Migration Policy Institute Europe

LATEST MPI EUROPE RESEARCH

Migration and Environmental Change: Assessing the Developing European Approach
By Andrew Geddes and Will Somerville
Migration resulting from environmental change has been a topic of preoccupation since the 1990s, but in practice there has been very little policy development within the European Union on this topic. This brief finds that while such migration is likely to be largely concentrated in areas outside of Europe, there are far-reaching implications for policy. Download Brief

The Integration Needs of Mobile EU Citizens: Impediments and Opportunities
By Elizabeth Collett
The right to free movement granted to all European Union citizens represents a unique experiment in the contemporary history of global migration systems. To date, however, the integration of mobile EU citizens as a specific target group has not been widely discussed, either at EU or national levels, and EU-level integration policies focus on the integration of legally residing third-country nationals. This report investigates the broad range of integration needs that exist in Europe and the role different actors can play in meeting them.
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How Free Is Free Movement? Dynamics and Drivers of Mobility within the European Union
By Meghan Benton and Milica Petrovic
While free movement is at the heart of the European project, the merits and impacts of intra-EU mobility have come under significant scrutiny recently amid public anxiety about competition for jobs and exploitation of welfare systems. This report provides a detailed assessment of free movement, motivations for migration, and challenges countries may need to address as intra-EU mobility enters its next phase.
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Facing 2020: Developing a new European agenda for immigration and asylum policy
By Elizabeth Collett
As the European Commission looks ahead to the next strategic programme for immigration in 2014, this policy brief sketches the challenges in developing a strategic, long-term agenda on migration at a time when Europe remains beset by fiscal uncertainty and a jobs crisis that is particularly acute for the young. Against such a backdrop, few governments are willing to have a serious conversation about anything but skilled immigration. This brief marks the launch of a new policy brief series from MPI Europe that will examine top European migration challenges and opportunities.
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RELATED RESEARCH: IMMIGRATION AND NATIONAL IDENTITY

The Netherlands: From National Identity to Plural Identifications
By Monique Kremer
National identity has become a highly politicized issue in the Netherlands in the past decade, with many public figures voicing different opinions on what it means to be “Dutch.” Both right-wing and mainstream parties have adopted political rhetoric that appeals to the public’s growing anxiety about immigrants and their effect on local communities, and many have proposed policies designed to mitigate these fears. This new dialogue has marked a turn away from multiculturalism and a turn toward “culturalized citizenship” — the idea that being Dutch means adhering to a certain set of cultural and social norms and practices.
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Immigration and National Identity in Norway
By Thomas Hylland Eriksen
The number of immigrants and their descendants in Norway almost tripled between 1995 and 2011, resulting in increased debates about integration, immigration policy, multiculturalism, and national identity in recent years. The atrocities of July 2011 revealed an active, militantly anti-immigrant (particularly anti-Muslim) fringe that sees government’s acceptance of cultural pluralism as treacherous. This report assesses the connection between the recent rise of resentment against immigration and broader trends in Norwegian nationalism, and proposes a few policy recommendations with the aim of minimizing this rift in Norwegian society.
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Exceptional in Europe? Spain’s Experience with Immigration and Integration
By Joaquín Arango
Spain’s immigrant population increased from less than 4 percent of the country’s overall population to almost 14 percent in the span of one short decade. Unlike other European countries, however, Spain has not experienced a significant backlash against immigration, even amid an economic crisis that has hit the country hard and led to high levels of unemployment. This country case study from MPI’s Transatlantic Council on Migration explains Spain’s enduring openness to immigration and immigrants.
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French National Identity and Integration: Who Belongs to the National Community?
By Patrick Simon
Since the mid-1980s, France has faced a contentious debate of crucial importance for immigrants and their descendents — defining what it means to be French. Though countries with rich histories of immigration have long accepted “dual belonging,” this concept has been criticized and perceived as at odds with a person’s commitment to French identity. A recent s

The Relationship Between Immigration and Nativism in Europe and North America
By Cas Mudde
Far-right parties across Europe are gaining momentum, as witnessed by their recent successes at the ballot box in Greece, France, and elsewhere. While immigration is thought to be a major factor fueling the parties’ rise, this report finds that although there is clearly a relationship, the connection is not as straightforward as is often assumed. The report examines the electoral performance of far-right parties in Europe and North America since 1980, finding that high levels of immigration do not automatically lead to more votes for radical-right parties.
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Building a British Model of Integration in an Era of Immigration: Policy Lessons for Government
By Shamit Saggar and Will Somerville
Despite experiencing large-scale immigration flows and settlement over the past half century, the United Kingdom has not developed a formal integration program. Few public policies have specifically sought to advance immigrant integration, and the political debates surrounding immigrant integration have often been fraught and destabilizing, reflecting deep-seated ambivalence in British society about immigrants and immigration. The authors offer a menu of policy options and actions the government should consider to achieve a well-thought-out approach.

