Escaping gridlock through financial instruments? Analyzing change in EU funding for migration and asylum

The increase in migration flows since 2011 has plunged the EU in its
second existential crisis in the space of five years after the Eurozone
crisis. In contrast to a stalemated policy-making process in the realm
of migration and asylum, the financial responses have been
remarkable. The EU substantially increased the budget allocated to
migration, launched new instruments such as the EU Trust Fund for
Africa, restructured its financial toolbox several times, and recently
created for the first time a targeted budgetary heading under the
Multiannual Financial Framework 2021-2027. What explains this
dynamism of the EU instrumentation process? The project addresses
this puzzle. By integrating EU politics theorizing, the theories of
instrument choice, and policy change, it gauges the extent and the
direction of change in EU funding tools for migration and asylum and
sets theoretical expectations to understand the combination of
causes affecting change in financial instrument mixes across time.
The project brings about theoretical and empirical innovation.
Theoretically, it advances the theorization of policy instrument
change, by inductively combining theories of instrument choice,
policy change, and EU integration theories. Empirically, it unpacks
and studies the complex landscape of EU funds for migration which
has been, with few exceptions largely neglected by the literature.