Migration and asylum statistics as a basis for European border control
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2017Metadata
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Takle M. Migration and asylum statistics as a basis for European border control. Migration Studies. 2017 http://doi.org/10.1093/migration/mnx028Abstract
This article shows how the Migration Statistics Regulation plays a central role in EU/
Schengen external border control. It develops and applies an analytical framework,
which shows analogies between how historical nation states produced statistics as a
basis for politics and the harmonisation of European migration and asylum statistics. In
contrast to national processes, the Migration Statistics Regulation aims to harmonise
statistics from established national administrative traditions. The first part shows how
the Member States have agreed on the application of common statistical categories, but
they have not reached agreements on how to measure migration. As long as different
measurement techniques constitute the basis of comparability, the statistics used as
basis for European external border control remain incomplete. The second part exam-
ines how statistical information is used in the management of border control. While
Eurostat is responsible for coordinating statistics, Frontex, EASO and eu-LISA have
gained the tasks of managing new types of migration and asylum statistics. This implies
new combinations of performing operative tasks with the management of statistics at
European level. Moreover, the statistics have increasingly become the basis for calculat-
ing funding allocation and relocation of asylum seekers among Member States. While
EU Member States harmonise the statistics on migration and asylum, this does not mean
that the countries harmonise their understanding of the phenomenon. When EU insti-
tutions use incomplete statistics to legitimate migration and asylum politics, this is not
only a technical and practical problem. Behind this incompleteness, there are concep-
tual and political differences among the Member States