The European Migration Crisis: Towards a More Gender-equal EU Migration Policy?

Ursula von der Leyen presented the European Commission’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum as a "fresh start" for this highly politicized and contested area of EU policy-making. This paper analyses the implications of the Pact for gender+ equality in EU migration and asylum policies. This is important considering that, in her mandate political guidelines, von der Leyen emphasised that her Commission was committed to enhancing ‘equality for all and equality in all of its senses’. This raises a very simple question: to what extent does this commitment to equality also apply to non-Europeans, both in relation to Europeans and internally to their group? Or, in other words, who is this ‘all’ who is the subject of equality? In general crises are often considered moments of redefinition of policies, frames and practices. In the highly controversial case of migration policies, the paper argues that crisis narratives did not result in a more comprehensive understanding of gender+ in migration and, in fact, reinforced racist and racializing discourses. The paper analyses the representations of gender and sexuality in recent EU migration policies, covering both asylum and refugee policy and proposals on "legal" migration, including the EU Blue Card directive.