Understanding the discourse of the Visegrad Group during the migration crisis

Abstract

The Visegrad Group countries' political stance was not well received by most European Union member states when the migration crisis began. The discourse of the heads of state or other official representatives of Visegrad group countries had an unfavourable view of migration and recognised it as a security rather than a humanitarian one. The article explores the Visegrad group discourse during the European migration crisis. This study stands out because it examines the collective discourse of the Visegrad Group during the migration crisis rather than analysing each country separately. Three significant terror attacks in recent EU history have been incorporated into the analysis to see if they have increased the prominence of securitisation in the discourse of the Visegrad group. As the result of the Qualitative/Quantitative Content Analysis, we find out that after the Charlie Hebdo Attack, the Visegrad Group discourse on the migration crisis began incorporating the security dimension. Following the terror attacks in Paris, the securitisation dimensions of the migration crisis intensified and remained through the end of 2016. Our findings show that the communication style in the Visegrad group countries' declaration statements supports the security and terrorism linkage with migration.