Rethinking National Identity in the Age of Migration
By Demetrios G. Papademetriou
Large-scale immigration has led to unprecedented levels of diversity and demographic change, transforming communities across the Atlantic in fundamental ways and challenging closely held notions of national identity, particularly amid heightened economic insecurity. The Transatlantic Council on Migration convened to consider these issues of national identity, social cohesion, and the backlash against multiculturalism; this Council Statement examines the roots of society’s anxiety over immigration and outlines ten steps for fostering greater cohesiveness.

Multiculturalism: Success, Failure, and the Future
By Will Kymlicka
Despite substantial evidence to the contrary, a chorus of political leaders in Europe has declared multiculturalism policies a failure – in effect mischaracterizing the multiculturalism experiment, its future prospects, and its progress over the past three decades. This report challenges the recent rhetoric and addresses the advancement of policy areas for countries, examining factors that impede or facilitate successful the implementation of multiculturalism.

The Role of the State in Cultural Integration: Trends, Challenges, and Ways Ahead
By Christian Joppke
For more than a decade, states have experimented with a range of civic integration policies that require immigrants to learn the official language of their host country and acknowledge its basic norms and values — or risk losing social benefits and sometimes even residence permits. The challenge for liberal states is to strike the right balance between policies that are aggressive enough to further social cohesion, yet restrained enough to respect the moral autonomy of immigrants. This is especially difficult when it comes to regulating sensitive identity issues, particularly with respect to religion.

The Centrality of Employment in Immigrant Integration in Europe
By Randall Hansen
The two sides of the debate on immigration and integration in Europe share an underlying assumption that the problem is cultural, while disagreeing on whether it is the result of too much or too little respect for cultural differences. Both get the issue wrong, this report contends, calling attention to the inability of policies to ensure immigrants acquire and retain work. Employment, not culture, must be the basis for immigration policy in Europe, the author suggests.

