Introduction: Discrimination and Diversity

Abstract

During the past decade European countries have registered important changes in immigration experiences and in national migration policies which have had various consequences for the labour market. Five major developments have occurred. First, in countries where the first large-scale, postwar migrations took place (Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France), policies to encourage foreign residents to return to their country of origin were abandoned in the 1980s. Second, except for Ireland where the migration balance is still negative, all EU member states are now immigration countries, with the southern European countries experiencing migratory flows from Africa and Asia. Third, the number of asylum-seekers and refugees, notably from the former Yugoslavia, Africa and Asia, increased dramatically over this period (Salt 1992). Fourth, the collapse of the communist regimes, the conclusion of cooperation agreements between EU countries and some countries of Central Europe (Poland, Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics) and their future membership of the European Union have induced forms of ‘pendulum migration’ (De Wenden and Tanguy 1995). Fifth, the European states confronted with the new migration flows have attempted to control them according to an increasingly repressive ‘law and order’ or ‘sécuritaire’ logic (Bigo 1996).