Third-country Nationals Research Articles

The Importance and Application of the Principle of Equal Treatment of Third Country Nationals in the EU

The communitarization of immigration and asylum disciplines and the beginning of a common European Union policy in such areas will begin to create more favorable conditions for the integration of third country nationals who are legally resident, in the territory of the EU. The Tampere European Council of 1999 stressed the need to provide to nationals of third countries rights and obligations similar to those of EU nationals, in order to eliminate social, economic and cultural discrimination. This could be possible through the approximation of the legal status of third country nationals to that of EU nationals. To achieve this goal, there are adopted secondary norms of Community legislation on equal treatment for certain categories of citizens of third countries as refugees, the long-term residents, etc. Regulation EC No 859/2003 extended the effects of the provisions relating to the coordination of national social security regimes and to third country nationals. This European common policy took a new development with the Lisbon Treaty. One of the objectives of the common policy on immigration is the one which provides an equo treatment to third-country national who are legally resident in one of the Member States. This attitude finds concretization even to several articles of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights, which after the Lisbon Treaty has binding legal effects as it has the same legal value of the treaties. The Directive 2011/98/EU aims to establish a single procedure for third country nationals to obtain a combined permit for both residence and work, establishing a series of rights for third-country nationals who are legally resident in a Member State. This directive, in certain sectors, provides an equal treatment of third country nationals with those national. But the text of the directive provides also the cases when EU Member States may derogate from the application of the principle of equal treatment. This paper aims to analyze legal instruments adopted by the EU which recognize the principle of equal treatment of nationals of third countries with nationals, as well as the ways provided to implement this important principle.

Reform, Counter-Reform and the Politics of Citizenship: Local Voting Rights for Third-Country Nationals in Greece

Greece has experienced significant economic immigration during the last 20 years without having been prepared for it. Greek migration management and migrant integration policies have been slow to develop and, despite rapid demographic change, native Greeks have largely retained a predominantly mono-ethnic and mono-religious view of the nation. Indeed, until recently, Greece had one of the most restrictive citizenship regimes in Europe. The situation changed in March 2010 when the socialist government passed a new citizenship law that has facilitated the access to citizenship of both first and second generation migrants. The same law also introduced local voting rights for third-country nationals that reside in Greece legally for 5 years or more. This paper discusses this new law and in particular, the issue of local voting rights in the Greek social and political context. It analyses who spearheaded the drive for change, who opposed the law and the concession of local voting rights and on what grounds. The paper reviews parliamentary debates, policy documents, data from the last local elections and the recent decision of the Greek State Council which annulled the law by deeming it unconstitutional. The analysis places developments in Greece in the context of relevant theoretical debates in the field of citizenship studies reviewing briefly the overall trends on the issue of local political participation of noncitizens in Europe.

Lithuanian Migration Policy in respect of Third-country Nationals: Experience and Tendencies

Migration policy was recognised as a relevant topic a decade ago, when it was acknowledged as a tool to improve demographical and economic situation of the countries. Nowadays migration issues is one of the mostly discussed theme in the European Union. Through the incessant emigration, ageing of the citizens and brain drain phenomenon Lithuania inevitably face growing demand of imigrants from third –countries. Although it is recognized in Lithuania that economic and demographic situation of the country can be improved by means of imigration from third – countries, migration policy in regard to the third-country-nationals is not ideal and it‘s practical implementation does not operate well. Lithuania does not have enough practise in this scope – migration policy in our country has been relevant only since Lithuania became the member of European Union and national migration policy was started to harmonise with requirements of the European Union. According to the results of analysis can be concluded that in order to improve implementation of migration policy in Lithuania, firstly it must be tought about purposeful and consecutive development of migration policy and integration of third-country nationals. Unfortunately migration policy in Lithuania at the moment is based only on short-term economic needs.

At a Crossroads? Reflections on the Right to Asylum for European Union Citizens

The presumption that all EU Member States are safe countries of origin constitutes a vital part of the self-image of the European Union. Consequently, the possibilities open to an EU citizen seeking asylum in another EU country are limited. The human rights record of certain Member States, however, reveals that for some of their citizens this image is not a true representation. Perhaps the most obvious example, though not the only one, is the plight of the Roma minority. Based on an analysis of the right to asylum and its limited scope within the EU context, this article contends that the predicament of the Roma, as well as recent political developments in Europe (where in certain countries the rule of law and fundamental rights have been constrained), provides grounds for challenging such a presumption of safety and for recognizing that EU citizens could have valid claims for protection. The article goes on to explore various alternatives for safeguarding EU citizens. It asserts that recent case law of the European Court of Human Rights and the European Union Court of Justice on third-country nationals in so-called Dublin cases opens up fresh possibilities for asylum claims by EU citizens to be assessed thoroughly rather than being routinely dismissed as ‘manifestly unfounded’.

