Migration and development policies : the state of affairs before the 2015 European migration crises in the Czech Republic and its current implications

Abstract

This article analyses attitudes of key stakeholders towards migration and development policies in the Czech Republic. It is generally understood that migration policy is a set of measures aimed primarily at handling immigration flows to developed countries, while development policy seeks to foster sustainable growth in developing countries. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 21 experts from the public decision-making, nongovernmental, academic and private (legal) spheres to gather their opinions on the practice of, and relations between, the Czech migration and development policies. The findings of our research point to the lack of coherence between these two types of policies and they highlight several specific discrepancies across individual policy instruments. Moreover, albeit our research was conducted prior to the escalation of the EU migration crisis in 2015, several of our findings contextualize the Czech response to this crisis, both at the national and European Union level.