REGINE Regularisations in Europe Final Report - European ...

noted above, Spain, Italy and Greece dominate the figures for regularisations by programme – with
Portugal showing a slightly lower rate. In contrast to most other EU countries, these four countries
until recently experienced large growth in labour demand – especially in unskilled work. Some of the
demand is in seasonal agricultural work, but even that has proven difficult to manage: employers rely
on illegal labour in all sectors, owing to the inability of the state to facilitate orderly immigration.
The four countries are also distinct in not having an obvious asylum-regularisation nexus, i.e.
regularisation for rejected asylum-seekers. Regularisation mechanisms have existed in three out of the
four, since 2000 in Spain, 2001 in Portugal, and 2005 in Greece. The utilisation of these is not known,
except for Greece where quite large numbers have been regularised (mainly for reasons of health).
Regularising on humanitarian grounds
(Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Sweden)
The main common characteristic of this group of countries is that regularisation is granted primarily
on humanitarian grounds; overall, regularisation is closely connected with the asylum system and, in
particular, with subsidiary and temporary protection. Other than Finland, all countries in this group
have had small to medium-scale regularisation programmes in the last decade and all but the
Netherlands have mechanisms. In addition, Belgium has a relatively transparent framework for
awarding regularisation through mechanisms. Thus, regularisation measures in these countries are
largely conceived as forms of complementary protection rather than as a response to irregular
migration, with the possible exception of Belgium, which in addition to regularisations on
complementary protection grounds has frequently granted regularisation on grounds of family ties.
The regularising ‘new’ Member States
(Estonia, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Rep.)
This is a diverse group of countries, whose main common characteristic is that they have actually
regularised. All but Estonia and the Slovak Rep. have had programmes, and all have mechanisms
which appear to have been utilised to some extent. Relative to their population sizes, they are smallscale
regularisers. Much of the activity has been related to ‘adjustment’ of their resident populations
to the new post-Soviet order, and the creation of ‘illegal’ residents that resulted from political and
territorial changes. Ireland is the exception to this, as its regularisation is characterised by managing
(illegal) labour migration flows (although it has not followed the pattern of southern Europe).
Overview’. In: OECD: The Future of Migration. Paris: OECD, p. 287), and is mainly owing to policy deficits
(Baldwin-Edwards, M. (1997): ‘The Emerging European Immigration Regime: Some Reflections on
Implications for Southern Europe’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 35/4, p. 507). The emergence of family
reunification channels, especially in Italy and Spain, has permitted more legal immigration but for most (nonseasonal)
labour migrants the primary route to legality remains regularisation (see e.g. Cangiano, A. (2008):
‘Foreign migrants in Southern European countries: evaluation of recent data’. In: Raymer, J. and Willekens, F.
(eds): International Migration in Europe: Data, Models and Estimates. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, pp.
96—7).
40