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SUMMARY:The price of Fortress Europe: Critical reflections on the EU’s m
 igration policies and constitutional horizons - Dr Aristel Skrbic (Ghent U
 niversity)
DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20260204T170000Z
DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20260204T180000Z
UID:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/2430af27-f6cd-428e-bfb3-368aa3b99d2a/
DESCRIPTION:Ever since the 2015 “migration crisis”\, the EU has pursue
 d a wide range of aggressive migration policies which can collectively be 
 described as the continued construction of “Fortress Europe”. Much of 
 the analysis and critique in law and philosophy to date has\, understandab
 ly\, focused on the immediate consequences this has for migrants and asylu
 m seekers\, often with deadly outcomes. More recently\, there is an emerge
 nt debate that analyses how these policies undermine the EU’s constituti
 onal values\, such as the rule of law\, democracy\, and fundamental rights
 . In this talk\, I want to push the conversation beyond the black letter o
 f EU constitutional law and analyse the connection between these migration
  policies and the deeper level of the constitutional imaginary\, the philo
 sophical ideas and beliefs which underpin the project of European constitu
 tionalisation. My hypothesis is that by shifting attention from the conten
 t of these migration policies and instead focusing on their place and meth
 od\, by paying heed to the where and the how of Fortress Europe\, two prel
 iminary connections between migration policies and the EU’s liberal cons
 titutional imaginary can be drawn. The first is that the informalisation o
 f migration policies undermines the idea of European integration as a proj
 ect of “integration through law”. Second\, the territorial fragmentati
 on that results from these migration policies undermines one of the deepes
 t aspirations of European integration\, namely\, to unify Europe and overc
 ome the ‘walls’ and ‘curtains’ that divided the continent in the 2
 0th century. Thus\, the talk traces the impact of Fortress Europe migratio
 n policies on the broader project of European integration.  \n\nAbout the 
 speaker\nAristel is a legal and political theorist currently working as a 
 postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University's Faculty of Law on postcoloni
 al political theory and international migration law as part of the ERC-fun
 ded MIGJUST project. From January 2026\, Aristel will be a British Academy
  Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Faculty of Law and
  a Senior Postdoctoral Researcher at Trinity College\, Cambridge. There he
  will develop a theory on the impact of the EU’s migration policies on t
 he constitutional imaginary of European integration. Aristel works at the 
 intersection of constitutional theory\, EU law\, migration law\, critical 
 theory\, and postcolonial theory. In 2024\, he obtained a PhD in philosoph
 y (summa cum laude) from the University of Leuven’s Institute of Philoso
 phy where he held an individual fellowship from the Flemish Research Counc
 il (FWO). In his doctoral project\, Aristel worked on a novel approach to 
 EU law at the intersection of constitutional theory and a critique of lega
 l reasoning. The project resulted in five publications\, principal among w
 hich is “Ideology in the Adjudication of the ECJ”\, published in Law a
 nd Philosophy in 2023. Aristel also holds an LLM in European and Internati
 onal Public Law (magna cum laude) form the University of Leuven’s Facult
 y of Law. Beyond academia\, he is trained as a classical musician (Royal C
 ollege of Music\, London) and has so far called five countries home.\nSpea
 kers:\nDr Aristel Skrbic (Ghent University)
LOCATION:Queen Elizabeth House (Seminar room 1)\, 3 Mansfield Road OX1 3TB
TZID:Europe/London
URL:https://talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/2430af27-f6cd-428e-bfb3-368aa3b99d2a/
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DESCRIPTION:Talk:The price of Fortress Europe: Critical reflections on the
  EU’s migration policies and constitutional horizons - Dr Aristel Skrbic
  (Ghent University)
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