Old problems, new aspects

The topic of immigration is one of the main challenges faced by the countries of the European Union. Although immigration policy remains the prerogative of national governments, the EU is quite actively trying to develop common approaches and measures aimed at the harmonization of national laws on immigration and real resolution of urgent problems connected with the global phenomenon of migration. This article looks at the fundamentals and strategies of the new immigration policy of the European Union.

Thus, all the European countries, regardless of the category they belong to, feel the need to adapt their immigration laws and, at the same time, reconsider the very phenomenon of immigration in view of the new global context given to it after Sept. 11, 2001, when the question of migration, especially illegal, was linked to the problems of terrorism and international and internal security. In its turn, the economic and financial crisis of the past years has caused negative tendencies on the labor market, forcing the national governments of the EU to reconsider and abruptly cut the labor quotas for entry and employment of foreigners. From this viewpoint, Spain has remarkable experience — in 2008 its government initiated the practice of paying unemployment benefits to foreigners who lost their jobs, if they go back to their homeland and will not return to Spanish territory for three years. In spite of the Spanish government’s expectations, only some 2,000 foreigners joined this program in 2008. 4 At the same time, it was proved that stricter rules of entry and stay in the country’s territory cause an increase in illegal migration.

In this situation, the optimization of the immigration policy, which lies in the foundation of the abovementioned Stockholm Program, emerges as something more than simply an urgent task caused by objective circumstances. It is perhaps the only efficient means to resolve urgent problems. Regulation of immigration flows is only the initial stage of the process, which consists of numerous stages and components and whose end purpose is integration.

The main challenge European countries are facing now is a search for the optimum integration model and its instruments, actually the means of involving foreign citizens in the social environment of their new country of stay. The methods of integration practiced in the traditional countries of immigration have not always proved to be productive, and their experience is a warning against repeating certain mistakes. So, the principle of cultural assimilation, applied by France concerning the immigrants from its former North African colonies has apparently not always been helpful in the integration of the citizens with Arab and African origins, because cases of violence and vandalism, still suffered by ill-famed banlieues – the suburbs of Paris and other cities – speak of social marginalization rather than integration. Utterly disturbing is the fact that those who absolutely fail to integrate include the children and grandchildren of immigrants, French citizens in the second or third generation.

Multiculturalism, which is typical of Great Britain and Holland, has also proved to be insufficiently efficient as an integration instrument, especially concerning these countries’ citizens with Muslim origins. The imperfect mechanisms and simply the lack of any implementation of a theoretically substantiated multiculturalism policy have, on the one hand, caused the emergence and conservation of ethnic and religious ghettos, which are absolutely impenetrable and often hostile to the Western culture, and on the other hand, sparked anti-Islamic attitudes in societies and policies of these countries, which became apparent from the results of the elections to the European Parliament in June 2009.

Therefore, the questions about the substance, role, and means of integration have again entered the European agenda and become a subject of broad discussions both among specialists and in the civil society’s milieu. Especially acute debates are taking place in the new countries of immigration, which should work out, among other things, adequate mechanisms of granting citizenship. The classical jus soli, the right to citizenship by the place of birth, and jus sanguinis, the right by blood – actually the lack of this right – are supplemented by the new concept where the citizenship is the final stage of integration, its purpose and crown. Immigrants and their children, including those born on the territory of the new country of their living, do not acquire citizenship automatically. Acquiring citizenship by the right of residence is a lengthy process, which may last for decades.5 In this sense, citizenship is taken in a significantly broader understanding than purely a legal one.

This is not merely legally guaranteed equality, when citizenship guarantees that an immigrant will have the same rights and duties that other members of the society have. To follow the laws formally and outwardly is a necessary, but insufficient element for integration.6

Present-day Europe discusses, along with the legal and social integration, also cultural and civilization integration. First and foremost, it is caused by the factors of knowledge of the language and history of the new country and the adopted attitude to its values, traditions, and customs. In such a way the problem of integration is transferred to a personal level and is closely related with the question of identity.

In this regard, Italy offers a telling example of a legislative initiative. Its parliament is now considering a draft law under which citizenship would be granted to immigrants’ children, born and residing in Italy, when they reach the age of 11—12, i.e., after they complete a full course of primary education. The initiators of the bill, including Gianfranco Fini, the speaker of Italian Parliament, insist that citizenship should be given to children in this category before they become teenagers, when people start for the first time to pay attention to their identity.

Does the acquisition of “new” identity spell the abandonment of the “previous” one, which is, in fact, the cultural tradition of one’s parents? Does the integration context determine the emergence of new types of identity? Which ones? From now on these questions of philosophical and psychological grounds will have a direct relation to the European migration policy and will play a key role when its new foundations and strategies are being developed. However, these aspects go far beyond this article and need to be addressed separately.

Summarizing the review of the leading tendencies in the migration policy and practice of the EU countries, it can be said that they reflect the contradictory nature of present-day democracy. As is known, it is trying to combine two opposite and often mutually exclusive principles: universal vs. territorial, human rights vs. people’s sovereignty. However, the outstanding German philosopher Juergen Habermas wrote: “These are the only ideas that justify the contemporary law” – as well as the new immigration policy of the European Union, I might add.

4 The program refers to the citizens of the 19 non-EU countries with which Madrid has signed bilateral agreements.

5 The terms become essentially shorter when a person marries a citizen of this country, which, as is known, is a cause of widely used practice of fictitious marriages for the mere purpose of receiving citizenship. At the same time, an interesting phenomenon in Europe is found in sociological studies of mixed marriages in terms of the macro-level integration of foreign spouses.

6 British citizens of Muslim origin were among the organizers of the London underground terrorist attack in the summer of 2005. They had never violated the UK laws in any way prior to this incident.