EU Migration Research Articles

Dual Migrations in Croatia: The Technopopulist Strains of Statebuilding in the New Borderlands of Europe

ABSTRACT This article examines the technopopulist strains of statebuilding in Croatia, drawing on the history, language, and culture approaches in Slavonic studies. Through its exploration of EU migration governance in Croatia, the article discusses the dual migrations of citizens and non-citizens, namely the outward migration of Croatians and the inward migration of migrants and refugees from non-EU states. The article argues that Croatia is finding itself in a semi-peripheral relationship, reviving historical national concerns over its status as a militarized borderland – the antemurale of the EU. Croatia’s experience has potential insights for other countries on international political fault lines such as Ukraine.

‘I am afraid to fly there’: informal care in Polish migrants’ families immobilised by COVID-19

ABSTRACT This paper discusses the COVID-19 pandemic as a new external challenge to transnational family life that can undermine the care arrangements and intentions developed by the families of Polish migrants following the 2004 EU enlargement. The pandemic, associated lockdowns and travel restrictions raise questions about assumed transnationalism, building upon earlier concerns about taking for granted migrants’ cross-national mobility. Based on focus group discussions with Polish grandparents conducted in July 2020 and March 2021, we analyse the pandemic’s impact on intergenerational relations with both geographically close and distant kin. We point to perceptions of risks of COVID-19 associated with ethnicised stereotypes and evolving with time. While the pandemic caused temporary restrictions to mobility, it shows the immobilising side of “unsettling events”], the consequences of which, for privileged EU migrants, will unfold in time as their parents’ age and require personal care.

Comparative Analysis of Human Rights Provisions in the EU Migration Agreement

The loss of thousands of migrants’ lives at the European borders has raised questions about the European Union’s (EU) commitment to its role as a promoter of human rights. The EU’s management of migration through bilateral agreements has demonstrated challenges in adequately protecting the rights and dignity of migrants and asylum seekers. Human rights principles should be universal to all individuals regardless of their migration status ensuring their freedom and dignity. This paper argues for the adoption of a human rights-oriented approach in such agreements comparing the implications and dimensions of human rights in these agreements on Türkiye and Northern African countries, notably Morocco and Libya offering insights across different regions. This paper will examine the human rights implications of these agreements considering the continued increase in migration flows to the EU and the efforts to manage them. Furthermore, it evaluates the mechanisms to address human rights within the migration agreements as well as their interaction with international laws and EU policies. By looking at the human rights challenges in these agreements, the paper contributes to the ongoing debates on migration policies prioritizing human rights in EU decision-making in future migration agreements.

‘Out of the “basement”’: exploring positionality and reflexivity in EU migration law research

ABSTRACT This article questions the absence of clear reflexivity and positionality in EU migration law research and it explores how they could be integrated through the real-life example of its author. While they are not usually part of the methodological tools of researchers in EU migration law, this article intends to show that they might be crucial to better understand its underlying processes. As EU migration law has a major influence on the lives of both migrants and those who research it, reflexivity and positionality could be a way for a dialogue to be acknowledged between them as part of the research itself. This article is presented as an ‘exploration’ rather than a theoretical contribution strictly following regular academic structures. As such, it is mostly articulated as a narrative using extended metaphors to convey the entanglement between the state of mind of the researcher and the evolution of her research process.

Security-centric approach in the use of digital technologies in EU migration and asylum policies

ABSTRACT The rapid evolution of digital technology, particularly in the domain of surveillance and identification, has brought forth a multitude of implications for the European Union’s approach to migration, asylum and border control. The use of digital technologies at the EU's external borders has emerged as a critical point of contention. By referring to ‘security-centric approach’ to describe the expansion of national security-related uses of digital technologies in migration and asylum, the article unveils the extent to which security considerations have permeated the use of digital technologies in this area. The analysis aims to demonstrate the predominance of this security focus and only a marginal role of efficiency, convenience and market needs objectives in the use of digital technologies in EU migration, asylum and border control policies.

