Authors

Discussion

The goal of this paper is to explore how the migration crisis of 2015/2016 reflected on political elites’ positioning towards the European Union. To that end, a comparative study of two Central & Eastern European cases with different outcomes is conducted – the case of the Czech Republic where marked politicization of the topic initially happened, and the case of Croatia where it did not. Political elites are investigated through three sources: expert opinions on party positions, political party parliamentary manifestos, and online media texts. The paper focuses on the period covering the first national parliamentary elections (2016 & 2017) that occurred after the height of the crisis, as well as on the period leading up to the second parliamentary elections (2020 & 2021). The findings can be summarized by stating that the Czech Republic needs to be understood as a case where marked sensitivity about questions of sovereignty developed, paving the way to political consensus about the country’s preference for differentiated integration when it comes to matters of migration. In Croatia, the political elites mostly understood migration as an issue that has to be managed in full cooperation with the EU. The explanations offered for different outcomes in the analyzed periods are that the countries were at different points on the path toward European integration, that the agency of national political elites as influenced by party opportunity structure mattered, and that the legacies each country carried as well as identity concerns played a significant role. Overall, the paper demonstrates the relevance of considering specific national contexts to understand how contemporary supranational phenomena play out.