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Towards Post-National Membership: Local Voting Rights for Third-Country Nationals in Greece

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Towards Post-National Membership: Local Voting Rights for Third-Country Nationals in Greece

Is the Indiscriminate Detention of Irregular Migrants a Cost-Effective Policy Tool? The Case-Study of Amygdaleza Pre-Removal Center

The purpose of this new policy is straightforward: to secure that all irregular migrants — unless granted international protection — will be returned to their home countries. Faced with the deprivation of their liberty and without the hope of a timely release, the Greek authorities believe that migrants will be forced to co-operate and accept a so called “voluntary” [assisted] return or indeed a forced return to their country of origin. Greece will thus succeed in reducing the overall size of its irregular migrant population. At the same, this new policy is expected to act as a deterrent since it will “send a strong signal to third-country nationals willing to illegally enter Greece,” and “warn all immigrants who do not fall under the status of international protection that they will be arrested, detained and returned to the countries of origin.

EU Labour Immigration Policy: Discourses and Mobility

This article seeks to present the labour immigration policy developed at the European Union level since the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty until the adoption of the first European law on labour immigration. The first part relates the European debates and discourses regarding the opening to new labour migration and it highlights the main steps of the policy debate at the European level. The European Commission discourse on labour migration is emphasised as well as the reactions of other actors, in particular the Member States. The second part examines the Council Directive on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purposes of highly qualified employment, also called the Blue Card Directive. This part highlights the features of the category of new labour migrants and points out the consequences of preferring temporary mobility. It also reviews other categories of workers such as seasonal workers and intra-corporate transferees. In the final section, the article questions the rationale of the on-going European Union discourse, the policy and its challenges. Despite new European Union discourse in favour of a certain kind of migrants; wanted migrants (skilled workers) are treated as nonwanted migrants.

The EU Blue Card: Preferences, policies, and negotiations between Member States

In May 2009, the European Union (EU) approved the ‘Council Directive on the conditions of entry and residence of third-country nationals for the purposes of highly qualified employment’ (the Blue Card Directive). This Directive sought to make the EU internationally more competitive, but Member States were reluctant to cede responsibility for labour market access regulation. Building on liberal intergovernmentalism and a two-level game framework, the article argues that since different national high-skilled immigration policies (demonstrated through a constructed index on States’ openness to high-skilled immigration) have been transferred to EU level, they have created variations in Member States’ positions on the Blue Card in a two-level game. This divergence among Member States helps to explain the less ambitious outcome of the Blue Card Directive, despite general support by Member States on the establishment of common rules for high-skilled immigrants. The final version does not make much of a difference since it is mainly an advertising tool. Through an empirical example of the Blue Card case study, the article helps to better understand how important national preferences remain for European policies.

European social cohesions

ABSTRACT Contemporary public debates on social cohesion in Europe at both the European Union (EU) and member-state level tend to reduce the topic to the ‘problem’ of immigration by third-country nationals, and the integration of these immigrants and their descendants into European national societies. These debates often emphasize a culturalist perspective on the social cohesion of national societies based on core national cultures, identities and histories that pre-date the mass immigration of non-EU/European Economic Area immigrants, with social cohesion depending on their identifiable assimilation to this core set of values, beliefs and behaviours. This culture-based perspective on social cohesion has become an integral component of the neoliberal reorganization of the interventionist state in Europe that both punishes the native poor and coerces the immigrant third-country national as it frees markets and restructures the European welfare state. Yet, an examination of European social cohesion policies across seven policy domains suggests that the problem of social cohesion has little to do either with the issue of immigration or of immigrant and ethnic minority integration. However, it does have a lot to do with increasing inequalities and insecurities in European societies that result from neoliberal political economic policies. Drawing on Émile Durkheim's seminal discussion of social cohesion that includes structural and cultural dimensions, Boucher analyses the seven policy domains of European social cohesions within a functionalist framework that highlights inconsistencies, policy gaps and internal tensions between the domains. His analysis suggests the need for a more coherent, integrated and multilevel governance policy framework based on social justice, socio-economic equality and cultural diversity to achieve the elusive goal of social cohesion in Europe.

