Visa-liberalisation agreements are commonly used as an incentive by the EU to encourage cooperation within the realm of border and migration management with its neighbouring countries. The ultimate aim of these agreements is to reduce irregular migration to Schengen territory, something that has been percieved as an increasingly urgent issue for European policy makers in the wake of the 2015 'migration crisis'. However, the use of visa liberalisation agreements in such a fashion appears contradictory considering that most irregular migrants in the EU most likely are visa-overstayers. This essay takes of in this apparent puzzle and argues that securitisation theory might help us better understand this discrepancy. While the construction of the migrant as a security threat in Europe has been thoroughly examined, differences in securitisation between grups of irregular migrants are often left out of the discussion or only implicitly mentioned. By examining the discourse and practices of a central EU agency in regard to border and migration management, FRONTEX, this thesis shows that visa-overstayers are routinely left out of the securitised discussion on irregular migration, thus rendering EU policies asymmetrically occupied with irregular migration by means of 'illegal entry'. However, the thesis also uncovers a more conplex set of ideas that show that although visa-overstayers are not conceptulised as threats to security in discourse on par with other categories of irregular migrants, visa-goers and other travellers are, too, incresingly subjected to a rationale of survaillance and risk.

Global energy transitions and rises in demand for critical raw materials (CRMs) are predicted to reshape global politics in yet uncertain but profound ways. With CRMs being vital for Europe’s decarbonization process, the present study sets out to examine the EU’s geopolitical discourse by taking an inquisitive yet critical stance focusing particularly on the new “geopolitical” Commission’s geopolitical reasoning on CRMs. Building upon critical geopolitics, a discourse analysis was conducted on 9 European Commission communications (2019–2020). Three key observations were made: first, a ‘geopolitical’ and ‘assertive’ EU is crucial in an increasingly ‘fragile’, ‘polarized’ and ‘competitive’ world. Second, securing CRMs is a ‘security question’, requiring ‘strategic approaches and partnerships’, notably with ‘resource–rich regions’ and particularly with Africa. Third, the EU’s narrative is ambiguous. While classical geopolitical assumptions are distinguishable, it remains questionable whether the EU will depart from its familiar path of liberal cooperation, multilateralism and trade when scouting for CRMs, although its role as a “benign ally” can be questioned. Further studies on the EU’s geopolitical reasoning, along with its actual practice in the area of CRMs, are warranted. Likewise, a critical reading of reports and foresight preceding EU policymaking is encouraged, to better comprehend how the EU’s dominating geopolitical discourse on CRMs and subsequent practice is produced in the first place.

This study examines the European council and its connection to CFSP and the European identity. It will give a perspective of the change in common foreign-security policy from the Maastricht Treaty to the Lissabon treaty. The study will reproduce a perspective through time and describe the main ideas in CFSP and make a connection to how it created a European identity. The empirical material will conclude the European council results. To give more perspective, an idea analysis will be operating to capture the ideas of the various materials describing European identity and the CFSP. Henceforth using the empirical material to conclude a result for the analysis. For the analysis to be complete subjects such as normative power and actorness will have a part in the work in CFSP. Social constructivism as a theory will help to understand the power that European identity has in international cooperation. To conclude this, abstract the study will structure a difference in the work of the CFSP and its strategy to promoted democracy, and peace.

The purpose of this study was to examine if the criticism aimed at the Swedish media was justified or not. The Swedish media’s coverage of the EU is a heavily debated subject between scientists and politicians alike. The coverage has come under fire for being irregular and for only focusing on the national part of the European union. The study has it stand point in the following research questions: “How frequent is the coverage of the EU”, “what differs in the reporting from an election year and a regular year”, “How much space is the EU given in the newspapers”, “Who is behind the information” and “What subjects is the coverage about and who gets to talk”. The study aimed itself at Swedish local newspapers from three different regions of Sweden.    The study used a quantitative content analysis to identify the difference in the reporting during week 22 through the years 2013, 2014 and 2015. By doing this the study found that there was a major difference in the reporting from the election year, 2014, and the other two years where there were no elections. It also found that politics and economics where popular subjects to cover and that Swedish EU-politicians were the most popular persons in the articles. The study also aimed to see if the criticism the media got for only covering the national part of news in from the EU. This the study found was mostly true when it came to local newspapers and also that the EU news mostly took up a large piece of space in the papers because of all the information that had to be in the articles to explain the complexity of the European union. The conclusion of this study is that the Swedish local news media’s coverage of the EU is underwhelming but also hard to improve because the EU also has problems in its information flow and that the Swedish local media tends to use the national angle to sell the news.

