Yes

This thesis examines what effect the economic discourse in EU migration policy might have on the view of migrants’ human rights in the European public opinion. The study is carried out as a qualitative content analysis of two central EU migration policy documents: The Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (2011), and A European Agenda on Migration (2015). The objective of the analysis is to determine whether the economic discourse have a dominant position in the documents and how this might affect the rights of the most vulnerable migrants. The analysis is based on a deductive approach in which existing theory have been analysed to identify key concepts upon which predetermined discourses have been decided and analysed in the documents. The analysis establishes that the economic discourse has a dominant position in the two documents, and that human rights are conditional. The analysis shows that migrants are stripped of their basic human rights due to the fact that they are not members of a community. The conclusion of the analysis is that human dignity is dependent upon your skills, competences and economic capital. It is expressed through the lack of political will to propose initiatives aimed at the most vulnerable migrants. The EU and is Member States are proposing stronger actions when it comes to attracting third country nationals to the EU that might contribute to economic growth.