OTHER RESEARCH

	Regularizations in the European Union: The Contentious Policy Tool By Kate Brick Though contentious, regularization (typically referred to in the US context as legalization) remains a frequently utilized policy tool to address the European Union’s unauthorized immigrant population. Since 1996, over 5 million people have been regularized through a variety of methods, which this Insight details. This work informed the Transatlantic Council on Migration meeting, “Restoring Trust in the Management of Migration and Borders.” The resulting Council Statement, authored by MPI President Demetrios G. Papademetriou, offers a menu of policy options and actions governments can take to build a “whole-of-system” approach to controlling illegal immigration while also creating the political space necessary for reforms of their immigration systems. Download Report | Read Council Statement
	Shared Challenges and Opportunities for EU and US Immigration Policymakers By Philippe Fargues, Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Giambattista Salinari, and Madeleine Sumption This final report summarizes and reflects upon the key findings of the Improving EU and US Immigration Systems: Learning from Experience comparative research project undertaken by the Migration Policy Institute and the European University Institute through a grant from the European Commission.  The project focused on developments in Europe and the United States in eight key areas – employment, economic growth, human rights, security, immigrant integration, demographics, development, and cooperation with immigrant-sending countries. This final report highlights the lessons to be learned from both similar and divergent experiences on either side of the Atlantic, sketching opportunities for future reform, as well as ways in which the European Union and the United States could improve their cooperative relationship. Download Report | Project Website
	Migration and Development Policy: What Have We Learned? By Kathleen Newland Migration and development have become a pressing policy priority on the global agenda over the past decade, and a number of revisions to conventional thinking on the subject have gained traction and yielded innovative — albeit in many cases yet unproven — policies and programs. This brief identifies critical lessons from the past decade of policy experimentation and offers some recommendations for policy moving forward. Download Brief
	Scientists, Managers, and Tourists: The Changing Shape of European Migration to the United States By Madeleine Sumption and Xiaochu Hu Once the dominant immigrant stream into the United States, European migration to the country has fallen sharply since World War II, a result of economic, demographic, and policy trends across the Atlantic. Today’s migration from European Union Member States is characterized by highly skilled immigrants who are more educated, earn better wages, have greater English proficiency, and are more strongly represented as scientists,  professionals, and businesspeople than other immigrant groups. European migration has maintained a relatively low profile in immigration policy debates, however the Europe-favoring Visa Waiver Program has figured prominently into the  immigration policy arena because of its relation to enhanced border security. Download Report
	The Role of Civil Society in EU Migration Policy: Perspectives on the European Union’s Engagement in its Neighborhood By Natalia Banulescu-Bogdan Civil society provides a crucial link between governments and the communities they represent — infusing policy processes with grassroots knowledge to which governments may not otherwise have access and lending legitimacy to government actions. But thus far, civil-society organizations have had a limited role in European policy debates.  As the European Union seeks to reach out to developing regions in its “neighborhood” of nearby countries, it has emphasized the importance of involving civil society in both agenda-setting and implementation. Yet EU policymakers have not clearly articulated how this engagement might be structured. In effect, the question is not whether to engage, but how to do so. Download Report
	Improving Immigrants’ Employment Prospects through Work-Focused Language Instruction By Margie McHugh and A. E. Challinor Immigrants’ employment prospects depend on their underlying levels of education and technical skills as well as their ability to communicate as needed in the host-country language. Since basic language courses do not impart the host-country language skills necessary for success in the workplace, many governments on both sides of the Atlantic are eager to expand work-focused language training. Yet implementing effective employment-focused language systems is difficult, as policymakers must find ways to design cost-effective programs that are sufficiently tailored to the needs of a wide range of occupations and that take account of immigrants’ underlying literacy skills and their financial and family circumstances. This policy memo explores the different approaches to providing work-focused language training that have developed in Europe and the United States. Download Memo
	Opportunities for Transatlantic Cooperation on International Migration By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Madeleine Sumption The transatlantic relationship is among the most significant partnerships between wealthy nations in immigration policy. While cooperation between the European Union and United States is, of course, far surpassed by the intra-EU or US-Canada relationships, the sheer size of the North Atlantic economic space and the number of workers and travelers who circulate within it make dialogue on migration both necessary and inevitable. This policy memo explores opportunities for cooperation regarding travel and border security, labor mobility, and other areas. Download Memo
	Emerging Transatlantic Security Dilemmas in Border Management By Elizabeth Collett The sheer volume of global travel, which has risen exponentially since the 1960s, puts border management systems under constant pressure. Beyond that growth, border management systems have had to contend with additional risks associated with these movements. Mass-casualty terrorist attacks, rising illegal immigration, and human trafficking have exposed weaknesses in states’ ability to manage their borders effectively. This policy memo examines the infrastructure and policy developments – and challenges – that have occurred in recent years on both sides of the Atlantic, discussing the differing nature and prioritization of those policy challenges. Download Memo
	Eight Policies to Boost the Economic Contribution of Employment-Based Immigration By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Madeleine Sumption Immigration can be a powerful tool for supporting a country’s economic growth and prosperity, but its success in accomplishing that objective depends on well-designed and carefully implemented immigration policies that deliberately and strategically facilitate immigration’s economic contribution. This policy memo, drawing on experiences from Asia, Europe, North America, and the Pacific region, presents eight strategies to create effective and efficient economic-stream immigration systems. Download Memo
	Rethinking Points Systems and Employer-Selected Immigration By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Madeleine Sumption Advanced industrialized economies typically have used one of two competing models for selecting economic-stream immigrants: Points-based or employer-led selection. Increasingly, however, they are creating hybrid selection systems, implement the best ideas from each model. The result: Selection systems that have much of the flexibility of points systems while also prioritizing employer demand. Download Report
	Pay-to-Go Schemes and Other Noncoercive Return Programs: Is Scale Possible? By Richard Black, Michael Collyer, and Will Somerville For decades, some immigrant-receiving countries have experimented with policies designed to encourage unauthorized immigrants to leave without the cost, legal barriers, and political obstacles that result from removals or forced returns. These initiatives – known as pay-to-go, noncoercive, voluntary, assisted voluntary, or nonforced returns — generally offer paid travel and/or a financial incentive in order to persuade target populations to cooperate with immigration authorities. The authors examine the programs’ long history of failure on the ground, but conclude that such initiatives could be an important part of the policy toolkit to reduce illegal immigration with proper experimentation and evaluation. Download Report
	A New Architecture for Border Management By Demetrios G. Papademetriou and Elizabeth Collett This report commissioned to inform the work of MPI’s Transatlantic Council on Migration for its meeting on “Restoring Trust in the Management of Migration and Borders” examines the emergence of a new border architecture resulting from the explosion in global travel and the dawning of the age of risk. This new border architecture must respond effectively to the seemingly competing demands of facilitating mobility while better managing the risks associated with cross-border travel (e.g. terrorism, the entry of unwanted migrants, and organized crime). The report examines the information-sharing agreements, technology innovations, and multilateral partnerships that have emerged as key components of the new architecture for border management, and discusses challenges and considerations for the future. Download Report
	Transatlantic Cooperation on Travelers’ Data Processing: From Sorting Countries to Sorting Individuals This report, the second in a joint project of MPI and the European University Institute examining US and European immigration systems, details the post-9/11 programs and agreements implemented by US and European governments to identify terrorists and serious transnational criminals through the collection and processing of increasing quantities of traveler data. The report analyzes how governments, which once focused their screening primarily on a traveler’s nationality (“sorting countries”), increasingly are examining personal characteristics (“sorting individuals”). Download Report
	Immigrant Integration in a Time of Austerity By Elizabeth Collett With austerity at the forefront of European government policy debates and rising debt levels sure to catalyze additional difficult public spending decisions, immigrant integration programs have been an early place for budget cuts in some countries. This report offers fresh analysis of how immigrant integration programs are faring in a number of EU countries. While the economic and political climate offer some explanation for governments’ response, the report details how those factors alone are insufficient to explain countries’ differing approaches to immigrant integration programs. Download Report | Press Release