Testing the Inspirational Link between EU Citizenship and Migration Law: C-112/22 and C-223/22 CU and ND on Indirect Discrimination of Long-Term Residents

Testing the Inspirational Link between EU Citizenship and Migration Law: C-112/22 and C-223/22 CU and ND on Indirect Discrimination of Long-Term Residents

The European Commission and the migration-development nexus: accessing resources and increasing the mandate

ABSTRACT The migration-development nexus (MDN) denotes interdependencies between international migration and development. The article identifies six different causal relations between migration and development in the scientific literature and applies them to understand EU policy on the nexus. At EU level, the nexus often serves the central policy objective of limiting irregular migration to Europe, the so-called root causes approach. Yet, contrary to prior research, this article finds that an opposing nexus conceptualization that calls for enabling migration is actually the dominant causality promoted by the European Commission. Unlike studies that explain the dominance of the root causes approach as a lowest-common-denominator choice, this article argues that the Commission’s DGs also use the nexus strategically. They promote contradictory approaches, which however all call for an increased Commission mandate and financial resources, selectively omitting those nexus frames that would decrease their role. The migration literature often relegates the MDN to a sub-theme of migration policy. This study shows that MDN is central to the entire EU migration policy area and transpires much of its migration discourse. The nexus and its conceptualizations are thus instrumental for broader migration policy debates beyond the EU as they touch upon demographics, social security, and welfare questions.

Strategising solidarity: an examination of the Visegrád group’s role and motivations in EU migration policies

ABSTRACT The V4’s opposition to common internal migration policies has often been explained through their lack of affectedness by migration and their anti-immigrant publics. Yet, the V4 have taken a key role in external EU migration policies and become the third largest donor under the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa. Through this theory testing case study, we argue that international standing and reputation, as well as an attempt to remain both responsive to their electorates and responsible towards their European partners, were key motivations in adopting this role. Our evidence suggests that the V4 supported external and border policies to demonstrate cooperativeness and responsibility to those European partners who had previously criticised their lack of solidarity. They did so in the external dimension, as this area was much less salient for their domestic audiences, allowing them to also remain responsive to domestic voters as well.

Political Organisational Silence and the Ethics of Care: EU Migrant Restaurant Workers in Brexit Britain

In this paper, we explore the experiences of EU migrants working in UK restaurants in the aftermath of the Brexit vote. We do so through a care ethics lens, which we bring together with the integrative approach to organisational silence to consider the ethical consequences of the organisational policies of political silence adopted by the restaurant chains in our qualitative empirical study. We develop the concept of political organisational silence and probe its ethical dimensions, showing how at the organisational level it falls short of constituting a practice of caring for migrant workers in politically divisive and hostile times. We argue that organisational policies of political silence emphasise the exploitative nature of the business of (im)migration, which prioritises concern for profits over care for the needs of others. Organisations refuse caring responsibility for migrant workers, leaving care to the migrants themselves and their co-workers and managers. Whilst peer-care practices partially fill this politically silent care-vacuum, this leaves individuals to negotiate difficult tensions without institutional support at a time of increased uncertainty, complexity, hostility, violence, and vulnerability. Drawing lessons from our study and its aftermath, we call for a care manifesto to inform the business of (im)migration, which would need to include caring political responsibility towards migrant workers exercised through caring political organisational voice as well as silence.

An EU Sustainable Migration: Institutional Discourse and Migration Politics

AbstractFrom 2015 to 2016 onwards, migration has been subjected to intense political contestation within EU Member States. In this context, sustainable migration has become the new overarching objective of the Commission. Despite the various references to sustainable migration, a closer investigation of EU migration law and policy does not provide a coherent picture of the legal implications of this concept. This article examines the links between sustainability and migration in EU law and policy and suggests that sustainable migration should be perceived as a political concept that was central for EU migration politics following the so‐called migration crisis. Sustainable migration is a powerful tool at the hands of the Commission and has been used to forge consensus between Member States that might profoundly disagree on the future of EU migration. At the same time, the concept offers little guidance in terms of legal obligations for the protection of migrants.

