LSE: Changing integration policy towards third-country nationals in the European Union: Language and knowledge of society tests in the Member States

The LSE Migration Studies Unit has referenced MIPEX in the Working Paper: Changing integration policy towards third-country nationals inthe European Union: Language and knowledge of society tests in the Member States by Daniel Bagameri...
Integration policy, in its original liberal sense, aims to provide immigrants with opportunities to acquire full rights and ability to participate in a society without demanding assimilation into the mainstream culture. However, a new approach with a more obligatory character has recently been emerging in Europe. For third-country nationals, the acquisition of legal statuses in relation to family reunification, long-term residence, and naturalisation is increasingly been made conditional upon the fulfilment of language and/or knowledge of the society tests. Yet existing research lacks an EU-wide systematic analysis of which integration conditions have been put into place. This paper aims to address part of this gap by providing data on and comparing some of the most important features of these requirements across the 27 Member States. The data reveals the incidence and the nature of integration conditions now applied throughout the European Union, and I show that liberal concepts of integration are indeed widely being transformed in a restrictive direction and into instruments of migration control...
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