaced by a security-based “Fortress Europe” approach. In the article, this transformation is treated not as a simple policy shift, but as a structural transformation in which the normative foundations of Mediterranean-centered migration governance have eroded and been rebuilt as a security-oriented governance regime. The study’s theoretical framework is constructed by combining Andrew Moravcsik’s theory of Liberal Intergovernmentalism (LI) with Ian Manners’s concept of Normative Power Europe. These two approaches provide a complementary analytical framework for explaining, on the one hand, how member states’ national interests shape EU policies during crises and, on the other, why the EU’s normative claims have become unsustainable in the Mediterranean context. The study seeks to answer the question: How did the 2015 migration crisis transform the EU’s normative identity within the Mediterranean context, and through which dynamics has this transformation reshaped EU–Türkiye relations? The article assesses EU–Türkiye cooperation, in particular, as a functional yet non-normative relationship defined by mutual interests rather than a normative partnership. Within this framework, Türkiye is positioned not merely as a “buffer state” but as a strategic hub with which the EU has established interdependent relationships in migration management. The study’s findings indicate that the 2015 migration crisis exposed the limits of the EU’s normative identity and paved the way for the emergence of new, more pragmatic, and multilayered cooperation models in the Mediterranean.