After the Storm: Learning from the EU response to the migration crisis
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Highlights
The European Union made real gains in crisis coordination after the 2015-16 crisis but still lacks permanent mechanisms to manage future emergencies—and risks losing the progress made.
- The 2015–16 migration and refugee crisis exposed critical EU response weaknesses: absence of timely data, unclear chains of command, difficulty translating funding into supplies, and over-reliance on informal networks and key individuals rather than permanent structures.
- Progress has been made in information sharing, coordination, and resource allocation—but gains risk being lost as officials move on without embedding ad hoc improvements into permanent mechanisms.
- Key recommendations include establishing a non-crisis migration coordination mechanism, appointing an EU migration coordinator, consolidating agency contingency planning, building early warning capacity, and creating greater financial flexibility.
- EU institutions risk squandering post-crisis progress if they cannot institutionalise lessons learned before the next emergency.
Much has changed since 2015, when irregular migration flows across the Mediterranean spiked, leaving EU and national policymakers scrambling to expand reception and registration capacity, coordinate aid and services, and manage onward movements across Europe. A great deal of learning and progress has taken place in areas such as information collection and sharing, coordination, leadership, and resourcing. Yet officials remain concerned that, should a new migration crisis arise, the European Union may still struggle to respond.
In late 2017, the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union commissioned MPI Europe to reflect on the formal and informal crisis-response mechanisms that have evolved in Europe since 2014. This report builds on that analysis, drawing on interviews and roundtable discussions with senior officials involved in EU and Member State responses to the 2015–16 crisis. It first traces the evolution of the crisis, before breaking down the strengths and weaknesses of the EU response.
And while “crises rarely look the same twice,” the authors note that “this does not mean governments cannot prepare for them.” Based on the lessons learned since 2014, they offer a range of recommendations for EU policymakers, including:
- Ways to ensure the European Union can switch smoothly between crisis and noncrisis mode, retaining the benefits of heightened coordination but without the urgency
- The appointment of a migration coordinator to help set clear operational priorities, delineate tasks, and signal when coordinated action is needed
- The introduction of greater flexibility into EU financial systems to ensure the European Union can quickly translate funding into critical supplies and services to support Member States affected by migration influxes.
In short, the European Union will need to build out sustainable, resilient mechanisms to manage future emergencies if it is to avoid squandering the progress that has been made in recent years.
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. How Did the European Union Respond to the 2015–16 Crisis?
Five Phases of "Crisis" Response
III. The Strengths and Weaknesses of EU Crisis Response
A. Making Sense of Crisis (Information and Early Warning)
B. Coordination
C. Legitimacy and Accountability
D. Resource Allocation
IV. Conclusions and Recommendations
A. Ensuring Sustainability
B. Readiness
C. Institutionalizing Coordination
D. Closing Observations
About the Moving Europe Beyond Crisis Project
As the systems designed to process migration flows to Europe buckled in 2015-16, this project offered new ideas to manage mixed flows and create sustainable long-term solutions for refugees.
About the Global Program
The Global Program bridges policy advice, research, and candid dialogue to design effective migration policies, drawing on global evidence and anticipating the forces reshaping how people move.
