Disappearing Migrants or the Impossibility of a European Union

Abstract

A ridged policy aimed to exclude non-EU migrants from the European Union can corrode the Union’s foundations. It turns migrants into metaphorical, haunting ghosts and leads to hysterical repression. Also, it causes the Union’s policies to be inconsistent, unpredictable and therefore unreliable. Here, we analyze what these policies are, where they come from, how they function and who, if not the EU, profits from them. We uncover a friction between the EU and its Members, caused by the discrepancy in the goals they try to realize. To explain this and to think beyond it we suggest seeing the EU as psychoanalytical subject.