Immigration and integration : a study of the process toward common immigration policies in the European Union

The aim of this thesis is to discuss why the European Community decided to integrate admission policies toward immigrants in the Treaty on European Union (TEU) in 1991. Immigration represents a complex policy field in the Community, and co-operation has proved difficult. From the last half of the 1980s, there was general agreement that co-operation was necessary. However, there were strong disagreements concerning the actual content of this co-operation. At the Maastricht summit in December 1991, the states agreed upon a complex compromise: visa policies became part of the supranational co-operation in the Community. Asylum and external border policies were placed in a new piller, called the Third Pillar. Its area of responsibility was co-operation in justice and home affairs in the Union. In these policy fields the member states still enjoyed national sovereignity. My intention with the thesis is two-fold. First of all, I discuss why the member states actually agreed to include these policy areas in the framework of the Community. Secondly, I seek to identify factors that might explain the content of the final compromise. The analysis concentrates on the period from the Single European Act negotiations, starting in 1985, to the Maastricht surnmit in 1991. I focus on three member states, Germany, the United Kingdom and France. I base my research on two theoretical schools in the literature on European integration. The intergovernmental approach focuses on the national governments, and explains integration as a result of domestic politics and interstate bargains. The neo-functionalist approach postulates that the integration process will move forward as a result of an internal dynamic inside the Community. Integration in one area creates political and functional forces necessitating integration in other sectors as well. In the analysis, two main explanations stand out as particularly crucial for the fact that the states actually agreed to integrate admission policies. The first concerns the immigration problem in the member states. New immigration flows were combined with a reduced will to receive immigrants. Simultaneously, national strategies to control the borders failed, and immigration emerged as an international problem. This caused a shift in the interests of the member states in favour of integration. A second main explanation concerns the Single European Act. Its aim to create an internal market with free movement of persons, would imply an abolishment of the internal frontiers. This made common policies at the external borders necessary. Behind the complexity of the agreement, is the composition of national interests, combined with the interstate bargains prior to the Maastricht summit. It was mainly the opposing positions of Germany and the United Kingdom that accounted for the character of the agreement. The strong disagreements resulted in a compromise that complied with some of the requests of both countries. The fact that the solution was, with the exception of visa policy, intergovernmental, must be seen as a result of British opposition to any form of supranational admission policy co-operation. Supranational visa policies and ambitious plans for the future asylum and border policies, on the other hand, were the result of German pressure, combined with British feer of becoming isolated from future co-operation. The member states had different motives for accepting the admission policy compromise. Germany, more than any other country, needed burden sharing with respect to immigration policies. Admission policy integration was also consistent with a more general integration strategy, aiming to complete the internal market. The British government feared isolation, and had to concentrate the use of veto on other parts of the TEU. When it comes to France, the admission policy agreement harmonised with the initial preferences of the French government