The EU has no need for a common immigration policy

Résumé du document

In 1957, the Treaty of Rome mentioned the elimination of border controls within its territory as a goal of the EEC (European Economic Union). This implied that the member states would sooner or later have to address the question of deciding on common rules concerning access to their soil through the process of spill-over. However, the issue of immigration started to appear in the EU (European Union) political agenda (Uçarer, 2003, p. 295) only in the mid-1970s. Today there is a demand for closer integration in that field, but one may argue that "the EU has no need for a common immigration policy".

Extraits

[...] and Pollack, M. A. (eds.), Policy Making in the European Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 5th edition). Nugent, N. (2006), The Government and Politics of the European Union (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 6th edition). Uçarer, E. M. (2003), ‘Justice and Home Affairs', in M. Cini European Union Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press). [...]

[...] In 1993, Sweden and Denmark decided that Bosnians henceforth needed visas to enter their territory. As a result of this new piece of legislation, Norway suffered from a sudden augmentation of asylum applications from Bosnian nationals, until it passed the same regulation (Collinson p. 11). Thirdly, a common policy with regard to immigration issues would set up a so-called mechanism of ‘burden sharing' between the member states. As the rules would be harmonized throughout the Union, this would promote a more equal distribution of immigrants and asylum-seekers. [...]

[...] To discuss this statement, the first part of the essay will explain why the EU would require such a policy, whereas the second one will look at the reasons why it still has not materialized. Finally, the essay will conclude that although a common immigration policy definitely is needed, it could be implemented only if the member states showed more desire to an actual deeper European integration. The EU's need for a common immigration policy comes from several motives. The internal borders of the EU have been removed through the implementation of the single market. Consequently, the external frontiers of every member state are now common to the EU as a whole. [...]

[...] The second section of the essay will consider why a decisive step towards an EU common immigration policy still has not taken place. First of all, immigration policies are traditionally seen as issues to be tackled at the national level only. Indeed, they affect the very definition and security of the nation-state since they deal with the question of which persons are to be granted the citizenship and protection of the State of the country in which they wish to reside. [...]

[...] However, it was only a small majority (between 52 and 54 per cent), due to the fact that in some States most of the people advocated that only their government should decide on these policies. The disparities of opinion are thus enormous across the Union, the most striking one being that 73 per cent of the Italians estimated that immigration issues should be shared between their government and the EU while a mere 16 per cent of Finnish people thought so (Hix pp. 366-367). Such divergences between the European peoples clearly indicate that a common immigration policy will not be conceivable soon. [...]