Posted on 16 June 2014
A recent research in previously largely unexplored fonds at the Historical Archives of the European Union (HAEU) in Florence reveals the key players in building the European migration regime towards today’s Europe of “free movement”.
Emmanuel Comte, doctor from Paris Sorbonne University, has composed his doctoral thesis The Formation of the European Migration Regime, from 1947 to 1992 under the supervision of Prof. Eric Bussière. He points out that the European migration regime is a unique international balance that on the one hand demonstrates openness and exportable social security rights within Europe but on the other hand closure to non-European flows. Characteristic to the European migration regime has also been the importance of the public debates it has aroused, with the issue of migration being continuously on the agenda of the negotiations between European governments since the institutionalisation of these negotiations in 1947.
Dr. Comte explains that the formation of the European migration regime has remained little studied and poorly explained. A better understanding of the roles played by the main immigration states in the formation of the regime has been lacking, according to the scholar. Especially the German strategy, which is essential in understanding the formation of the European migration regime, has remained largely unknown.
From this point of view in particular the study at the Historical Archives of the European Union in Florence has proved to be of great value. Dr. Comte used as well a range of archives of international organizations.
The thesis describes the five stages in the formation of the European migration regime from 1947 to 1992.
The prevailing migration regime in Western Europe around 1947 was similar to what it had been between the two World Wars. The bureaucracy inherent in the regime as well as German and Italian revisionism led it to be scrutinised. A migratory divide long remained among Western European states: while the migration regime in North-West Europe softened, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and Mediterranean countries in Europe remained excluded from this more open migration regime. The FRG promoted the formation of a new migration regime in Western Europe based on the principle of the free movement of persons. However, at that time, the FRG lacked the resources to transform the European migration regime.
From 1955 to the mid-1960s, the FRG led the changes to a new regime, excluding people from the colonies and reserving migration opportunities for European populations.
From the mid-1960s the overall preferences of the FRG continued to prevail, except in the field of the migration of independent workers, where the larger importance of France translated into the persistence of a closed regime.
Preferences changed from 1973 with the evolution of demographic, economic and migration contexts. The decline in market demand for goods and services led to a decline in labour demand. The economic downturn provoked a migration closure and a deadlock in negotiations between European states. A unified European regime was only developed during this period to reduce migratory pressure from Arab and African countries.
It was between 1984 and 1992 that the new regime finally was achieved. Cooperation resumed with the German-British project of the Single Market. The German project to abolish border checks to allow intra-community cross-border traffic to flow better and to promote German exports to Europe was supported by France in the Schengen framework in order to break the German-British coalition. France agreed to support the abolition of internal border controls while seeking commitment to a strong migration policy at external borders and to a single European currency in exchange for the Single Market.
Dr. Comte concludes that the formation of the European migration regime from 1947 to 1992 was largely driven by the Federal Republic of Germany. French immigration policy influenced only to some degree the guidelines of the regime. The regime sanctioned a distribution of gains associated with migration in accordance with the interests of immigration countries. Immigration should not lead to lower wages and to social spending, and it would remain more difficult in the field of independent professions.
The study based on archival documents allows a new theory to be developed regarding open migration regimes, which defines favourable conditions and the factors that encourage a state to support such regimes. According to the research, the most important requirement is that a more open migration regime in a given geographical area should not provoke an increase in labour supply in immigration countries that exceeds the increase in demand. A second favourable condition consists of a situation of hegemonic direction. The amount of resources available to the hegemonic power allows it to maintain that regime.
Beyond these favourable conditions, the determining factors in the formation of an open migration regime are the will of the hegemonic power to ensure political stability in the area covered by the regime and the will to unify it towards an outside power. The will of the hegemonic power to open the markets of the countries in the regime to its firms is also a factor in the formation of an open migration regime, because such a regime favours the movements of managerial staff and of the skilled independent.
Consult the HAEU fonds
Contact Emmanuel Comte