REGINE Regularisations in Europe Final Report - European ...

9.5.2 Policy issues
Previously (in §3.3) we examined in some depth various policy issues that emerged as problematic
during the course of our research. These can be summarised as follows:
1) Policy effectiveness of regularisation programmes, including:
i) Retention of legal status
ii) Criteria for eligibility
iii) Encouragement of illegal migration flows
iv) Bureaucratic management
2) Policy effectiveness of regularisation mechanisms
3) Avoiding the creation of illegal immigrants
i) expired residence permits
ii) persons who migrated as minors or were born on the territory
iii) withdrawn refugee status
iv) retired persons with limited pension resources
4) Regularisations in lieu of labour migration policy
5) Role of national asylum systems
6) Lack of coherent policy on non-deportable aliens
7) Regularisation for family-related reasons
The policy proposals have been formulated to address each of these problematic areas, with specific
linkages shown in §3.3
9.5.3 Policy positions
These are outlined above, in §9.3. Overall, there is little support from Member States or from civil
society for extensive regulation of this broad policy area: there is considerable enthusiasm, however,
for technical support, policy guidance, and information exchange. In some specific policy areas, we
believe that there is limited support for minimum standards regulation; in other areas, we believe that
there will be considerable interest in solving ‘technical problems’ – often bureaucratic or structural in
origin – whereby the ‘accidental’ creation of illegally staying third country nationals can be
minimised.
Thus, our preferred policy options – shown below in §9.6 – are grouped into four categories. Category
1 consists of policies that leave Member States with exclusive responsibility for the policy, with the
Commission playing the role of facilitator. Category 2 policy options give the Commission some role
in co-ordination and development of policy. Category 3 consists of some specific policies that, in our
opinion, will command support from both Member States and civil society: in particular, we address
issues pertaining to ‘created illegal immigrants’. Finally, category 4 policies constitute ‘strong’
regulation for the achievement of minimum standards in some crucial policy sub-areas: again, it is our
belief that these specific policy issues are important enough for Member States, as well as civil
society, to concur with the need for common standards across the European Union.
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