Chessboard politics: the contested emergence of EU return and readmission norms

The return of migrants residing irregularly within the EU or whose asylum applications have been rejected – a top priority of EU migration policy – remains a contentious issue. Drawing from the literature on norm emergence and contestation, we examine how the duties to return and readmit have been institutionalised within the EU’s migration policy as part of an evolving migration regime complex. We identify three key strategies employed by norm entrepreneurs to entrench these norms, following the playbook of chessboard politics: Changing the playing field by shifting the venue from the Council of Europe to the EU; raising the stakes of the game by issue-linkages of return migration with other policy areas; and altering the rules of the game through the informalization of cooperation. While the norms of return and readmission have gained significant social validation from bureaucratic actors, including international organizations, substantial contestation persists regarding formal validation in legal agreements and cultural validation from transit and origin countries and their citizens. The limited success of the EU’s efforts to institutionalise these norms is reflected in the growing overlap of alternative frameworks, the resurgence of negative conditionality in negotiations, and the expansion of grey zones in cooperation with non-democratic states.