Joanne van Selm, Editor

The displacement of more than 1 million people in and from Kosovo following the NATO intervention to stop "ethnic cleansing" by Serbian forces seemed to take EU leaders by surprise. As displaced Kosovars crossed borders into Albania and the former Yugoslav republics of Macedonia and Montenegro, the EU member states all reacted with confusion and lack of unity.

While political attention focused on the bombing campaign, public attention, stimulated by media images, was focused on the misery and suffering of fellow Europeans. Two main themes resonated through EU-level discussions: the "sharing of the refugee burden" and the need for the majority of Kosovars to remain close too home ... but not too close.

This book describes and analyzes the vacillations of seven EU member states (Germany, Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Austria, Italy, France) concerning the management of this European refugee crisis. Four key issues are addressed: the lessons learned from the Bosnian crisis; the national debates on asylum and immigration; the position of each state on European integration, and its expectations of the EU level; and wider theoretical issues associated particularly with notions of identity, security, society, and xenophobia.

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