The Integrationist Paradigm in EU-Level Policy
摘要
The European Union emerged as an important actor in debates on ‘migrant integration’ throughout the past three decades. This chapter critically maps the EU framework on migrant integration, outlining the ruptures and continuities that have shaped EU’s approach to ‘diversity governance’. It proposes a typology of the (sometimes conflicting) discourses that converge in policy documents, differentiating between neoliberal, egalitarian (welfarist), securitarian and boundary integrationism. The chapter shows that while the early (predominantly welfarist and neoliberal) discourse on integration was only vaguely interested in questions of values and identity, the recent reformulation of the EU’s integrationist strategy marks a departure from universalist ideas of a ‘European community’. In particular, the Commission under von der Leyen adopted a more nativist and securitarian lens that frames ‘integration’ as a wager in an alleged civilizationist clash between the liberal and the ‘illiberal’ world. The chapter highlights three key trends that together amount to an important shift in the European Union’s migration and integration agenda: the rising importance of adherence to liberal values as a proxy for ‘integration’, the reinvention of ‘European values’ as Judeo-Christian cultural values, and drawing new boundaries around targets of integration policy.