Migration and war have historically been interconnected, with armed conflicts driving large-scale displacement and shaping international order. For the European Union (EU), this relationship has become especially salient in recent decades, as wars in the EU’s neighborhood have produced repeated migration crises that test the Union’s resilience, solidarity, and capacity for coordinated action.

The 2015 refugee crisis, largely triggered by the Syrian civil war, marked a turning point in EU migration governance, pushing policies in a more restrictive and security-oriented direction. The 2015 refugee crisis, a watershed moment for the EU, exposed fatal flaws in its asylum framework. Triggered primarily by the Syrian civil war, the arrival of over one million people overwhelmed frontline states and shattered the EU’s principle of solidarity, fueling political polarization as well as justified criticism of the EU’s insufficiently responsive and inflexible approach to a crisis of this nature. This has been coupled with legitimate concerns regarding the EU’s lack of agility and preparedness in its crisis response.

In response to the crises, the bloc pivoted decisively toward a security-oriented model, prioritizing border control and external partnerships. The legacy of this crisis continues to define EU migration policy and politics today.

The 2015 refugee crisis was further compounded by a simultaneous migration wave from Libya and other parts of North Africa, which intensified pressure on the EU. Libya’s collapse into civil war after 2011 transformed the country into a major transit hub for migrants and refugees attempting to cross the Mediterranean, leading to thousands of arrivals and deaths along perilous sea routes. Together with the influx from Syria, these flows overwhelmed frontline states such as Italy and Greece, exposed the inadequacy of the EU’s asylum system, and heightened tensions over responsibility-sharing among the EU member states.

The convergence of the Syrian and Libyan migration routes underscored the EU’s vulnerability to conflicts in its neighborhood and drove the shift toward restrictive border controls, externalization deals with North African states, and a securitized approach to migration governance.

Yet the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 presented the EU with a qualitatively different challenge: a sudden mass influx of refugees from a neighboring country, addressed not by deterrence but by the unprecedented activation of the Temporary Protection Directive. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 caused over 6 million Ukrainians to flee, mostly to Europe, leading the EU to adopt unprecedented migration policies, including the activation of the Temporary Protection Directive. This provided immediate and temporary refuge outside the usual asylum system, marking a significant shift from prior restrictive migration approaches.

This response emphasized solidarity and responsibility within the EU and contrasted its democratic values with the aggression seen in the war. This divergence underscores the complexity of the EU’s dual role as both a humanitarian actor and a geopolitical power.

The present paper introduces how war-induced migration has shaped EU migration and asylum policy, and how these policies in turn have been instrumentalized as tools of foreign policy. By focusing on the Ukrainian refugee crisis alongside broader developments in EU migration governance, the analysis highlights three interrelated dynamics.

First, it considers the humanitarian dimension, whereby the EU has sought to provide protection and uphold its normative commitments. Second, it explores the use of migration policy as an instrument of geopolitical strategy, projecting the EU’s image as a defender of democracy and freedom while leveraging restrictive measures against adversarial states. Finally, it examines the persistent challenges within the EU, including political fragmentation, the rise of criticism of EU migration policies parties, and the reliance on external partners to manage migration flows.

One part of this paper is dedicated to case studies of two significant migration crises: the post-2011 period following the Arab Spring, which ignited civil wars in Syria and Libya, and the more recent crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine. The chapter analyzes the EU’s evolving policy approaches towards these aforementioned crises.