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Rationale and possible impact: The operation of the Family Reunification Directive is highly variable across the EU, leaving many families with the choice of either living apart or residing as illegal aliens. Given the trend in case law of the European Court of Human Rights, especially concerning the concept of family life (Art. 8), it is reasonable for the Commission to adopt a more active role in pushing for legal status of family members and easier access to family reunification procedures (see §6.2). It is unlikely that there would be increased migration inflows: it is very likely that there would be increased numbers of legal residents from this policy proposal. What supports EC action? Many Member States actually do carry out good practices and minimal restriction on family reunification rights. What works against EC action? Certain MS appear not to favour family unity as a policy objective, or at least consider that setting high minimum standards for this is their national prerogative. 128
9 Conclusions and preferred policy options 9.1 Regularisation practices in the EU(27) As has been demonstrated throughout this study, there is a wide range of specific causes of ‘illegal stay’ across the EU: Table 1 (§1) shows that there is a complex constellation of legal/illegal entry, legal/illegal residence, legal/illegal employment and whether a person is registered (and known to public authorities) or not. A recent Commission memo estimates that about half of the overall stock of illegal migrants results from illegal entry into the territory of a Member State, while another half is due to overstaying of visas and residence permits. 364 Our study, by contrast, suggests that withdrawal and loss of legal status – that is, illegality as a consequence of administrative procedures – is a third and important, albeit difficult to quantify, source of illegal resident populations. 365 Thus, irregular migration is not driven by a single logic, nor can there be simple responses to irregular migration. Most importantly, irregular migration is inextricably intertwined with the overall migration policy framework. There is also a variety of opinions across EU Member States regarding what actually constitutes regularisation of third country nationals who are illegally staying. This diversity of approaches toward, and understanding of, regularisation to some degree reflects the considerable complexity of irregular migration as a social phenomenon: unsurprisingly, there is also a wide range of policies designed to address the problem. Table 5 (§3) summarises the policy positions of Member States, and §3.2.1 hypothesises six clusters or policy groupings – some of which are in ideological competition with others. Nevertheless, few Member States (five out of 27) have absolutely no policies or practices of regularisation – and of these five, three have recently acceded to the EU. Over the last decade, three southern Member States have engaged in large-scale regularisation programmes, all of which seem strongly related to deficits of formal labour immigration channels, although this view is challenged by those Member States. Other (mostly northern) countries have engaged heavily in case-by-case regularisations – usually in order to address a different set of problems, such as rejected asylumseekers or non-deportable aliens. Yet others have attempted to normalise a transition situation, moving from state socialism within the Soviet bloc to western liberal democracies. In total, our conservative estimate for the EU(27) of the number of persons involved in regularisation of one sort or another over the period 1996-2007 is between 5 and 6 million. 366 The sheer magnitude of this figure indicates the importance of regularisation policy for the EU. 364 European Commission (2008): New Tools for an Integrated European Border Management Strategy. Memo 08/85. 13 February 2008. Brussels 365 It is safe to assume that the largest share is made up of rejected asylum seekers. However, as our report shows, there are numerous other cases in which third country nationals lose their previous status and lapse into illegality. Although relatively unimportant in quantitative terms (as compared to rejected asylum seekers), some of these cases highlight important gaps of legislation and deficiencies of administrative procedures regarding issuing and renewing residence permits. 366 See §3.1 et seq. 129
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REGINE Regularisations in Europe St
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CONTRIBUTORS Principal authors Mart
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Preface In December 2007, the Europ
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1 Terms, definitions and scope 1.1
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Table 1: Types of illegal or irregu
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1.3 Freedom of movement rights and
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1.4 The meaning of ‘regularisatio
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Regularisation Mechanism A regulari
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2 Previous comparative studies on r
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Generally, the focus of SOPEMI repo
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enefiting from regularisation has s
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amnesty and moreover involved (limi
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2. 3 The Odysseus study on regulari
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etween expediency and obligations c
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Sunderhaus identifies several ratio
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whether it can be attributed to pul
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Box 2: 3-tier earned regularisation
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measures; it does address questions
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3.1.1 Regularisation Programmes Ove
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Nine Member States provided details
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Figure 3 Grants of regularised stat
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Box 3: Regularisation policy in Swi
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3.2 Regularisation as a policy resp
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Table 5: Comparative table of regul
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case in Europe, alongside the more
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that a year after regularisation so
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treatment according to nationality,
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iii. issues of advance planning iv.
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iv. the requirement to appear in pe
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denying residence permits to existi
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efugees under the provisions of the
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4 Government positions on policy 15
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5 Positions of social actors 5.1 In
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Since the 1990s - and in some count
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live their lives without fear.” 1
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admission policies. 181 The Danish
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and useful, if planned and implemen
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depend on (unskilled) immigrant lab
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migration”. 209 In the opinion of
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stresses that “economic immigrati
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undocumented migrants by the Brusse
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Page 93 and 94: Table 8: Suggested target groups fo
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Page 109 and 110: 7.2 European Union approaches to il
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Page 113 and 114: involve large numbers. Secondly, th
Page 115 and 116: 8 Policy Options OPTION 1: REGULATI
Page 117 and 118: initiative. In the case of permanen
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Page 121 and 122: nor need it be seen as an endorseme
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Page 125 and 126: OPTION 6: STRENGTHENING THE PRINCIP
Page 127 and 128: Rationale and possible impact: Upon
Page 129 and 130: information exchange could contribu
Page 131 and 132: d) apprehension data should disting
Page 133: OPTION 11: REVIEW OF ADMINISTRATIVE
Page 137 and 138: management of irregular migration s
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Page 141 and 142: 9.5.2 Policy issues Previously (in
Page 143 and 144: Option 6a Facilitating access to lo
Page 145 and 146: Italy Ministerio Interno, Dipartime
Page 147 and 148: Federacion Andalucia ACOGE, Respons
Page 149 and 150: 11 References - secondary sources 1
Page 151 and 152: United Kingdom, European Democrat G
Page 153 and 154: Hollifield, J. (2004): ‘France: R
Page 155 and 156: Papademetriou, D. (2005): The “Re
Page 157 and 158: Watts, J. (2002): Immigration Polic
Page 159: European Commission, Proposal for a
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