Challenges and Prospects for the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: Recommendations to the European Commission for the Stockholm Programme. CEPS Working Document No. 313, 16 April 2009

The upcoming Swedish presidency of the EU will be in charge of adopting the next multi-annual programme on an Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ), during its tenure in the second half of 2009. As the successor of the 2004 Hague Programme, it has already been informally baptised as the Stockholm Programme and will present the EU’s policy roadmap and legislative timetable over these policies for the next five years. It is therefore a critical time to reflect on the achievements and shortcomings affecting the role that the European Commission’s Directorate-General of Justice, Freedom and Security (DG JFS) has played during the last five years in light of the degree of policy convergence achieved so far. This Working Document aims at putting forward a set of policy recommendations for the DG JFS to take into consideration as it develops and consolidates its future policy strategies, while duly ensuring the legitimacy and credibility of the EU’s AFSJ within and outside Europe

Les Roms, révélateurs des anomalies d’un « Espace de liberté, de sécurité et de justice au service des citoyens »

En 1999, le Traité d’Amsterdam a établi les fondations de l’Espace européen de liberté, de sécurité et de justice (ELSJ). Celui-ci prévoit l’harmonisation des lois dans les domaines de l’immigration, de l’asile, du contrôle des frontières et des visas, à l’appui du principe de la libre circulation des personnes. Le programme de Stockholm, adopté en décembre 2009, définit les orientations stratégiques des politiques européennes correspondantes pour les cinq prochaines années. Il entend placer ..

The Abolition of Internal Border Checks in an Enlarged Schengen Area: Freedom of movement or a scattered web of security checks? CEPS Challenge Paper No. 8, 20 March 2008

This paper assesses the implications and practicalities stemming from the removal of land and sea internal border controls in an enlarged EU on December 2007. Freedom of movement represents a central feature of the supranational status of EU citizenship. Its practical application to the enlarged EU territory has constituted a necessary step to ensure equality among all European citizens. After providing an account of the processes and logic leading to the removal of checks at common borders, the state of play within the Schengen area is described. Particular attention is paid to the national security strategies carried out by the EU-15 member states currently in place and their consequences on the freedom of movement of individuals and on liberty. It is argued that by setting the removal of border checks as an important security challenge, we are witnessing the emergence of alternative and scattered security measures on the mobility of people which might weaken the Europeanisation processes inherent to the liberalisation of mobility inside the EU

Education and Political Participation of Migrants and Ethnic Minorities in the EU: An Overview of the Literature. CEPS Special Report, 22 September 2009

According to the literature covering the impact of educational inclusion or exclusion of immigrants and ethnic minorities on their political participation, it appears that most authors take for granted that having been educated facilitates actions understood to fall within this scope. This report reveals that this stance is largely undermined, however, by the fact that the levels of opportunity for participation by these groups are legally limited. In addition, the report delves into the different understandings of educational inclusion and political participation, which vary significantly from one author to the other

Integration as a two-way process in the EU? Assessing the Relationship between the European Integration Fund and the Common Basic Principles on Integration. CEPS Paperbacks, July 2011

This report examines the nature, the limits and potential of the principle of integration as a two-way process of mutual accommodation between migrants and the receiving societies. It assesses the extent to which this key principle, which lays at the foundation of the EU framework on integration, is implemented in practice by investigating how it informs national programmes supported by the European integration fund. The report stems from research undertaken by CEPS for the project “Integration as a two-way process in the EU? Assessing the European Integration Fund and the Common Basic Principles on Integration”. The research aims at identifying ways to enhance the use and oversight of European funding for the development of integration policies and activities at the national, regional and local levels. The authors put forward recommendations for evidence-based policy-making within the EU framework on integration and for improving the use of European funding for integration measures at national level. The recommendations include concrete steps to ensure that European funding primarily serves to put into practice a European approach to integration that is understood as a two-way process in which not only migrants but also the receiving societies – including civil society, social partners and multi-level public authorities – participate and interact. This report is divided into six sections. Section 2 outlines the scope and methodology of our study. It first offers a synthesised summary of the main substantive and financial components of the EU framework on integration. The section underlines the need to consider the close connectivity between the CBPs and the EIF in determining the impact of the EU framework on integration before presenting the specifics of our assessment. Section 3 provides some observations regarding the national implementation of the EIF, along with some of the most notable difficulties that have been identified as amounting to barriers to accessing the EIF. It is based on the outcomes of the desk research and consultation with the integration actors, which took place through a qualitative survey. Section 4 assesses the ways in which the EIF has been used to support the integration strategies developed within the member states. Important trends in the activities funded are highlighted and the pitfalls of such usage are presented. Section 5 is devoted to the two-way process tenet and to its possible practical translations. After an overview of the emergence of this principle in EU policy, the relevance of the EIF in supporting activities sustaining the principle is examined prior to an analysis of what, according to prominent stakeholders, constitutes a two-way process of mutual accommodation. Section 6 concludes and puts forward a set of policy recommendations to facilitate the promotion and application of the understanding of integration as a two-way process in the EU through the EIF

Implementation of Directive 2004/38 in the context of EU Enlargement: A proliferation of different forms of citizenship? CEPS Special Report, 9 April 2009

This paper assesses the impact and potential effects of inadequate domestic transposition of Directive 2004/38 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States and the effects of the transitional arrangements secured in the latest rounds of enlargement on the status and practice of European citizenship in an enlarged EU. The authors argue that one of the major consequences of these processes has been the proliferation of different forms of European citizenship whose normative framing and implementation by the nation-states foster differential treatment that sometimes conflicts with fundamental rights. They also highlight that the narrow national interpretations of the scope of rights conferred by European citizenship are subject to supranational guarantees provided by the EU legal system

Reinforcing Interregional Cooperation between the EU and the GCC: Scenarios for a modification of visa policies. CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe, January 2011

Both the EU and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are major political and economic actors, and the development of strategic partnerships in selected areas between the regions is among the priorities on their respective agendas. The existence of complex visa policies and practices between the two regions, however, constitutes a fundamental barrier preventing the promotion of exchanges between these regions when encouraging people-to-people contacts, developing commercial relations or exchanging knowledge. This paper aims at evaluating the possibilities for the visa rules of both regions being modified in order to reflect the privileged partnership that the EU and the GCC are willing to further develop. It concludes by putting forward policy recommendations and three scenarios on the possible ways to overcome current issues and implement new strategies for visa policy in the context of public diplomacy and outreach in EU–GCC relations

EU migration strategy: compromising principled humanitarian action

EU migration policies are undermining basic humanitarian principles and making it more difficult for humanitarian actors to uphold their ethical commitments.

EU migration strategy: compromising principled humanitarian action

EU migration policies are undermining basic humanitarian principles and making it more difficult for humanitarian actors to uphold their ethical commitments.

Time for Action: Immediate Priorities for the Next European Commission. CEPS Policy Brief No. 193, 14 July 2009

This CEPS Policy Brief is a collective work by a group of CEPS researchers aimed at providing an action plan for the next European Commission. Priorities have been set in four selected policy fields where concrete action is needed immediately: reform of financial sector regulation and oversight, climate change and energy policy, Justice and Home Affairs and the Common Foreign and Security Policy. These fields are crucial to fostering a recovery of the EU economy and allowing the EU to become a real actor on the international scene. Taking the actions proposed will stabilise the economy and set the EU on the right course out of its current limbo, allowing it to become a more relevant actor on the global scene as well