Regional
Perspectives:
Drivers of Migration: Security Dynamics, Governance Challenges, and Policy Implications for the European Union
Iulian Coman
Senior Training Officer, The National College of Home Affairs | Romania
Author’s Key Insight:
Migration governance must reform legal categories to align rights, protection, and institutional accountability.
The 2025 Global Changemakers Workshop: Price of Passage provided a rich and multilayered exploration of migration as a defining test of societal resilience. Rather than approaching resilience as a purely technical capacity to withstand shocks, the discussions framed it as a broader societal condition shaped by governance choices, institutional trust, social cohesion, and the distribution of responsibility among states, communities, and individuals. Migration was examined as a cumulative and non-linear journey: beginning with the drivers of departure, continuing through internal displacement and transit, and culminating in arrival and integration. Each stage places distinct and compounding pressures on societies.
Across seminar sessions and policy roundtables, participants repeatedly emphasized that migration should not be treated as an episodic “crisis,” but as a structural feature of the contemporary world. In this sense, societal resilience emerged not as an abstract ideal, but as a concrete question of political capacity: how societies anticipate mobility, how they absorb its impacts, and whether they are willing and able to transform in response to long-term demographic, economic, and environmental change.
A central analytical thread of the workshop concerned the meaning of resilience itself. Participants implicitly challenged interpretations that equate resilience with endurance or coping, particularly when such framings risk shifting responsibility downward—onto individuals, families, and communities—while leaving structural drivers unaddressed. In the context of migration, this critique was especially salient. Resilience narratives, several participants argued, can become problematic when they normalize chronic strain or mask the absence of institutional support.
Instead, the workshop discussions pointed toward a more political and relational understanding of societal resilience: one that foregrounds power, inequality, and the role of public institutions. From this perspective, resilience is not simply the ability of communities to “bounce back,” but the capacity of societies to reduce vulnerability, prevent harm, and expand the conditions under which people can live with dignity. This framing aligns with broader debates in migration and human security scholarship, which caution against depoliticized uses of resilience that obscure accountability.
Migration, in this sense, was repeatedly described as a stress test that reveals pre-existing fractures within societies, whether in labor markets, welfare systems, housing, or democratic legitimacy. The question raised throughout the workshop was therefore not whether societies can be resilient, but how resilience is produced, who bears its costs, and who benefits from prevailing policy choices.
During the workshop, the distinctions between economic migrants, refugees, asylum seekers, and undocumented migrants were interrogated not only as administrative tools, but as instruments of governance that can either strengthen or undermine societal resilience. Rigid categorizations often fail to reflect the complex and overlapping drivers of migration, where conflict, economic precarity, climate stress, and political instability intersect. When legal frameworks do not correspond to lived realities, migrants may fall into protection gaps, while host societies experience rising uncertainty and polarization.
This mismatch was discussed as a resilience risk. Inconsistent or opaque migration regimes can erode trust in institutions, fuel misinformation, and exacerbate social tensions. From this perspective, legal clarity and fairness were framed as essential components of societal resilience—not only because they uphold human rights, but because they contribute to social stability and democratic legitimacy.
A key point of debate concerned the tendency to valorize community adaptability in contexts where institutional support is weak or absent. While local solidarity and informal coping mechanisms were widely recognized as critical assets, participants cautioned against romanticizing them. Communities hosting IDPs often face sustained pressure on housing, public services, employment, and social cohesion, particularly when displacement becomes protracted.
From a resilience perspective, the discussion underscored that community strength cannot substitute for effective governance. Societal resilience depends on the ability of States and institutions to anticipate displacement, invest in preparedness, and integrate humanitarian responses with development planning. Without such structural support, resilience risks becoming a narrative that legitimizes endurance rather than enabling transformation.
Technology featured prominently in the discussion, described as both an enabler and a risk factor. Digital tools can enhance migrants’ agency by facilitating access to information, communication, and financial resources. At the same time, technologies are increasingly exploited by smugglers, traffickers, and disinformation networks, shaping migration routes and public perceptions alike.
Narrowly securitized responses to transit undermine societal resilience by externalizing risk and prioritizing containment over protection. Instead, the workshop highlighted the need for integrated approaches that combine human security, digital governance, and international cooperation. Such approaches were framed as essential to reducing harm while preserving trust in institutions and cross-border solidarity.
Workshop discussions stressed that integration is where economic considerations, social cohesion, and political narratives most visibly intersect. While evidence suggests that migration can contribute positively to economies over time, participants noted that short-term pressures (particularly on housing, education, and public services) can generate resistance if not proactively addressed. From a resilience standpoint, integration policies must therefore balance material investment with symbolic inclusion, addressing not only access to jobs and services, but also questions of belonging and recognition.
An important analytical insight that emerged was the understanding of integration as a reciprocal process. Host societies are not static backdrops, but actors that adapt and change through migration. When managed inclusively, this process can strengthen societal resilience by fostering pluralism, innovation, and democratic engagement. When mismanaged, it can deepen inequality and erode trust.
