REGINE Regularisations in Europe Final Report - European ...

treatment according to nationality, or region of application. This latter problem is perhaps worst in the
case of regularisations in France. 120
One issue that has scarcely been addressed is the procedure through which applications are made.
Several factors emerge as both crucial and variable in the way they are implemented across countries
(and sometimes, as in the case of France, even within a country). These are:
• The importance of involving civil society and migrant associations in the process, from the
planning stage and throughout the implementation phase
• The need to guarantee protection from expulsion to applicants during the process
• The mechanism(s) by which the applications are evaluated – i.e. through documents and other
checks or requiring personal interview
In the last case, the scant evidence suggests that personal interview alters regularisation programmes
such that they start to resemble mechanisms: thus, a lack of strict evaluation criteria tends to
emphasise subjective (more personal) judgements about applicants. Equally, the administrative
burden associated with personal interview (and any appeal rights) adds considerably to the costs of
such a programme. Thus, the personal interview approach – at least on the face of it – would seem to
promote uncertainty, inequality of treatment, and delayed implementation of the programme. 121
Of all programmes examined in any detail, best practices are most easily identified in the Spanish
programme of 2005. The organisational aspects of the programme, even when encountering
unexpected problems, are exemplary: they consisted of 742 information points, recruitment of 1,700
temporary staff, support from trade unions and migrant associations, and strong management
techniques. These latter included a clear administrative division between social security offices for
collecting applications and the Interior Ministry for processing them. In addition, the Labour and
Interior Ministries established electronic systems for information exchange between ministries and for
automatic renewal of residence permits. 122
3.3.1.5 General summary
The overall impact of regularisation programmes is positive, with apparently small but permanent
reductions in illegal residence and/or employment, and little evidence to support the claims of
increased illegal migration flows in any direction. What is clearly missing, however, is systematic
evaluation of policies and appropriate corrective responses. Even the most basic data, such as total
number of applications, total number regularised, and subsequent renewals, are missing from the great
majority of MS programmes. This data deficit should be a priority issue, since without even basic
data, policy analysis is at best speculative and, at worst, futile.
Related proposal(s):Options 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
120 See REGINE country study for France.
121 This last point seems to be one of the main factors in the poorly-managed 1998 Green Card programme in
Greece. See REGINE country study for Greece, for details.
122 See REGINE country study for Spain.
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