Czech Republic : Socio-economic aspects of migration

Since the early 1990s, when the Czech Republic has transformed into the main immigration destination among the V4 countries, can be identified several periods and milestones, which not only influenced the patterns of the international migration, but also the formation of the Czech migration policy. The aim of the chapter is to summarise and discuss recent developments in migration trends on general level, the demographic and socio-economic situation and migration governance in the period of 1989-2018. The chapter finds, that the trends characterising the current Czech migration policy, in contrast to high demand for labour force, is an increased effort to manage migration through stricter and more selective access to opportunities for foreigners. The restrictive trends in migration policies have been accompanied by explicit attempts to securitise migration in both, bureaucratic and political fields. This trend got most flagrant during the so-called migration crisis of 2015. Despite heated political debates, irregular migration flows affected the Czech Republic rather marginally, as the country was not a destination, but primarily a transit area for migrants and asylum seekers heading to Western and Northern Europe.Od počátku 90. let, kdy se Česká republika transformovala na hlavní imigrační cíl mezi zeměmi V4, lze identifikovat několik období a milníků, které ovlivnily nejen vzorce mezinárodní migrace, ale také formování české migrační politiky. Cílem této kapitoly je shrnout a diskutovat nejnovější vývoj migračních trendů na obecné úrovni, demografickou a sociálně-ekonomickou situaci a správu migrace v období 1989–2018. Kapitola shledává, že trendy charakterizující současnou českou migrační politiku, na rozdíl od vysoké poptávky po pracovní síle, jsou zvýšeným úsilím o řízení migrace prostřednictvím přísnějšího a selektivnějšího přístupu k příležitostem pro cizince. Omezující trendy v migrační politice byly doprovázeny výslovnými pokusy o sekuritizaci migrace v byrokratické i politické oblasti. Tento trend byl nejviditelnější během tzv. migrační krize roku 2015. I přes vyhrocené politické debaty se neregulérní migrace ČR dotýkala spíše okrajově, země nebyla cílovou destinací, ale spíše tranzitním prostorem migrantů a žadatelů o azyl ze severní Afriky a Blízkého východu, směřujících západní a severní Evropy

To Intervene or Not to Intervene? Positions of the Member States Towards the Article 18 of the European Border and Coast Guard Proposal

The paper is focused on how the “migration crisis” starting in 2015 in Europe have reshaped the attitude to the European level of border protection. The basic question is how different are the competences of European Border and Coast Guard Agency (EBCG) from the previous FRONTEX and what was the role sovereignty played in it. The paper has a character of a qualitative study where the authors compare the proposal for EBCG, mainly its Article 18 establishing the “right to intervene” in the proposal, with the final version of the document and analyzes the position of the Member states based on their posititions within the Council to the parts of the proposal that were most connected to sovereignty. The analysis is based on data collection from officials from various member states that were part of the negotiations. Apart from this “hidden agenda” the authors also analyze public statements by high-ranking government officials that often commented on the proposal