Updated MPG family reunion briefing: Confronting stereotypes, confronting policies

Who do you imagine when you think of family reunion? You may see Moroccan and Turkish wives arriving in countries with longer histories of family immigration like Austria, Belgium, France, and Germany. You may think family reunion is the way that most immigrants come to your EU Member State. These stereotypes are far from the real lives of these families who are making the EU their home. In most EU countries, the number of reuniting non-EU families is small compared to the many other people arriving legally every year. They are the most important in Sweden and new countries of immigration in Southern and Central Europe. There are more reuniting non-EU families in Italy, Spain, or the UK than in France or Germany and more in Czech Republic, Greece, or Portugal than in Austria or Belgium. These newcomer families are very diverse, coming from all over the globe. Rarely do the majority in a given EU country come from the same country or region. In most countries, non-EU family reunion involves only the nuclear family and annually affects more children than spouses or partners.
One major assumption behind family reunion policymaking is that policy determines how many families are able to reunite in a country of destination. The non-EU family reunion rate is a simple new measure used in this briefing to compare the outcomes of family reunion policies. Spearman’s correlation analysis of MIPEX and Eurostat statistics identifies a very strong positive relationship between non-EU family reunion rates  and policies. Policy restrictions will likely function as obstacles to the right to family reunion. Policies that become more restrictive, selective, and discretionary will likely function as obstacles for sponsors and families who want to reunite. The effects of policy restrictions on family reunions cannot be denied or ignored, since family reunion is a right enshrined in EU law...Read more