REGINE Regularisations in Europe Final Report - European ...

Regularisation Mechanism
A regularisation mechanism is defined as any procedure other than a specific regularisation
programme by which the state can grant legal status to illegally present third country nationals
residing on its territory. In contrast to regularisation programmes, mechanisms typically
involve ‘earned’ legalisation (e.g. by virtue of long-term residence), or humanitarian
considerations (e.g. non-deportable rejected asylum-seekers, health condition, family ties etc.),
and are likely to be longer-term policies.
1.6 Methodology
Data have been collected and collated from the following sources:
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existing comparative and national studies of regularisation programmes and policies
statistical and legal data from state data sources, via the REGINE questionnaire
questionnaire survey to non-governmental organisations
interviews with social actors active on the European level
survey of government positions, via the REGINE questionnaire
external expert input for in-depth study of seven selected countries
We have sought to achieve overall breadth of analysis, by covering all EU Member States, in parallel
with detailed case studies of five EU countries and two non-EU – namely, Spain, Italy, Greece,
France, UK, Switzerland, USA. Summary statistical and legal data for the EU (27), where available,
have been collated in spreadsheet format for comparative reference.
For the purposes of this report, we have developed several analytic instruments and gathered a broad
range of data, including
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A multi-faceted depiction of forms of illegality, as given in Table 1, allows for a more
detailed breakdown of the problematic concept of ‘illegal stay’.
Through questioning of Member States (using the REGINE questionnaire) alongside our own
research, more precise data concerning application numbers, actual grants of legal status and
acceptance rates within programmes have been assembled for 17 countries: these are
summarised in Table 2 (§3) and represent a real advance on previously published data.
For the first time, statistical data on regularisation mechanisms (as defined) are published for
10 countries. Despite being incomplete, and missing several countries, this also represents a
real advance in knowledge.
Utilising previously-compiled data on estimated irregular TCN stocks, supplemented by
ICMPD evaluations for missing data, we classify each Member State as having per capita
stocks ranging from low (less than 0.5% of total population) to very high (more than 2%).
(See Table 5, (§3))
Using the new data on programmes and mechanisms, we identify six ‘policy clusters’ with
regard to regularisation, and suggest some broad defining characteristics of the countries
comprising each cluster.
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