Governance of migration in the EU : home affairs or foreign policy?

Abstract

Article 79 TFEU contains competences of the European Union to regulate immigration as an integral part of the area of freedom, security and justice. Under this purely internal competence, the Union should establish a common immigration policy aimed at the efficient management of migration flows, fair treatment of third-country nationals and fight against illegal immigration. Over the past decade, the Union has adopted a number of directives under this internal competence. Yet, both prior to the introduction of an explicit Union power to regulate immigration and currently in parallel with this power, the Union and Member States implement immigration policy externally via international agreements with third states and more subtle policy tools. The purpose of this workshop is to break with the conventional understanding of immigration as an internal policy of the Union and to look at EU’s immigration policy form the outside, discussing immigration as an external, as opposed to internal, policy of the Union. The contributors test the external component of immigration as a tool in market integration, trade liberalization, development, foreign policy and promotion of mobility. The underlying assumption is that the nature of the policy, objectives, powers and instruments may differ and conflict with each other depending on whether immigration policy is shaped internally or externally. The presentations offer a multidisciplinary analysis of the role of migration governance in the EU and the role of the Union in migration governance globally.