The 'protective union': Change and continuity in migration law and policy in post-Amsterdam Europe

The partial Communautarization of the Third Pillar of the Treaty on European Union will enable the Community to expand its so far modest acquis in migration-related issues, but it has also opened the way for the installation of exclusive categories and the security paradigm which characterized the Third Pillar within the body of Community law. Unless active interventions by the Commission and the European Court of Justice subvert structural determinants and the logic of securitization, Communautarization offers the Member States the opportunity to reinforce their restrictive and law-enforcement approach to migration flows, and to construct new forms of power which do not only increase their regulatory capacity within a geographically contained structure, but also enable them to impose their security agenda beyond the confines of the Union.