Transit Migration In Europe

Transit migration is a term that is used to describe mixed flows of different types of temporary migrants, including refugees and labor migrants. In the popular press, it is often confused with illegal or irregular migration and carries associations with human smuggling and organized crime. This volume addresses that confusion, and the uncertainty of terminology and analysis that underlies it, offering an evidence-based, comprehensive approach to defining and understanding transit migration in Europe.

Transit migration, comprising mixed flows of refugees and labour, is widely considered a concern and even security threat. However, the concept is as vague and blurred as it is politicised. This volume offers evidence-based, comprehensive coverage of the entire belt of countries in the neighbourhood of the EU, ranging from Russia to Morocco. Transit migration is critically analyzed from the perspective of sending, transit and receiving countries, offering new insights into refugee and irregular migration flows, transnational migration networks and overlapping migration systems.

Monografie van transitmigratie: de term die wordt gebruikt om verschillende stromen van tijdelijke migranten, inclusief vluchtelingen en werkmigranten aan te duiden.

Challenging traditional approaches to migration, which puts migrants in narrow categories (legal and illegal, newcomer and settler), 'Transit Migration' shows that migrants and refugees live in transit for years, a stage in the migration course profoundly affecting destination countries and the migrants themselves.

This book examines the issue of irregular transit migration to the EU by presenting the case of the Afghans. Focusing on the Afghans that arrive in and seek to move through Greece, it highlights the unique problems facing this distinctive migratory movement. Recognising that the migratory journey is a continuous interplay of policies and individuals, how each responds and adapts, the book itself moves between countries, policies, stories of migrants and the author’s own experiences in the field. Drawing on extensive empirical research conducted in both Greece and Turkey, it explores why such transits occur and the decision-making process of the migrants in transit. Through the example of Afghan migration this book contributes to broader debates concerning transit migration, hospitality and asylum (how it is perceived, access to it). This book presents a timely study of the rise of ‘fortress Europe’ and the current discourse around refugees and migrants, amidst the largest refugee flow since WWII in Europe. This book’s interdisciplinary approach will make it a valuable resource for policy makers as well as Sociology and Politics scholars.

Even as the 2013-2017 “migration crisis” is increasingly in the past, EU countries still struggle to come up with alternative solutions to foster safe, orderly, and regular migration pathways, Europeans continue to look in the rear-view mirror.This Report is an attempt to reverse the perspective, by taking a glimpse into the future of migration to Europe. What are the structural trends underlying migration flows to Europe, and how are they going to change over the next two decades? How does migration interact with specific policy fields, such as development, border management, and integration? And what are the policies and best practicies to manage migration in a more coherent and evidence-based way?

Patterns of Migration in Central Europe brings together new material on migration in the region: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. In the last ten years, these countries have changed from being countries of emigration to countries of immigration. As the next candidates for membership to the European Union, migration has become a particularly important topic for these countries. This book is designed as a key text for those interested in the development of the region and in European migration more generally.

In recent years, Europe has seen its largest influx of migrants and refugees in decades, with 1.9 million arrivals to the continent between 2014 and 2017. Peak arrivals in 2015, and sustained flows since then, have found the European Union and its 28 member states unable to face what has been called the “European migration crisis.” Part of their response has focused on cooperation with third countries of transit or origin, by leveraging development, humanitarian, and foreign policy tools to try and reduce migrant flows to Europe, including through many funding and budgetary decisions. This report attempts to quantify, through budgetary analysis, what shifts occurred in the external dimension of Europe’s migration policy following the crisis, and in three member states (Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands). These short-term shifts, representing policy priorities, carry long-term consequences for the European Union’s role as a foreign policy and soft power actor.