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This paper aims at analyzing and understanding the political conflict between the EU and member states Hungary and Poland that has increased in recent years. Though this paper's focus will be on the different understanding and application of democracy, its meaning and values. By understanding the different approach to democracy, through liberal democracy and illiberal democracy, one may understand the conflict better and its implication for European integration. This paper analyses the democratic development in Hungary and Poland, the theories behind their development and its response from the EU. The importance of understanding the core values of democracy and understanding of it, be it liberal democracy or illiberal democracy, is not to be underestimated. Only by understanding these differences in core values can we understand the conflict of Rule of Law between the EU and its illiberal member states. This paper concludes that the negative democratic development in these states and their governments' public philosophical and political narratives for their reforms are not in coordination with neither reality nor public opinion. It also finds that the development of illiberal democracies within the EU is a threat to future European integration and the normative legitimacy of the EU in internal and foreign matters.

In 2020, the corona virus was officially classified as a pandemic. Most countries’ economywas badly affected, and many companies were in need of state aid to survive. However, due to the European single market and its competition policy, the European commission has strict state aid rules. Hence, because of the circumstances, the commission implemented a temporary framework for state aid, which enabled for economic assistance that would normally not be in accordance with the competition policy. Because some countries had expressed concern for more generous state aid rules to threaten the single market, the commission needed to be strategic with their communication, in order for the member states to see it as necessary and legitimate. The aim of this study is to illustrate and analyze how the commission framed the temporary state aid rules to legitimize it. The method of use isframing analysis. The main results are that the two frames the commission used to legitimize the temporary state aid rules were that the crisis needed to be solved mutually, and the fact that it was an economic crisis. In conclusion, the commission framed the temporary state aidrules by alluding to common interests among the member states, such as the importance of European cooperation and the single market. They did this to legitimize the temporary state aid rules.

During its years, the European Union (EU) has experienced several different crises that have challenged its association and put democracy at risk. The financial crisis in 2009 and the migration crisis in 2015 are two difficult periods that caused a split between the member states. In 2020, the Union faced another crisis when the world witnessed the birth of the COVID-19 pandemic. To protect public health, states have introduced state of emergency (SoE) that gives the political government more power to make quick decisions and restrict residents' democratic freedoms. Discussions about how the pandemic affects democracy in the EU have been raised. This study aims to examine different views on how EU democracy is affected by the pandemic. The purpose is to identify how five different representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and intuitions reason about the pandemic's effect on EU democracy. In addition, the purpose is to compare differences and similarities between their different points of view. To generate a result, the interviews were analyzed through previous research and a theoretical framework of Utilitarianism and Consequentialism. The theories analyze through a normative ethics perspective that determines what action is morally right based on the consequences of it. The results show that the pandemic has caused an acceleration of anti-democratic development and a higher concentration of power within the governments. The respondents in the study believe that the pandemic has acted as an accelerator of anti-democratic development in countries where this was already going on before the pandemic struck. Moreover, SoE has caused practical changes in democratic processes, such as restricting participation and democratic freedoms, increasing disinformation, and limiting trust-building between countries. The difference identified was that respondents from institutions did not consider that SoE harms EU’s democracy, but instead is morally right to implement. However, respondents from NGOs defined the implementation of SoE as detrimental to democracy in the EU and questioned whether it is morally right in terms of its consequences for democracy. / Den Europeiska unionen (EU) har under sina år genomgått flera olika kriser som utmanat dess association och satt demokratin på spel. Finanskrisen 2009 och Migrationskrisen 2015 är två svåra perioder som orsakade ett splittrat EU. År 2020 ställdes unionen inför ännu en kris när världen bevittnade födelsen av COVID-19 pandemin. För att skydda folkhälsan har stater infört undantagstillstånd som ger det politiska styret mer makt för att ta snabba beslut och begränsar invånares demokratiska friheter. Diskussioner kring hur pandemin påverkar demokratin i EU har lyfts. Denna studie ämnar till att granska olika synvinklar på hur EU:s demokrati påverkas av pandemin. Syftet är att identifiera hur fem olika företrädare för icke-statliga organisationer och institutioner resonerar kring pandemins effekt på EU:s demokrati. Dessutom är syftet att jämföra skillnader och likheter mellan deras olika synvinklar. För att generera ett resultat analyserades intervjuerna genom tidigare forskning och ett teoretiskt ramverk av Utilitarism och Konsekventialism. Teorierna analyserar utifrån normativ etik som bestämmer vad som är moraliskt rätt genom konsekvenser av handlingar. Resultatet visar att pandemin har orsakat en accelerering av antidemokratisk utveckling och en högre koncentration av makt. Respondenterna i studien anser att pandemin har fungerat som en accelerator av antidemokratisk utveckling i länder där detta redan pågick innan pandemin. Sedermera har undantagstillstånd orsakat praktiska förändringar i demokratiska processer så som begränsning av deltagande och demokratiska friheter, ökning av desinformation och begräsning av förtroendeskapande mellan länder. Skillnaden som identifierades var att företrädare från institutioner inte ansåg att undantagstillstånd skadar EU:s demokrati utan i stället är moraliskt rätt. Företrädare för icke-statliga organisationer definierade däremot implementeringen som skadlig för demokratin i EU och ifrågasatte om det är moraliskt rätt utifrån dess konsekvenser som skapas för demokratin.

