Part II - Differentiation from the Single European Act to the Failed Constitutional Treaty

Summary

This part investigates the period from the Single European Act to the Failed Constitutional Treaty. During this period, the approach to EU and TCN migrants was differentiated. The political ambition behind the transformation of the EU framework framed an institutional discourse that emphasized the special status of EU migrants as citizens, and the lesser status of TCN migrants, whose status and rights were left in the realm of intergovernmental cooperation. However, a closer investigation of archival material and case-law undertaken in this part proves that the need to balance the economic and social objectives of the Treaties continued to appear and condition the rights of all migrants. Essentially this part shows that economic and social sustainability objectives continued to exist as the end to be served by the regulation of migration, even when the prevalent institutional discourse highlighted different considerations. Adding another building block to the historical investigation, this part demonstrates that while the EU sustainable migration objective is a recent one, its underlying considerations have constantly found their way in EU secondary law and case-law.