This article challenges the view, implicit in much current research on EU migration and asylum policy, that supranationalization is a self-evident antidote to the exclusionary and securitized migration policy that has been enacted through inter-governmental cooperation. It does so by treating supranationalization as an open question in need of empirical scrutiny. To develop this thesis, it undertakes not only a critique of the current developments towards supranational policies, but also of the inter-governmental policy-making system, pursuing a broad brush historical assessment up to and beyond Amsterdam, with the aim of bringing fresh and further insights into the future development of EU asylum policy. It concludes that the current aims are less to do with the establishment of a common European asylum system and more to do with reducing immigration pressure and compensating for the perceived losses of internal security in the wake of full freedom of movement inside the Union. Communitarization will not necessarily occur simply because the European Union is intent upon instituting ever stricter immigration controls. Communitarization is dogged by the legacy of intensive trans-governmentalism. In particular, the British, Danish and Irish governments have only been prepared to support communitarization so long as they could have separate protocols that legitimized their non-participation. The UK and Ireland have opted into all proposals on asylum, illegal migration and civil law but have opted out of practically all proposals concerning visas, borders, and legal migration. The securitarian frame still predominates and trans-governmentalism refuses to die. In January 2005, following the agreement on The Hague programme, there was change in decision-making rules from unanimous voting to Qualified Majority Vote (QMV) in the European Council and co-decision with the European Parliament. Yet, there is no guarantee this will bring about more liberal asylum rules, as is clear from the 'Schengen Borders Code' which was agreed in June 2005. This is because European migration policy has always been fraught with internal contradictions, which have yet to be resolved. Accordingly, the emergence of a rights-respecting model of asylum law based on the Geneva Convention 1951 remains a distant dream. © The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.

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