EU Neighbourhood Migration Report 2013 religious, with the objective of maintaining among its members a sense of belonging to their place of origin; and legal, in order to protect their migrants’ rights in the countries where they live. Recognising expatriate nationals as political actors in their country of origin, however, is not yet generalised: while most countries grant voting rights to their expatriate nationals, recognising their eligibility rights remains an exception. In a striking symmetry with expatriate nationals becoming increasingly full members of their country of origin, immigrants in EU’s neighbouring countries are generally not offered full inclusion in their adopted society, let alone citizenry. While the conditions of entry and stay applicable to immigrants and their access to employment, education, health and a number of services vary considerably across the EU neighbourhood, one common feature is that in no country do they enjoy rights comparable to those of citizens. In most cases, citizenship of the receiving country is not accessible to immigrants or even to their children: jus sanguinis dominates everywhere without being mitigated by even a hint of jus soli. Limited membership in the receiving society is all the more typical if migrants are in irregular situation at entry, stay or regarding employment. Indeed, another feature that all EU neighbourhood countries have in common is a high and often rising prevalence of irregular migration. Most of this migration is attracted by the local demand for labour and its irregularity results from legislation that proves inadequate to labour markets’ needs and employer practices. But there is also some irregular migration that is linked to these countries sharing a border with the EU: the so-called transit migration of persons who are stuck at the door of the EU, which they cannot enter for lack of requested documents. Policies to contain irregular migration increasingly translate into legislation that criminalises traffickers in migrants and also the migrants themselves. Finally, political events have produced massive refugee crises at the EU’s external borders. The invasion of Iraq in 2003-2008, the Libyan revolution in 2011 and the Syrian civil war since 2011 have generated millions of refugees on the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean. At the time of writing (early June 2013), an estimated 1.6 million refugees from Syria are sheltered in five countries Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Egypt and Iraq - all but one of which are EU neighbours. But so far, the EU has kept itself at arm’s length, with less than 2% of Syrian refugees being accepted in EU member states.
Migration Policy Centre (www.migrationpolicycentre.eu) 7