Cite as: Painter, J., Papada, E., Papoutsi, A. and Vradis, A., 2017. "Hotspot politics―or, when the EU state gets real". Political Geography 60 : 259-260.
What is a hotspot? Ask a random passer-by in your average city street and the by now ubiquitous wireless internet access point will most probably come up immediately in response: the hotspot is somewhere that connects you to the internet's everywhere. Ask most European Union officials, however, and the very same word will make them sing the praises of the EU's blueprint for a holistic approach to the migration crisis: a very special “somewhere” that may very well be on its way to become―as this editorial wishes to warn―a new kind of “everywhere”, one that commences with the decades-long European integration finally reaching a tangible form.