Free movement

‘What is the problem here?’ - The new non-wave of EU immigration

Ani-immigration wave

What has been conspicuously lacking in most of the ‘debate’ around the issue is the fact that member states are seeking to evade or fudge their legal responsibilities, as well as a more principled debate about what being an EU member state should mean on an ideological level. 

Switzerland’s announcement earlier this week that it will impose a quota on immigration was greeted with dismay by France, Germany and other EU members.

Updated on: 12 February 2014

UK migration policy: we need to talk about citizens

Nando Sigona
UKBA

The family rules introduced by the UK government as part of its crusade to curb net migration are surreptitiously redefining the meaning of citizenship and the boundaries between the state and its subjects.

This piece originally appeared in Open Democracy digital commons. 

Updated on: 4 February 2013

Europeanisation through mobility: visa liberalisation and citizenship regimes

Simonida Kacarska
visa regime

Overall, the visa liberalisation negotiations have had diverse effects on the citizenship regimes of South Eastern Europe. While having contributed to resolving status-related issues of the Roma and displaced persons, there has been no major breakthrough in terms of substantive advancement of anti-discrimination policies. The pressure on the governments of the Western Balkans to take measures in the direction of limiting the freedom of movement of specific groups of citizens has added a layer of discrimination on the basis of ethnic background and social status. 

“Don’t worry, I do not come from an NGO, hence, I am not interested in rights”

       -EU member state expert investigating the treatment of persons illegally crossing the borders.

Updated on: 24 October 2012

The afterlives of the Yugoslav red passport

Stef Jansen
YU passport

Amongst broad layers of the populations in BiH and Serbia, I found over the years, the SFRY passport allowed people to articulate resentment of their current entrapment in terms of their own past, both remembered and misremembered. Notwithstanding its uniqueness on a global stage, they asserted an entitlement to smooth visa-free mobility like the one they had lost. The red passport allowed everyone who was old enough, regardless of how much they had actually travelled, to say that they could have.'Normal lives' in Yugoslavia, then, were not only recalled in terms of living standards, order and welfare, but also of what we could call a sense of geopolitical dignity. Here, the red passport joined forces with Tito.

During a summer dawn in 2005, our šinobus, the small local train from Subotica (in Serbia) to Szeged (in Hungary) suffered engine failure in a village just south of the new EU-funded €10m high-tech Hungarian-Serbian border post.

Updated on: 24 October 2012

Escaping the Balkans? After visa liberalisation

A reflection of stop sign; a photo by Alf Thomas

The rise in asylum seekers following visa liberalisation in the Western Balkans.

The EU accession process has brought a variety of changes to citizens of the Western Balkans, perhaps the greatest of which has been the easing of visa restrictions.

Updated on: 30 September 2011
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