Introduction

The announcement in October 2001 by Home Secretary David Blunkett of a new ‘green card’ system for labour migrants into the UK exposed some of the contradictions that have been at the heart of migration policy in Europe for three decades. With the ending of mass labour migration during the 1970s, many European states declared that they were not countries of immigration. But while they imposed increasingly stringent restrictions on entry and promoted greater selectivity in the skills and geographical origin of potential immigrants, migration continued in a number of forms, both legal (labour migrants, family reunion and asylum) and ‘illegal’. During this period, the states of the southern European periphery, traditionally countries of emigration, became countries of ‘new immigration’.

The increase in refugee flows in the late 1980s, coinciding with the development of the European Union (EU), brought concerted European Union policies to control the entry of third country (non-EU) nationals. A key element of current policy in relation to asylum, and of the popular discourse surrounding it, has been the distinction between ‘genuine refugees’ and so-called ‘bogus’ asylum seekers. The latter, deemed to be ‘economic migrants’ have been vilified as undeserving of social support, while their dependent status is underlined by their exclusion from formal employment in many states. As demand for migrant labour has increased across a range of sectors, this exclusion comes increasingly into question, not merely from human rights campaigners but also from employers. In practice, the distinction between ‘refugee’ and ‘economic migrant’ is blurred: as economic breakdown and social conflict makes basic survival impossible, many people, including those not directly engaged in political activities or individually at risk of persecution, have been forced to migrate in search of work. The use of the expression ‘economic migrant’ as a term of abuse, even in a period of growing demand for migrant labour, reflects continuing popular hostility to migration.

Recent developments in migration policy in Europe have led to a growing disparity between the rights of migrants with different legal statuses. While legal migrants with settled status have generally secured access to a wider set of rights within the country of migration, others – particularly asylum seekers – have suffered increasing social exclusion. In Britain, for example, restrictions on welfare rights have been a key element in policies aimed at deterring asylum seekers.