Immigration Policy

Abstract

In the run-up to the second round of the 2012 French presidential election, incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy politicized the nexus between immigration and European integration by threatening to pull out of the Schengen Agreement, Europe’s zone of internal free movement with a common external frontier. Aimed at the supporters of the Far-Right National Front, this was a calculated appeal to voter antipathy toward immigration and “Brussels” alike. As the personification of the institutional links between immigration and Europeanization, Schengen’s political status is intrinsically tied to the success of Europe, as envisioned by the EU’s founders. While the lack of internal borders promotes intra-EU migration, the common external frontier has been one of the main forces pushing national governments (often reluctantly) toward EU-level cooperation on immigration.