EU migration policy and its constitutional rationale: A cosmopolitan outlook

There is much confusion among EU experts about the legal status of third-country nationals. This is hardly surprising, since this uncertainty reflects conceptual tensions at the heart of the European project. Europe's mission of promoting transnational freedom for citizens of the Member States within the single market is not replicated for third-country nationals in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice. Instead of dismantling borders, EU activities re-confirm the relevance of borders towards third States - both physically through external border controls and legally under the emerging EU immigration and asylum acquis. This article identifies underlying motives and resolves the puzzle by proposing a positive constitutional rationale for the substantive rules of European migration policy. It takes seriously two major reforms brought about by the Lisbon Treaty: the emancipation of migration within the area of freedom, security and justice; and the binding character of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Both changes help us to understand that EU primary law represents a noteworthy accommodation of countervailing theoretical arguments about the normative foundations of international migration. EU migration law is committed to a "cosmopolitan outlook", which rejects the traditional notion of unfettered sovereign State control without mandating open borders.

The Silenced and Indispensible

Using postcolonial analysis coupled with fieldwork in both Afghanistan and Nepal, I argue that contemporary colonial relations within private security make possible a gender and racial hierarchy of security contractors. This hierarchy of contractors results in vastly different conditions of possibilities depending on the contractors' histories and nationalities. Empirically documenting perspectives from Gurkhas, constituted as third country national (TCNs) security contractors, this article contributes to the existing critical theory and gender in both private military security company literature and postcolonial studies by (1) providing a needed racial and gendered analysis from the position of the racialized security contractors and (2) empirically documenting a growing subaltern group of men participating as security contractors.

Case Note: De Souza Ribeiro v. France

On 13th December 2012, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered its judgement in the case de Souza Ribeiro v. France. The case raises important issues pertaining to the protection of right to private and family life and the right to effective remedy of third-country nationals to whom a removal order has been issued, and who are facing deportation. This is the first case brought before the ECtHR concerning the French overseas region of French Guiana in South America. According to the constitution of France, French laws and regulations automatically apply in the overseas regions, although some adjustments – quite relevant for the outcome in his case – may be made according to the special features of the region. The case confirms the existing jurisprudence on the right to effective remedy under Article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), here, read in conjunction with the right to respect for private and family life, as set out in Article 8 of the Convention. The Court accepted that an appeal against a removal order does not need to have an automatic suspensive effect for it to be considered effective, unless it otherwise may lead to irreversible damage. In other words, the Court drew a clear distinction between cases concerning Article 13 read in conjunction with Article 2, Article 3, or Article 4 of the Protocol No. 4, as opposed to the other Articles of the ECHR, including Article 8. Nonetheless, the Court noted that minimum procedural safeguards must be in place to protect individuals against arbitrary expulsion, and in the case of Mr de Souza Ribeiro, due to the rapidness of his deportation, he did not have access in practise to effective remedies.

Swimming against the tide: why Sweden supports increased labour mobility within and from outside the EU

While the free movement of labour in the EU is generally depicted as a positive feature of the single market, it was also controversial in the debate on EU enlargement. Actors opposing enlargement argued that large waves of migrants from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) would ‘swamp’ Western labour markets, leading to so-called social tourism and increasing xenophobia. Contrary to the developments in other countries, Sweden was one of the only three Member States to immediately open its doors to citizens from the EU accession countries of 2004 and 2007. Sweden has also been one of the few EU countries to actively promote greater liberalisation of labour migration policy for third-country nationals (TCNs) within the EU, and the new Swedish Immigration Law of 2008 dramatically liberalised the TCN labour migration policy and made it more employer-driven. We argue that in order to understand why Sweden has supported increased labour mobility within and from outside of the EU, we need to complement existing explanations by analysing the preferences of the political parties. A two-dimensional analysis focusing on economy and culture provides an understanding of why so-called unholy coalitions of parties in support of liberal labour policies have emerged in Sweden during the 2000s. The article ends with a discussion of lessons learned from the Swedish case and wider implications for rights-based mobility in the EU.

Understanding the diversity of EU migration policy in practice: the implementation of the Blue Card initiative

High-skilled immigration (HSI) policies, and their harmonisation across member states, have been an important part of the EU's Lisbon strategy focusing on the knowledge-based economy, and the subsequent ‘Europe 2020’ which emphasises economic recovery. Intra-EU mobility of high-skilled workers is quite low, and member states have targeted high-skilled third-country nationals (TCNs), both through national policies and the EU's recent Blue Card scheme. However, the Blue Card Directive (adopted in 2009, transposed by June 2011), despite its scope for Unionised regulation, allows member states to decide how many high-skilled TCNs they want to admit, if any. The article argues that tensions between openness and closure to migration exist at both member state and EU level. These tensions are resolved through considerable diversity in the conditions and rights accorded to Blue Card holders across member states. Drawing on new empirical data, the article analyses first results of the transposition of the Blue Card Directive. It examines how far, in what form, and with what implications, diversity continues regarding the principle of mobility for these migrants across member states. The pattern and nature of transposition are hence important in shaping an EU-regulated liberal market in labour recruitment, and the development, or otherwise, of rights-based mobility regulation.