Taken together, the workshop discussions underscored that societal resilience is neither automatic nor evenly distributed. It is produced through political choices, institutional design, and collective action over time. Migration, far from being an external shock, functions as a revealing lens—exposing the strengths and weaknesses of societies as they confront uncertainty, diversity, and change.
A key takeaway from the workshop was that resilience-oriented migration governance must move beyond short-term crisis management toward long-term, inclusive strategies that integrate protection, security, and social cohesion. Crucially, resilience should not become a rhetorical substitute for responsibility. Instead, it should serve as a framework for rethinking how societies anticipate mobility, distribute its costs, and create the conditions for shared futures in an era of sustained human movement.
Introduction
Migration has become one of the defining policy challenges at both global and regional level, shaped by the interaction of conflict, governance failures, economic disparities, and increasingly complex security dynamics. Contemporary migration patterns reflect not only traditional push and pull factors, but also the impact of protracted conflicts, fragile institutions, and hybrid pressures that transcend national borders. As a result, migration is no longer a purely socio-economic phenomenon, but a multidimensional issue with direct implications for security and governance.
Within this broader context, the Black Sea region has emerged as a particularly sensitive space. Located at the strategic junction of the European Union, Eastern Partnership countries, the Western Balkans, and active or protracted conflict theatres, the region illustrates how global migration drivers intersect with regional security and governance challenges. Its proximity to the EU, combined with ongoing instability and geopolitical competition, makes migration dynamics in this area especially relevant for European policymakers.
For the European Union, understanding the drivers of migration in this neighborhood is not solely a matter of external relations. It has direct implications for internal security, border management, and the credibility of the EU’s external action. Conflict, fragile state structures, and hybrid threats, ranging from disinformation to the instrumentalization of migration, generate complex movement patterns that place sustained pressure on national administrations and EU-level frameworks.
Based on these premises, this paper examines the main drivers of migration through the lens of the Black Sea region, across three interlinked dimensions: the security and conflict nexus; governance capacity and institutional resilience; and EU-level cooperation mechanisms, including digital systems and joint operational initiatives. The analysis is informed by practical experience with EU-level training, operational cooperation, and the implementation of large-scale IT systems in the Justice and Home Affairs domain. The central argument is that effective migration management depends not on isolated policy measures, but on coordinated governance, shared systems, and continuous investment in institutional capacity.
Conflict, Instability, and Hybrid Pressures as Migration Drivers
Armed conflict and political instability remain among the primary drivers of forced migration globally, with particularly acute effects in the wider Black Sea region. The ongoing war in Ukraine has generated one of the largest displacement crises in Europe since the Second World War, with direct and indirect consequences felt in neighboring countries such as Moldova and Romania, as well as across the European Union. Beyond immediate displacement, the conflict has disrupted labor markets, supply chains, and energy security, contributing to longer-term migratory movements driven by uncertainty and declining socio-economic prospects.
In parallel, unresolved or so-called “frozen” conflicts in the region continue to undermine stability and governance. These environments weaken public institutions, constrain economic development, and erode public trust. In such contexts, migration is often not the result of a sudden crisis, but of a gradual deterioration of living conditions and future opportunities.
Hybrid pressures further complicate these dynamics. The deliberate manipulation of migration flows for political purposes, the use of disinformation targeting migrant communities, and the framing of migration as a tool of strategic pressure blur the line between humanitarian movement and security risk. These practices place additional strain on border management and asylum systems and increase the complexity of policy responses.
Recent EU-level risk assessments underline that migratory flows along the eastern borders have, in certain contexts, been deliberately influenced in response to geopolitical developments. Recent EU-level risk assessments underline that migratory flows along the eastern borders have, in certain contexts, been deliberately influenced in response to geopolitical developments, including the security repercussions of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the actions of neighboring state actors such as Belarus, and shifts linked to diplomatic positioning and negotiation processes, contributing to sudden and less predictable movement patterns and increasing the operational and coordination challenges faced by EU border and asylum authorities.)This instrumentalization of migration amplifies existing pressures on border management systems and reinforces the need to address migration as part of a broader security and governance framework rather than as an isolated policy field.
As a result, migration in the Black Sea region must be understood within a wider geopolitical context, shaped not only by local drivers but also by external actors seeking to influence EU policies and internal cohesion.
Governance Gaps and Institutional Capacity
While security dynamics define the broader environment in which migration occurs, governance capacity determines how migration pressures translate into actual movements and outcomes. In many Black Sea and Eastern Partnership countries, fragmented institutional arrangements, limited administrative resources, and uneven implementation of migration and asylum policies remain significant challenges.
Insufficient coordination between border authorities, asylum services, law enforcement, and judicial institutions creates gaps that are exploited by smuggling networks and irregular migration routes. At the same time, weak data-sharing mechanisms and limited analytical capacity reduce the ability of national authorities to anticipate trends and respond in a timely and coherent manner.
