EU Policymaking and Research: Case Studies of the Communication on a Community Immigration Policy and the Common Basic Principles for Integration

Abstract

This chapter describes how the EU has acquired more influence on policymaking and research concerning migrant integration in the member states, and how it has made use of expert knowledge in its efforts to develop a common policy. Two important milestones are described and analysed in detail by a former senior EU administrator who was closely involved at the time: the Communication on a Community Integration Policy (2000) and the Common Basic Principles for Integration (2004). In both cases there was a very strong input of researchers to European policymaking. This was facilitated by the fact that there was not at first great interest from other policy areas in the European Commission nor from national governments. The research-policy nexus that developed at this period also had an impact on the development of this nexus at the national level in several of the EU’s member states. Since then, the Commission has been playing an active role in planning research and highlighting its outcomes, for example through its successive Framework Programmes, by promoting research co-operation between member states and by trying to improve the collection of basic and comparable statistics.