The motivation for this thesis has been based on the desire to conduct a contemporary study of securitization in the European Union's migration discourse. This takes into account the extraordinary circumstance of a war in the EU's close proximity and the unique approach the EU has shown towards the people fleeing the war, which seems to differ from the approach observed in research so far. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the EU presents a securitized migration discourse by examining its discursive presentation of migration and how this presentation relates to securitization. The study is based on the migration discourse presented by the European Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission on the institutions' official websites. The study has been conducted as a qualitative discourse analysis using Carol Bacchi's WPR approach, with the Copenhagen School's securitization theory as the study's theoretical framework. By critically examining the problem definitions, premises and silences in the discourse, the result has shown that the EU mainly presents a securitized migration discourse, which, however, shifts in relation to the referent object of the discourse, i.e. whose security is in question.

The study deals with the theory of optimal currency areas complemented with the EU's Maastricht criteria in order to investigate how today’s Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union can be divided into smaller unions with countries that are more homogeneous based on said criteria compared to the current larger currency union. To investigate this, we use cluster analysis as the method easily enables analysis of similarities and differences between countries. The results show that the optimal number of clusters for the nations in the EU in 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2015 is ten and that the optimal number of clusters in 2019 is seven. We also observe a relatively distinct division between western and eastern countries, which splits the countries in two clusters. These two clusters are consistent over the studied years, however not considered the most optimal according to cluster analysis. Nonetheless, with respect to political, geographical, and cultural aspects, we conclude that having two different currencies within the European Union being the most realistic. / Studien behandlar teorin om optimala valutaområden, kompletterat med EU:s Maastrichtkriterier för att undersöka hur den nuvarande ekonomiska och monetära unionen i EU kan delas in i mindre unioner med länder som är mer homogena utifrån nämnda kriterier jämfört med dagens större valutaunion. För att undersöka detta använder vi oss av klusteranalys eftersom metoden på ett enkelt sätt möjliggör analys av likheter och skillnader mellan länder. Resultatet visar att optimalt antal kluster för länderna i EU under åren 2007, 2008, 2010 och 2015 är tio och att optimalt antal kluster under år 2019 är sju. Vi observerar också en relativt tydlig uppdelning mellan de västra och östra länderna, som delar länderna i EU i två större kluster. Dessa två kluster är enhetliga över de undersökta åren, men inte helt optimala enligt klusteranalysen. Trots detta, så bedömer vi att dela in den Europeiska unionen i två valutaunioner är den mest realistiska slutsatsen utifrån politiska, geografiska, och kulturella skillnader. / Die Studie behandelt die Theorie der optimalen Währungsräume, ergänzt durch die Maastricht-Kriterien der EU, um zu untersuchen, wie die heutige europäische Wirtschafts-und Währungsunion in kleinere Unionen aufgeteilt werden kann. Diese Unionen sollten auf der Grundlage dieser Kriterien homogener als die heutige größere Währungsunion sein. Um dies zu untersuchen, verwenden wir Clusteranalyse, da diese Methode die Analyse von Ähnlichkeiten und Unterschieden zwischen den Ländern leicht ermöglicht. Die Studie zeigt, dass die optimale Anzahl von Clustern für die EU-Länder in den Jahren 2007, 2008, 2010 und 2015 bei einer Größe von zehn liegt und dass die optimale Anzahl von Clustern im Jahr 2019 bei sieben liegt. Wir finden auch eine ziemlich deutliche Aufteilung zwischen westlichen und östlichen Ländern. Diese zwei Clustern sind über den studierten Jahren durchgängig, aber laut der Klusteranalyse nicht völlig optimal. Dennoch finden wir, die Europäische Union in zwei Währungsunionen verteilen, die am meisten realistische Schlussfolge laut politische, geographische, und kulturellen Aspekten ist.