This article explores whether the development of a common European asylum policy, and the construction of a directive on minimum standards for the granting of refugee status, is dominated by a security discourse. In such a security discourse, asylum is considered a cross-border threat to the realization of the internal market and the internal stability of Member States. While the social construction of asylum as a problem puts pressure on the traditional humanitarian framework on which international refugee protection is being based. The tension between these two approaches seems to result in a restrictive European common asylum policy, with a focus on control and prevention of migration into the EU. In this article, we analyse the tensions between the security and the humanitarian discourse in primary and secondary sources, using the model of Laclau and Mouffe. We conclude that while creating a common asylum policy, a securitization process is present.