Majority (mis)rule and the problem with naturalisation for UK citizens in the EU

Will Britons living in other EU member states have the opportunity to naturalise? Dora Kostakopoulou says this would be a potentially fraught and divisive policy option, particularly for those living in states that do not allow joint citizenship. Instead, she argues, we should reconsider the legitimacy of a narrow majority vote that deprived millions of EU citizens, UK and non-UK, of fundamental rights and freedoms

European Union citizenship and member state nationality: rethinking the link?

That European Union citizenship remains an unfinished institution is beyond any doubt. Even its modest original content enshrined in the Treaty of European Union revealed this. Article 25 TFEU (formerly Article 22 TEC) has always carried the promise of the extension its material scope of Union citizenship by a unanimous decision of the Council in accordance with a special legislative procedure and after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament. Although this procedure has not been activated yet, EU citizenship has evolved. For more than a decade, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has not hesitated to subject it to critical reflection and inquiry and to embark upon unknown and controversial terrains, thereby inviting both admiration and fierce criticism. European judges have taken quite seriously constitutionalisation of Union citizenship and sought to respond positively to citizens’ needs and expectations. But as their decisions are guided by norms which often conflict with states’ interest in unilateral migration control and the pursuit of power, governments have not hesitated to express their disapproval of what they perceive to be judicial policy-making.Udostępnienie publikacji Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego finansowane w ramach projektu „Doskonałość naukowa kluczem do doskonałości kształcenia”. Projekt realizowany jest ze środków Europejskiego Funduszu Społecznego w ramach Programu Operacyjnego Wiedza Edukacja Rozwój; nr umowy: POWER.03.05.00-00-Z092/17-00

Breaking the silence around academic harassment

It is time to hold every member of the scientific community responsible and 'response able' in addressing/reporting academic harassment. Stop applauding academic stars on the podium prior to checking what is happening underneath!</p

Locating the post-national activist:Migration rights, civil society and the practice of post-nationalism

Theorists of post-nationalism examine the (re)configuration of national identity, membership and rights. Yet while normative scholarship has conceptualized post-nationalism as an ongoing practice of discursive contestation over the role of national group membership in liberal democratic societies, more empirical studies have tended to overlook these features to predominantly focus instead on top-down legal and political institution-building as evidence of post-nationalism. In this article I argue in favour of an empirical conceptualization of post-nationalism which more effectively captures micro-level practices of discursive contestation. Specifically I posit that post-national activists, or actors engaging in post-national practices of contestation from within the state, are a key focus of analysis for scholars of post-nationalism. I develop this claim through the analysis of data collected with individuals working on civil society campaigns for migration rights in Europe, Australia and the USA who–I demonstrate–embody many of the characteristics of the post-national activist

Pathways towards Legal Migration into the EU: Reappraising concepts, trajectories and policies. CEPS Paperback, September 2017

On 27 January 2017, the Justice and Home Affairs Section of CEPS and the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs (DG HOME) of the European Commission co-organised a policy workshop in Brussels entitled “Reappraising the EU legal migration acquis: Legal pathways for a new model of economic migration, and the role of social science research”. The event brought together leading academics, practitioners and European Commission representatives to assess and discuss the state of play in the (internal and external) EU legal migration acquis, and its role in developing legal pathways towards economic migration. Held under the Chatham House Rule, the policy workshop’s roundtable discussions allowed participants to identify and address some of the key challenges, inconsistencies and gaps in the standing EU policies and legislation in the area of legal and economic migration. Scholars involved in EU and nationally funded, collaborative research projects on social science and humanities (SSH) had the opportunity to exchange interdisciplinary knowledge with European Commission officials representing the different services working on legal migration policies. The role and potential of independent academic research in the framework of EU migration policymaking were also discussed. The full programme of the policy workshop is reproduced in the annex of this book

The area of freedom, security and justice and belonging: the continuing spectre of security and control

Despite the Commission's efforts to highlight the positive impact of migration and the demographic and social pressures facing Europe in the future, migration issues continue to be approached through the traditional perspectives of security, control and restrictiveness. Echoing the fashionable discourse on contractual relations, the European Pact on Immigration and Asylum illustrates the Member States' hegemony over the framing of migration-related issues and their resurgent power to control legal entry, combat irregular migration and to dictate the terms of migrants' integration. There exists little reflection on normative considerations and on the negative impact of restrictive and law enforcement approaches on the formation of a European identity and the values underpinning the European project. National executives have shown their preference for traditional frames and old tools and the similarities between the French Presidency's European Pact on Immigration and Asylum and the 1998 Strategy Paper adopted by the European Council attest this. The only difference is that, due to demographic pressures, the MS would be prepared to admit certain categories of migrants because they need them. Yet, in so doing, they will continue to place hurdles on their path to temporary or permanent residence and to citizenship, which is now framed as a privilege or a status that has to be earned. An alternative approach to migration governance would have to reflect critically on the concepts, legal initiatives and policies that have characterised the last thirty years of Member State co-operation in this area and to rethink, and reframe, the area of freedom, security and justice

“The ‘Protective’ Union: Change and Continuity in European Migration Law and Policy”

The initiative to introduce a single constitutional basis and more democratic control in this area is a welcome development. However, it may be observed here that the structural shift from the intergovernmental pillar to the Community method has not been accompanied by a re-examination of the issue of immigration and a reflection on the dialectic of inclusion and exclusion which sets apart EU nationals/Union citizens from non-EU migrants. In this paper, I argue that Communitarisation will enable the Union to expand its so far modest acquis in migration-related issues (section 1), but is has also opened the way for the installation of exclusive categories and the security paradigm which characterized the third pillar within the system of Community law (section 2). The implications of this for the Union itself, the state and its evolving security agenda, and for the shape of European immigration and asylum policy in Amsterdam Europe will be considered in section 3