The Irregular Migration Dilemma: Keeping Control, Out of Control or Regaining Control?

Abstract

The current context within which EU member states are drawing up their migration policies is complex and confusing. The enlargement of the EU in May 2004 has created a new population in the accession countries which will be granted relative freedom of movement within the fifteen ‘old’ states, but which will have restricted rights to work. As the citizens of the accession countries acquire this further transitional status for a maximum of seven years, another layer of differentiation is created. At the same time, enlargement creates a new duty for the new, post-communist, member states from Central Europe to protect the EU from unwanted migration from the East and South. All this is superimposed on the existing complexity of semi-coordinated arrangements on asylum and economic migration from the wider world. Movement of people across borders for business, study and tourism has become part of the normal fabric of life for European citizens, and for a global elite worldwide. Government policies largely facilitate such mobility, but place limits of varying severity on other categories of transborder migration.