The Family Reunification Directive

Abstract

The family reunification directive aims to regulate family related immigration. A foreigner’s desire to stay because of family ties to a resident migrant has become the most important reason for entering Europe (Groenendijk 2006: 215). Since the 1970s when many European countries stopped recruiting migrant workers, the family component in immigration movements to Europe has become significant. Foreign workers decided to stay and not return to their countries of origin. Then they started having families in their destination countries. In most cases this meant that spouses, children, and relatives moved to Europe (Mau and Verwiebe 2010: 113). The family reunification trend started in the 1970s and has not stopped since then. In the late 1990s when the Commission began formulating its policy, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reported in its annual publication on international migration trends that immigration “related to family reunion and to family members accompanying workers predominate[s]” in Western countries (OECD 1998: 18). Immigration of family members comprised half or even two-thirds of the total immigration in Austria, France, the Netherlands, and Sweden (OECD 1999, 2000).¹ Thus regulating the family component in immigration movements covers a big share of overall immigration.