Migration and the EU's new eastern border: between realism and liberalism

European Union (EU) asylum and immigration policies are characterized by a competition between two partly conflicting policy frames: the realist frame of internal security, which emphasizes the need to tighten up territorial borders and to fight illegal immigration, and the liberal frame of humanitarianism, which incorporates the human rights-based notions of freedom of movement and refugee protection. Whereas recent developments under the Amsterdam Treaty point at the attempt to revalidate liberal elements against a realist drift, this article shows that the extension of asylum and immigration policies to the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs)(1) is dominated by the imperative to secure the new border against unwanted immigration. In the light of the new priority given to these policy fields in the Union, these conflicting requirements are likely to form major obstacles in the process of eastern enlargement.