Producing labour stratification: how migration policies affect the working, living and housing conditions of migrant farmworkers

ABSTRACT Based on a long-term investigation of migrant farmworkers within the Sicilian agricultural districts, this paper aims to use the lens of migratory stratification to scrutinize the various changes that have occurred in the agricultural sector over the past decade. Drawing on ethnographic data from an empirical study conducted on the working and living conditions of migrant farmworkers, this paper will shed light on the economic and social stratification strategies fostered by EU migration policies. In line with the issues addressed in this special issue, the paper analyses how migrant regulatory procedures have resulted in the deterioration of migrant farmworkers’ working, living and housing conditions. Before the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, the stratification of migrant farmworkers was mainly based on country of origin and involved labourers due to different times of arrival and legal status; with the onset of the ‘refugee crisis’, the mechanisms of stratification and labour substitution mainly involved asylum seekers.

On the Timing of Marriage and Childbearing: Family Formation Pathways Among Immigrants in Switzerland.

This paper examines childbearing in and outside of marriage as a manifestation of the Second Demographic Transition among immigrant populations in Switzerland. Based on full-population register data, we simultaneously analyse fertility and partnership changes at different stages of the migration process. Results from a multistate event history model show that most of the differences in family formation patterns between migrant groups and natives are in the sequencing of marriage and first birth among childless unmarried women. Out of wedlock family trajectories prove to be a common experience for European migrants, but a sustainable family pathway only among natives, as well as among immigrants from France, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Among married women, it is the risk of a third birth that marks the differences between groups; first and second birth rates are relatively similar across migrant groups. Distinguishing between the transition patterns of newly arrived immigrants and settled immigrants (characterised by various residence durations) support the disruption hypothesis among EU migrants and the interrelated life events hypothesis among non-EU groups. Family size and the partnership context of fertility highlight which family regime prevails in different population subgroups and the role that immigrants play in the Second Demographic Transition and family transformation in Europe.

In the Labyrinth of Remembrance: Historical Thinking and the Pluralism of past-interpretation

The study explores the issues of European remembrance politics and common culture of remembrance, analysing the relationship between collective memory and historiography. It points out that history is a constructed narrative that serves political ends and that national identity is closely intertwined with the national image of history. The study takes stock of the dilemmas of a common remembrance policy at the European level: the divergence of national narratives and the question of a single European identity. Finally, presents the issues of European memory culture, from the Holocaust to EU integration and migration, and makes proposals for an unbiased, diverse and common European memory policy.

Roles and ideologies in foreign policy: the Czech positions on the EU migration crisis

ABSTRACT Role theory and the study of ideology represent two important concepts of Foreign Policy Analysis. While the former sheds light on the positions which a country assumes on the international stage, the latter examines the deep ideational grounds on which foreign policy rests. This article integrates roles and ideologies to define foreign policy positions. An analysis of the Czech foreign policy during the EU migration crisis identifies four ideologies (Atlanticism, Europeanism, Internationalism and Sovereignism) and five roles (Democracy Supporter, Faithful Ally, Regional Collaborator, Reformer, and Prosperity Builder). On this basis, a number of foreign policy positions are defined, among which that of a Europeanist Reformer stands out as it synthesises two patterns of the Czech foreign policy: its striving for international recognition and its striving for national autonomy. The article also argues that during the migration crisis, the striving for autonomy was somewhat stronger than before.

Haunting the Margins: Excavating EU Migrants as the ‘Social Ghosts’ of Our Time

Using the spectral as a conceptual metaphor, we explore narratives within Sweden’s welfare institutions and policy discourses surrounding vulnerable EU citizens. We aim to provide a new understanding of vulnerable EU citizens as the social ghosts of our time by exploring how the concept of the social ghost and hauntology can be used to perform ethical critique of social injustice. By excavating examples from already gathered material, we explore the unseen within the already seen to critically examine how vulnerable EU citizens are constructed in social welfare narratives. We argue that the terminology of vulnerable EU citizens not only is constructed as uncanny and abject but also as social ghosts, denied a social and political identity and forced to haunt the margins of societal life. Moreover, we argue that the Swedish state becomes a site for necropolitical power, enabling but also perpetuating lingering violent effects on Roma people.

