6 - National Contestation over the Aspiration of Long-Term Solutions to Migration

Summary

This chapter focuses on the regulation of migration from third countries after the Single European Act and before the failed Constitutional Treaty. It presents various failed proposals of the Commission during these years, showing the interaction and opposing views of the Commission and the Council. A closer investigation into the Commission’s work shows that this institution continuously envisioned and proposed a legal framework that could efficiently serve the economic and social objectives of the EU project through the regulation of migration, thereby shaping a framework of sustainable migration. At the same time, Member States in the Council expressed a strong political discourse emphasizing their common efforts to progress in the EU, while in practice they blocked the relevant proposals because they could not agree on a common EU conception of growth and progress. Instead, what they pursued was national growth and progress. During this time, the first instruments on admission and rights for TCN migrants were adopted with standards significantly downgraded from the initial proposals.