EU-wide assessments have highlighted that uneven preparedness and administrative capacity continue to represent a structural vulnerability in the overall migration management system. Strategic planning, early warning mechanisms, and coordinated policy cycles are increasingly essential, particularly for regions exposed to sudden displacement shocks, such as the Black Sea area.
These challenges are not solely technical. Effective migration governance requires clear mandates, inter-agency cooperation, and sustained professional training. Where these elements are lacking, responses tend to be reactive rather than strategic.
For the EU, governance gaps in neighboring countries have direct consequences. They affect the integrity of the EU’s external borders, the functioning of the Common European Asylum System, and mutual trust between Member States and partner countries. Addressing migration pressures therefore requires a focus on institutional resilience, legal alignment, and administrative capacity, rather than a narrow emphasis on border control alone.
The Role of Interoperability and Digital Border Management
Digital borders and information systems play a central role in monitoring and managing migration in the EU and its neighborhood. Systems such as the Schengen Information System (SIS), Eurodac, the Entry/Exit System (EES), and ETIAS contribute to situational awareness, identity management, and risk assessment across Member States.
Interoperability between these systems enhances the ability of authorities to identify travel histories, detect secondary movements, and support operational decision-making in real time. From a governance perspective, this reduces fragmentation and promotes a more consistent application of rules across national administrations.
However, the effectiveness of interoperability depends less on technology itself and more on governance conditions. Data quality, clearly defined workflows, trained end users, and coordination between national authorities and EU agencies are essential. Where these elements are insufficient, systems risk being underused or applied inconsistently, limiting their strategic value.
Recent Council-level discussions on the implementation of interoperability underline that phased roll-outs and delays in the entry into operation of large-scale systems increase the importance of interim coordination measures, training efforts, and shared operational planning at both EU and national level.
Engagement with partner countries in the Black Sea region is equally important. Although access to EU systems is restricted, convergence on standards, procedures, and data protection principles supports trust and operational cooperation. Such alignment improves early detection of migration trends and strengthens the EU’s overall preparedness.
Lessons from EU–Moldova Cooperation and CSDP Engagement
Although not typically portrayed as a migration “hot spot,” the Republic of Moldova represents a strategically relevant case for EU migration and security policy due to its location at the EU’s external eastern border, its exposure to regional instability stemming from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, and its role as a transit and buffer state between the EU and the Black Sea region. Moldova’s limited administrative capacity, its long-standing vulnerability to external influence, including political, economic, and security pressure exerted by Russia, combined with its European integration trajectory, makes it a critical testing ground for early, preventive EU engagement aimed at strengthening governance, border management, and asylum systems before migration and security pressures escalate toward the EU. EU support, reinforced by targeted bilateral assistance from Member States, notably Romania, therefore offers transferable lessons on how coordinated capacity-building can enhance resilience in fragile neighborhood contexts.
EU–Moldova cooperation provides relevant insights into how governance and capacity-building can mitigate migration pressures in a sensitive regional context. Moldova’s geographic position and exposure to regional instability have placed sustained demands on its administrative structures. EU support has therefore focused not only on border management, but also on asylum reform, institutional coordination, and professional development.
In practical terms, targeted training and advisory support have contributed to improved cooperation between border authorities and asylum services. Joint exercises and mentoring activities have helped clarify institutional roles, strengthen information exchange, and enhance crisis response procedures during periods of increased migratory pressure.
CSDP missions and EU-funded programs in the region further highlight the importance of long-term engagement and local ownership. The combination of training, mentoring, and quality assurance has reinforced institutional resilience and indirectly supported more effective migration management.
A key lesson is the need for clearly defined roles among EU agencies, Member States, and partner institutions. Fragmented approaches reduce impact, while coordinated efforts that integrate operational support, policy dialogue, and capacity-building produce more sustainable results.
Policy Implications and Conclusions
Migration is driven by a complex interaction of security and governance factors, including conflict, fragile state structures, hybrid pressures, and institutional weaknesses. The Black Sea region illustrates how these drivers intersect and generate migration flows that directly affect the European Union.
Addressing these challenges requires an integrated EU approach that links security analysis, effective governance, and digital capabilities. Large-scale IT systems and interoperability are essential tools, but their effectiveness depends on institutional readiness, professional expertise, and sustained cooperation with partner countries.
Strengthening governance in the EU’s eastern neighborhood should remain a strategic priority.
This includes investment in institutional coordination, support for legal and procedural alignment, and continued engagement through EU agencies and CSDP frameworks. By addressing root drivers rather than symptoms, the EU can improve its capacity to manage migration while contributing to stability and resilience beyond its borders.
Author Key Insights:
Migration in the Black Sea region is driven by conflict and hybrid pressure.
Governance capacity determines whether migration pressures become crises or remain manageable.
Digital interoperability strengthens border management only when backed by institutional readiness.
“Governance capacity determines whether migration pressures become crises or remain manageable.”