Europe and its immigrants: a route to integration and citizenship?

Festival d'Europa – draft proposals by the migration group at the RSCAS

Europe and its immigrants: a route to integration and citizenship?

Since the Treaty of Amsterdam, part of migrant integration policies matter has been transferred from Member States to the EU. Yet, each member state has maintained full sovereignty in the definition of citizenship, because citizenship policies are bound up with historical patterns of nationhood and legal traditions. The question remains open whether there is any serious prospect for the EU to mature a defined and consolidated European pattern of immigrant incorporation and construction of a European citizenship, or if it still prevails the logic of domestic public policies. This module will present the different steps towards a common EU immigration and asylum policy. It will discuss the idea that building a European area of free circulation and a European citizenship has been accompanied by strengthening external borders both to this area and to this ‘identity’. EU member states had to agree on a common immigration policy, despite their differences as to their historical experiences with immigration, their needs of immigrants, their geographical position, etc. The module will present and discuss the minimal principles and rules on which member states have agreed and how it has impacted national legislations. The 1999 European Council in Tampere, Finland, established the elements of a common EU migration policy and sought a balance between humanitarian and economic admissions. However, the main focus of the European Union since then has been to counter the entry of illegal migrants through the southern and eastern borders of the EU. To further enforce this goal, countries close to European coastlines (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Turkey) have been encouraged to cooperate on specific security issues, including border management and readmission agreements. This module will discuss such a policy, its success and its failures, in perspective with the so-called Global approach to migration, recommended by the UN, which warns against sustained restrictive policies that do not protect the human and social rights of migrants or tackle the root causes of migration.

Languages: English and Italian

Thibaut Jaulin, Delphine Perrin, Guido Tintori, Tamirace Fakhoury