Problems chasing missing solutions: the politics of placing emigration on the EU agenda

Despite emigrations’adverse impacts on several EU Member States, especiallyin Central Eastern Europe, topics like brain drain and depopulation havereceived relatively little attention at EU level compared to concernsassociated with free movement and immigration. This article offers an answerto why this is so. Drawing on agenda-setting theory, it argues that theinstitutional framework of the EU both inhibits and disincentivises attemptsto turn emigration into an EU level topic. Seen through the lens of the EUpolicy, regulating emigration becomes a matter of cohesion policy, whichmakes it both difficult and unattractive to lobby. To assess the argumentempirically, the article draws on elite interviews with national and EUpolicymakers and document analysis from 2010 to 2023. The analysis revealsa structural bias of the EU and offers an example of how pertinent politicalissues fail to become EU topics.