Economic crisis and migrants' employment: a view from Greece in comparative perspective

This paper explains and evaluates the effects of the developing crisis on the mobility of third-country nationals in Greece and other South European political economies. In doing so it explores the mobility of these migrants within the context of the informal economic activity in which many such migrants have been involved. The paper exposes the distance separating the law and the actual enforcement of fundamental employment- and mobility-related rights of irregular migrants in Greece and other southern European countries. It identifies the significance of the familistic welfare regime of the European South in framing migrants' characteristics and their consequent mobility in the region. The article argues that the familistic welfare regime of the host country is inextricably linked to migrants' employment trajectories and fundamentally affects the strategies that migrants have developed in order to protect themselves in lieu of effective rights regulation.

WE WILL ALWAYS HAVE TAMPERE: A Case Study on the Regulation of the Residence Status of Long-Term Migrants

While European Union citizenship gradually moved from a matter of employmentrights toward a matter of fundamental rights, the status of third-country nationals (TCNs)remained locked in the policy areas of security and economic cooperation. This changed sincethe late-1990s under gradual developments favouring the centralization of migration policy. Thecurrent paper makes a contribution to trace this process by presenting a case study of the 2003Directive concerning the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents. Anoverview of the process leading to the adoption of the Directive is followed by an examination ofthe practicalities involved in its transposition into domestic law in Portugal, a country in whichthe relative novelty of the immigration phenomenon and an inconstant economic trajectory arecritically entwined. It is concluded that migration policy can be developed at the EU level withouta common position on integration being taken. Far from an incidental outcome, this enablesnation-states to both concede benefits claimed through political mobilization for theadvancement of immigrants’ rights and reassert their gate-keeping capacity in the regulation ofmigration. The combination of protective advancements for TCNs and increased securitizationof their mobility stands out as a piece of key explanatory value to understand the adoption of theDirective in a context of tightening immigration policy in various member-states.

Fundamental Rights Protection for Third Country Nationals and Citizens of the Union: Principles for Enhancing Coherence

Abstract The definition of the legal contours of a citizenship status is intrinsically bound to the determination of a differentiated status for non-citizens. Nonetheless, European citizenship has been designed in a non-exclusionary fashion. This is not so much the result of a conscious exercise of inclusiveness, as the result of the indeterminacy of the EU Treaties. The progressive construction of a common European immigration policy is happening within a constitutional scenario deprived of principles suitable to guide the relationship between the citizenship status and the several newly created status for third-country nationals, who now derive their EU rights not only from their relationships with EU citizens nor from agreements mirroring the fundamental freedoms. For this reason, there is a growing need to make explicit the principles that should govern this relationship. The main purpose of this paper is to discern and analyse the emerging lines of this relationship, which are being unveiled by EU immigration norms, particularly as they are being interpreted in recent judgements of the ECJ. It will be argued that the new EU rules on immigration are helping to uncover the shortcomings and incoherencies of the EU citizenship status since, paradoxically, the structure of EU competences allows for a deeper involvement of EU law in the determination of the rights of third country nationals than of the rights of citizens.

Integration for Third-Country Nationals in the European Union. The Equality Challenge (Jasmin Schnitzer)

Integration for Third-Country Nationals in the European Union. The Equality Challenge (Jasmin Schnitzer)

Integration for Third-Country Nationals in the European Union: The Equality Challenge * by Sonia Morano-Foadi and Micaela Malena (eds)

Integration for Third-Country Nationals in the European Union: The Equality Challenge * by Sonia Morano-Foadi and Micaela Malena (eds)

Free Movement and the Fragmentation of Family Reunification Rights

Abstract Family reunification regulations in the EU are increasingly complex, and they vary for different groups of sponsors. This paper documents the existence of four parallel legal regimes for family reunification — national rules for citizens who do not move, EU rules for citizens who move within Europe, the Family Reunification Directive for third-country nationals in the EU, and since 2011, family reunification rights based on EU citizenship status. This paper asks how and why family reunification rules are being thus fragmented, and in particular why so-called ‘reverse discrimination’, where citizens are disadvantaged vis-à-vis non-citizens, is persisting and deepening. It draws on tools from political science, namely historical institutionalism and studies of policy transfer and Europeanization, to showcase the different logics that underlie these puzzling developments.