Immigration - present and future challenges for the European Union, The need of a common EU immigration policy

The inflow of immigrants into the European Union [EU] has increased drastically due to economic aspirations and the high number of ongoing conflicts and wars worldwide. The EU has become an immigration magnet. Associated with external immigration is the management of immigration inflows, illegal immigration, asylum provisions and border security. The EU’s current answers to external immigration are weak due to 28 different member states’ immigration regimes at work. My guiding assumption is that if the EU fails to establish the implementation of a common EU immigration policy in the future, it will lose its economic status and strategic position at a global level and its political strength, both internally and externally. I will assess these issues through policy documents and literature analysis, discussing how the EU wants to tackle external i-migration. I will analyze eleven essential policy documents in the time frame of 2000-2011 with content analysis and policy circle analysis to evaluate the EU approach in managing external immigration. However, the results are disillusioning and a clear consistent model to tackle the highly complex network of issues related to external immigration is missing. Therefore, at the end I propose my own approach of a potential working common EU immigration policy.

The inflow of immigrants into the European Union [EU] has increased drastically due to economic aspirations and the high number of ongoing conflicts and wars worldwide. The EU has become an immigration magnet. Associated with external immigration is the management of immigration inflows, illegal immigration, asylum provisions and border security. The EU’s current answers to external immigration are weak due to 28 different member states’ immigration regimes at work. My guiding assumption is that if the EU fails to establish the implementation of a common EU immigration policy in the future, it will lose its economic status and strategic position at a global level and its political strength, both internally and externally. I will assess these issues through policy documents and literature analysis, discussing how the EU wants to tackle external immigration. I will analyze eleven essential policy documents in the time frame of 2000-2011 with content analysis and policy circle analysis to evaluate the EU approach in managing external immigration. However, the results are disillusioning and a clear consistent model to tackle the highly complex network of issues related to external immigration is missing. Therefore, at the end I propose my own approach of a potential working common EU immigration policy.