EU External Relations and Migration Policy: The Historical Development of the External Dimensions

Abstract

The European Union (EU) has experienced an incremental widening and deepening in that it developed from the European Economic Community (EEC) of six countries into a supranational EU of 28 Member States. This chapter unfolds the key developments of the EU's external relations on the one hand, and the EU's migration policy on the other from a historical perspective, subdivided into pertinent stages. This detailed breakdown provides the reader with the understanding of how the two policy fields have influenced each other over time in a meaningful way, and how the external dimension of the EU's migration policy has gradually emerged. The chapter explains how the status of non-Member States' nationals has developed in the historical context starting from the EEC framework. This information allows the reader to comprehend the circumstances and motives which have caused the differential treatment of third-country nationals within the EU's external relations' regime.Keywords: EU's migration policy; European Economic Community (EEC) framework; European Union (EU)'s external relations; non-Member States