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The article presents the findings of a research on the EU response to the crisis caused by the growth of the inflow of irregular migrants in Europe in 2011 and the following years. The first section examines the causes of the current migration flows in general terms and explains why many European citizens and political leaders are hostile to the arrival of migrants most of whom are forced to leave their home. In the second section, the management of the migration crisis by the EU leaders is analysed with the concepts and tools of the TransCrises project, an H2020 research about managing trans-boundary risks and crises. In particular, this section reviews how the EU leaders have operated the seven management tasks that experts deem as important to bring a crisis to not harmful consequences. In the concluding section, the EU management of the migration crisis is assessed and advices are given for upgrading the management. El artículo presenta los resultados de una investigación sobre la respuesta de la UE a la crisis provocada por el crecimiento de la afluencia de inmigrantes irregulares llegados a Europa en 2011 y en los años posteriores. La primera sección examina las causas de los flujos migratorios actuales en términos generales y explica por qué muchos ciudadanos europeos y líderes políticos se muestran hostiles a la llegada de los inmigrantes, cuando la mayoría de ellos se han visto obligados a abandonar sus hogares. En la segunda sección, se analiza la gestión de la crisis migratoria por parte de los líderes de la UE a través de los conceptos y herramientas del proyecto TransCrises, una investigación Horizonte2020 sobre la gestión de riesgos y crisis transfronterizos. En concreto, esta sección analiza cómo los líderes de la UE han llevado a cabo las siete tareas de gestión que los expertos consideran importantes para que una crisis no produzca consecuencias dañinas. En la sección final, se evalúa la gestión de la crisis migratoria en la UE y se brindan consejos para mejorar su gestión.

The present paper draws the attention of political scientists towards the participation of the European Parliament in EU legislation making on migration and in the EU management of the migration crisis of the last seven years. The paper aims at knowing whether and, in the positive case, why the members of the Parliament mainly backed the management decisions and actions of the EU Council, Commission, and member governments in response to the inflow of refugees and irregular migrants. The analysis of the EP votes demonstrates that the mainstream Political Groups, namely the PGs of national mainstream parties, play as the passive legitimizers of the decisions of the European Council and the Commission. They are qualified as the passive legitimizers because the MEPs of the national mainstream parties share the policy their country government leaders adopt in the European Council towards restricting immigration. In other terms, the MEPs and the government chiefs of the mainstream national parties share the interest of being re-elected by the anti-immigration voters.

The refugee and migration crisis has contributed to promote and consolidate new practices. The NGOs’ SAR Operations represent a new aspect of the humanitarian new normal phenomenon which is here analysed to deepen the existing knowledge about the response of the state, the citizens and the organised civil society to the crisis. The paper, which is based on an expert survey research conducted by researchers of the University of Catania, contends that Europeans overwhelmingly perceive irregular migrants as a threat...