Highly skilled and highly skeptical? How education and origin shape newcomers’ relationship with their new home*

ABSTRACT This article explores how level of education and region of origin (EU versus non-EU) shape newcomers’ perceptions of being welcome and treated fairly upon arrival, as well as their feelings of closeness and belonging to majority members and their long-term commitment to their new country of residence. Our results show that the impact of these factors – education and EU background – varies between these dimensions in shaping individuals’ attitudes and feelings about their new home. Feelings of being welcome and treated fairly do not differ much between origin groups per se, but they do differ between highly skilled and less-skilled migrants, although in a paradoxical way. Skilled third-country nationals are more skeptical than individuals with lower levels of education, and they are also more likely to feel marginalized. As regards the other dimensions, origin clearly trumps education. Although EU migrants are not particularly skeptical about Germany, they feel less close to it and more hesitant to make a long-term commitment to the country. Our analysis shows that skilled migrants do not relate in a consistent or homogeneous way to their destination country.

Reframing the Refugee: Jenny Erpenbeck’s Compassionate Politics

Countless polls, studies and surveys conducted prior to and following the 2016 UK Referendum on Membership of the European Union confirmed immigration to be the key emotive issue for not only the British electorate, but several Western European nations. By critiquing key pieces of EU legislation, Go, Went, Gone (2015) by Jenny Erpenbeck offers a humanising, caustic warning of the troubling politicisation of EU and non-EU migration in Germany, suggesting the ways by which literature can destabilise institutional optics of power and counteract myths surrounding the process of racial othering.

Addressing Algorithmic Errors in Data-Driven Border Control Procedures

Abstract The gradual digitization of EU migration policies is turning external borders into AI-driven filters that limit access to fundamental rights for people from third countries according to risk indicators. An unshakeable confidence in the reliability of technological devices and their ability to predict the future behaviour of incoming foreigners is leading towards the datafication of EU external frontiers. What happens if the supposedly infallible algorithms are wrong? The article aims to understand the consequences of algorithmic errors on the lives of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers arriving in the European Union. This contribution investigates the socio-political implications of deploying data-driven solutions at the borders in an attempt to problematize the techno-solutionist approach of EU migratory policies and its fundamental rights impact on affected individuals.

Multiple sources of right to an effective remedy in EU migration and asylum law: Towards common standards on judicial protection?

Along with the progressive insertion of the right to an effective remedy in instruments of secondary legislation in different sub-areas of EU migration and asylum law, the question of interplay between the right to an effective remedy guaranteed at the level of primary law (Article 47 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights) and secondary law has been gaining more and more importance for the determination of boundaries between matters covered by EU law and those governed by national legislation. The present contribution will seek to examine the interactions between Article 47 of the Charter and the relevant provisions of secondary law in the field of migration and asylum. It will demonstrate that despite dense codification of the right to an effective remedy in different instruments of secondary law, Article 47 of the Charter continues to play a significant role in the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU concerning procedural guarantees conferred upon migrants and asylum seekers. A particular emphasis will be put on the analysis of recent case law developments that reveal the potential of Article 47 of the Charter to serve as a main tool for readjustment of national procedural rules.

The More Favourable Provision Clause in EU Migration Law: Expanding Fundamental Rights through National Discretion?

Abstract Interaction between different levels of fundamental rights protection is a widely debated topic in EU scholarship, which has long dealt with situations in which national legislation lowered legal standards in the EU. Less explored, however, is the opposite case: when Member State regulations set standards higher than those enshrined at EU level. This can occur through application of the more favourable provision (MFP) clause – commonly enshrined in EU directives dealing with (but not limited to) immigration and asylum. Under it, Member States can apply more favourable standards insofar as they comply with EU legislation. Though seldom discussed in existing literature, the MFP clause is a critical issue of EU migration law and illustrative of challenges facing the EU constitutional order, for it highlights the relationship between fundamental rights protection in the multi-layered EU system and general principles of EU law. Against this backdrop, this paper will investigate the features of the MFP clause in EU migration law and analyse the CJEU’s adjudication in immigration and asylum cases, exploring its reasoning in testing application of MFP clause against EU law.