The common immigration policy of the European Union: political effects of its absence

Abstract

Immigration policy has become the biggest political problem cu-rrently facing the Union, together with Brexit and finding a definitive solution to the euro crisis. The lack of a definitive agreement on the distribution of Syrian refugees who arrived on the coasts of Greece in 2015 and 2016, as well as refugees arriving in Italy from Libya since 2013, has accentuated the percep-tion of a European Union incapable of responding to a crisis of this magnitude. However, it is the Member States that have not reached a definitive agreement, since the competences on immigration and asylum belong basically to states, although the Union can establish a basic regulatory framework.
This situation and this perception contribute to the growth of national-populist parties that want to stop a supposed “invasion” of migrants and refugees on the one hand; and on the other to recover the economic powers of the States, returning to the confederate model. However, it is the purely intergovern-mental paradigm that is putting common immigration policy at risk.
The present work studies the relationship and the mutual influence existing between three variables: European institutional organization, the difficulty of specifying an effective common migration policy, and the growth of national-populist parties as an expression of a sector of European citizens.