Europeanisation, National Identities and Migration ... - europeanization

Integrating immigrants and minorities 87
If we try to pinpoint the motive forces underpinning the development of EU
immigration cooperation and integration then a strong intergovernmental impetus
can be identified. The EU has actually been quite useful to member states because
it has allowed them to establish new institutional venues at European level where
the domestic legal and political constraints on immigration policy-makers have
been relaxed. National governments have thus been able to ‘escape to Europe’ in
a bid to solve problems of international regulatory failure and seek new forums
for the pursuit of restrictions on ‘unwanted’ immigration (Hollifield 2000; Stetter
2000). A key element of this response has been the co-option of surrounding states
and regions into these processes. For instance, policy developments in southern
Europe – particularly the repressive elements – have been strongly influenced by
the EU acquis (Pastore 2001). For candidate states in central and eastern Europe
there have been onerous requirements associated with the incorporation of the EU
acquis into national law as a condition for membership (Lavenex 1999). The result
has been that the uncertainties of political, social and economic transformation in
central and eastern Europe have also coincided with the development of immigrant
and ethnic minorities communities in these countries, as well as longer-standing
minority populations. The uncertainty elicited by transition and the sometimes
onerous economic requirements of EU membership have led to instances of
migrants and minorities being scapegoated (see, for instance, Fonseca 1995).
While policy developments could be characterised as lop-sided there is also the
issue of the underlying conceptualisation of the relationship between international
migration and its sequels and European integration. It is at this point that Jan
Zielonka (2001) entered the fray. He detected a flaw in the exercise of exporting the
EU immigration and asylum acquis to the CEECs. He argued that the venture was
predicated on attempts to reconstruct the kinds of ‘hard’ borders that had been
a familiar aspect of the response in ‘older’ immigration countries. The allusion is
to national policies that seek to regulate the flow of international migrants through
centrally directed command and control policies. He argues that this is not
appropriate in central and eastern Europe and that this defect will become more
apparent as the EU moves eastwards and the divergences within the EU, in socioeconomic
terms, for instance, grow larger. He argues that ‘The very notion of a
hard, external border as envisaged by the single market project and the regime
of Schengen is basically flawed and unlikely to survive the following enlargement’
(p. 508).
In such terms the EU is less of a ‘post-Westphalian state’ with hard and fixed
external borders, socio-economic homogeneity, a European cultural identity,
one type of citizenship and ‘absolute sovereignty’ regained at European level
(if it ever aspires to be). Instead, he argues that the EU is more of a ‘neo-medieval
empire’ with overlapping authorities, divided sovereignty, varied institutional
arrangements, multiple identities and diversified types of citizenship with different
sets of rights and duties. The word that might spring to mind when medievalism
is mentioned is feudalism, but for Zielonka it conjures up a vision of a diverse,
heterogeneous and normatively desirable future for a wider EU. Zielonka’s point
is that the future enlargement can only magnify, accelerate and confirm these trends