E.g., 01/16/2021
E.g., 01/16/2021

Europe

Europe

European Union

Europe faces an interesting set of immigration challenges and opportunities: Demographic pressures as many European societies age, a lively and at times tense policy and political debate over questions of identity and immigrant integration, and a unique policy environment that has knit many European countries together with regards to free movement, the management of outer borders, asylum, and other immigration-related topics. MPI has long conducted research and analysis of European policy on topics ranging from labor mobility and border security to immigrant integration, citizenship, and foreign qualifications recognition, which can be found below.

A woman looks out over tents being used by migrants and asylum seekers on the Greek island of Lesvos
Articles

Greece Struggles to Balance Competing Migration Demands

When he was elected prime minister in 2019, Kyriakos Mitsotakis promised what he called “strict but fair” reforms to secure Greece's borders and speed up transfers of asylum seekers crowding Aegean islands. Yet domestic and geopolitical tensions continued to roil the islands, later joined by a global pandemic, culminating in a fire that destroyed most of Lesvos's Moria refugee camp. This article examines Greece's efforts to strike a delicate balance on migration in a complex era.

Castle Square in Warsaw, Poland
Reports

Driving Migrant Inclusion through Social Innovation: Lessons for Cities in a Pandemic

Since COVID-19 hit cities across Europe, many have struggled with how to sustain support for migrant inclusion in a time of social-distancing orders and likely budget cuts. This report explores how municipalities and their partners used social innovation to meet the challenges of the 2015–16 spike in arrivals of asylum seekers and migrants, and how those experiences can help localities weather the pandemic and put communities at the center of recovery efforts.

Recent Activity

Reports
February 2014
'Donkey Flights:' Illegal Immigration from the Punjab to the United Kingdom
By  Nicola Smith
Reports
February 2014
Human Smuggling and Trafficking into Europe: A Comparative Perspective
By  Louise Shelley
Commentaries
January 2014
Valuing Citizenship: A Commodity or an Identity?
By  Elizabeth Collett
Articles
January 16, 2014
Assessing Immigrant Integration in Sweden after the May 2013 Riots
By Sofie Fredlund-Blomst
Reports
January 2014
Securing Borders: The Intended, Unintended, and Perverse Consequences
By  Randall Hansen and Demetrios G. Papademetriou
Articles
December 17, 2013
Is Europe Faltering in Addressing its Multiple Migration Challenges?
By Elizabeth Collett
Multimedia
December 12, 2013
Tackling Brain Waste among Immigrant Professionals: Initiatives to Improve the Recognition of Foreign Qualifications
Articles
December 10, 2013
Questions of Immigration Control Preoccupy Policymakers Worldwide as Mixed Flows of New Arrivals Continue, and in Some Cases, Surge
By Elizabeth Collett

Pages

Profile
November 1, 2003
Turkey: A Transformation from Emigration to Immigration

Long a country of emigration, immigration, and asylum, Turkey has also become a country of transit for immigrants, according to Kemal Kirisci of Boagazici University.

Feature
November 1, 2003
Germany's High Court Allows Teacher to Wear Muslim Headscarf
Veysel Oezcan of Humboldt University Berlin reports on a key ruling affecting integration, religious freedom, and educators.
Feature
November 1, 2003
Burden-sharing in the New Age of Immigration

Christina Boswell, Senior Researcher at the Hamburg Institute of International Economics, provides an in-depth look at burden-sharing and refugee protection.

Feature
October 1, 2003
The Challenges of Integration for the EU
The EU can use several unique levers to promote integration policy, according to Sarah Spencer of the Institute for Public Policy Research.
Feature
October 1, 2003
French Government Revives Assimilation Policy
Sylvia Zappi outlines a new government action plan for integrating immigrants that reasserts France's previously abandoned assimilationist policy.

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Recent Activity

Reports
February 2014

Human Smuggling and Trafficking into Europe: A Comparative Perspective

This report examines human trafficking and smuggling trends and routes to Europe, and profiles the facilitators and clients/victims of such activities. It also offers a menu of policy options that are likely to reduce trafficking and smuggling flows, noting that such policies must be multifaceted to address a variety of contributing factors simultaneously.
Reports
February 2014

'Donkey Flights:' Illegal Immigration from the Punjab to the United Kingdom

This report, based on an undercover exposé of Punjabi visa agencies by The Sunday Times, sketches one immigration loophole into Europe: so-called “donkey flights” by which Indian migrants obtain a tourist visa for a Schengen-zone country in order to enter the United Kingdom through the back door. Thousands of visa agencies operate in the Punjab region alone, with varying degrees of legality, some having links to criminal smuggling networks across Europe.
Commentaries
January 2014

Valuing Citizenship: A Commodity or an Identity?

Citizenship is a deeply sensitive issue for the European Union, and Member States hold dear their sovereign right to determine who should become a national. There has been strong resistance by Member States towards any discussion of citizenship acquisition at the EU level, despite some outré national policy changes in recent years. A decision by Malta’s government to sell 1,800 passports for 1.15 million euros apiece has caused unusual levels of furor, and this scheme may become the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Articles
January 16, 2014

Assessing Immigrant Integration in Sweden after the May 2013 Riots

This article explores the underlying causes of the May 2013 riots across several Stockholm suburbs that have high proportions of foreign-born residents, and asks whether rapid increases in the size of Sweden's immigrant population or the government's integration efforts played a central role.
Reports
January 2014

Securing Borders: The Intended, Unintended, and Perverse Consequences

This report outlines the security-related challenges that borders are intended to address—including terrorism, human smuggling and trafficking, illegal migration, and drug trafficking—and, in turn, the perverse consequences that tighter border enforcement can generate. As states implement extensive border controls and deterrence measures to prevent illegal migration, they indirectly push unauthorized migrants into the hands of smugglers and traffickers.
Articles
December 17, 2013

Is Europe Faltering in Addressing its Multiple Migration Challenges?

A number of interlocking concerns have emerged in recent months regarding the rights of mobile EU citizens, fueled in part by euroskeptic parties (such as the UK Independence Party), and more hard-line anti-immigration parties such as the Party for Freedom (PVV) in the Netherlands.

Video, Audio
December 12, 2013

Tackling Brain Waste among Immigrant Professionals: Initiatives to Improve the Recognition of Foreign Qualifications

This panel discussion focuses on the circulation of skilled immigrant professionals and the recognition of foreign qualifications in the United States and Europe.

Articles
December 10, 2013

Greece Confronts Golden Dawn As the Far Right Takes Aim at the European Union

The murder of an anti-fascist rapper in 2013 dealt a severe blow to Greece's extremist, virulently anti-immigrant political party Golden Dawn, whose popularity had been increasing (relatively unchecked) since 2010. The party, which rejects the neo-Nazi label that many have applied to it, provoked a national outcry in September after a party sympathizer confessed to killing Pavlos Fyssas.

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