Migration to the EU: The Securitisation of Migration Discourse

Migration has become one of the most important issues in the current EU policy. There can be identified different approaches to migration within the European Parliament. Migration is subjectively presented by representatives of different ideologies and serves as a tool for political mobilisation. This bachelor‘s thesis examines the migration discourse in the European Parliament at the level of political groups. The main objective is to determine the degree of securitisation of migration discourse among different groups of the European Parliament and to identify forms of securitisation within the migration debate. The research questions were defined as to what extent is the migration discourse securitised by the different parlamentary groups and what specific forms of migration discourse securitisation are used by these groups in the migration debate. The theoretical framework for the research is based on the securitisation theory, which enables us to understand and explore how certain topics are constructed as threats. The research applies discourse analysis, focusing on the EU Parliament's electoral cycle between 2019 and 2024. The text is structured according to three analytical criteria, concretely 1. the language and framing of migration, 2. the forms of migration and approaches to migration policy, and 3. ideological differences between political groups. The thesis contibutes to the identification of connection between political discourse, ideology and the enforcement of specific migration policies at the EU level.