Regional Integration and Migration
Definition: Regional integration refers to a limited set of instances in which groups of
states have decided to lower the barriers to immigration of citizens of those countries.
The best-known example of regional integration as it relates to migration is the European
Union, where citizens of member states can travel freely and take up residence under
conditions much less onerous than those applied to non-Europeans (i.e., those from outside
the EU). This “internal” migration regime is part of a larger framework that began with
efforts to reduce restrictions on trade and capital flows. While the EU is the most advanced
project of this sort, there are several other instances, including the Nordic Common Labour
Market, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and an agreement between
Australia and New Zealand.
The term “regional integration” implies a general process in which barriers between
countries are reduced. That description is accurate only to the extent that one understands
it as referring to an ongoing process rather than a completed one; indeed there is no reason
to think that the various “projects” listed above will ever be complete in the sense that the
countries in question will no longer be separate countries. Ardent nationalists (e.g. the UK
Independence Party) vociferously bemoan the “loss of sovereignty” represented by
European integration, asserting that Britain no longer controls its borders or its “destiny”
more generally. In reality, while Britain and other EU members have agreed to a
supranational framework regulating some aspects of the migration of EU citizens, national
governments implement the regulations themselves (there is no “European” border control
agency, only the various national ones) and retain great independence to set policy for
immigrant from outside the EU. The term integration is possibly too grand to describe the
supranational agreements currently in force; the point is especially relevant to migration,
where many barriers remain in place, in keeping with a desire among many policy makers to
retain “national” control over migration policy (Lahav 2004, Brochmann 1996).
Even so, migration among members of the EU is now a much simpler process than it used to
be, and member states normally cannot prevent immigration of citizens of other member
states (or, rather, these states have chosen not to prevent such migration, via the various
treaties they have signed). For most types of work, national citizens and citizens of other EU
states compete on a “level playing field” (at least in legal terms), in contrast to the legal
requirement to impose preferences for nationals (as with the job adverts one sees in
Canada and many other countries). If a UK citizen receives a job offer in France, she or he
can then take up residence in France under the same conditions that apply to French
nationals, and with the various rights and benefits that French nationals enjoy. Some
countries, anxious about “benefit tourism”, impose conditions designed to prevent
residence where the individuals in question would likely become dependent on welfare
payments; the British government, for example, is keen to demonstrate to British tabloidreaders and voters that it is vigilant against the prospect of people from Eastern Europe
taking up residence in Britain with the intention of collecting unemployment benefits. But
migration of workers, pensioners (retirees), and students is often a straightforward affair;
one can reasonably start with the assumption that it will be possible (though there are
exceptions, restrictions and conditions, on which see Hall 1995).
The Nordic Common Labour Market extends this logic to such an extent that Fischer and
Straubhaar refer to “complete freedom of movement” (1996: 103): people may move
without restriction among Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland. (The first three
are now members of the EU; the agreement in question was adopted in 1954 and
formalized practices that were already established, though Iceland joined only in 1982.)
Historical associations (Sweden and Norway were ruled by Denmark in earlier centuries) and
linguistic and cultural affinities mean that it is reasonable to think of regional integration as
having progressed further in the Nordic region than in Europe as a whole. Even so,
migration flows within the region have never been large (not even in percentage terms); the
most significant migration flows were from Finland to Sweden, in the 1960s and 1970s, such
that Finns are roughly 5 per cent of the Swedish population (some are from Finland’s
Swedish-speaking minority). Intra-Nordic migration is often a matter of short-term moves
by younger people seeking adventure/experience (Fischer and Straubhaar 1996).
In some circumstances one observes regional integration frameworks that do not include
significant provisions enabling migration. The most conspicuous instance of this pattern is
NAFTA, encompassing Mexico, the USA and Canada, where beginning in 1994 some
restrictions on trade and investment were lifted – but without concomitant measures for
increased mobility of labour (there are provisions only for very small numbers of temporary
work visas in specified professional occupations). The outcome in North America, however,
has been quite different from what was intended. The particular mode of liberalization
adopted for (some) goods and capital has resulted not in broad development and job
creation but instead in displacement for Mexican workers, many of whom have then headed
across the northern border to find alternative sources of income (Fernández-Kelly and
Massey 2007; Martin 1998). Imports to the US of Mexican agricultural goods are still heavily
restricted; the US continues, by all appearances, to prefer to import Mexican tomato pickers
rather than Mexican tomatoes (Cornelius and Martin 1993). Stated goals for NAFTA
included the reduction of migration pressures (in common with other regional integration
efforts), but there is little evidence of success in this regard.
Regional integration frameworks can extend to a limited degree of harmonization of policy
on immigration from other areas (as distinction from “internal” migration/mobility), as
attempted in the Maastricht Treaty (though with very limited success, viz. Brochmann
1996). Discussion of the EU in these terms is commonly framed in reference to the term
“Fortress Europe”, which refers to the tightening of restrictions on immigration from
outside Europe that has accompanied the lifting of internal restrictions. Some countries in
northern Europe worry about the “porous” southern border, e.g. the Italian coast,
sometimes a destination for migrants crossing the Mediterranean from northern Africa.
Accession countries in central/eastern Europe have had to agree to wholesale adoption of
existing regulations touching on immigration, including a common entry visa regime (Jileva
2002). The rationale is that admission of external immigrants can have consequences for
other EU member states. Occasionally decisions of this sort become a matter of open
conflict, as when the Italian government in the spring of 2011 granted residence rights to
22,000 Tunisian refugees, expecting that the French-speaking refugees would then move on
to France (the former colonial power in Tunisia); France subsequently denied entry to
several trains at the Italian border. Generally, however, immigrants in Europe (particularly
those who gain citizenship of an EU member country) can migrate to other countries,
though only a few “secondary” migration flows have reached non-negligible dimensions
(e.g. Somalis who settled first in the Netherlands and subsequently moved to the UK, viz.
van Liempt 2011).
Perhaps the most important observation to make about regional integration and migration
is that regional integration does not generally lead to a great deal of migration, even when
the agreements constituting integration include generous provisions for migration.
Common labour market regimes have been adopted mainly by countries operating at
broadly similar levels of economic development. The history of EU accession suggests that
new countries are accepted when there is confidence that there will not be a mass exodus
to wealthier member states. Sometimes predictions of this sort turn out to be wrong:
Britain refrained from imposing a waiting period on nationals of A8 countries, i.e., the
Eastern European countries that gained membership in 2004, only to find that inflows were
much larger than anticipated. On this basis, Britain did impose a period of restrictions on
Bulgarians and Romanians following A2 accession in 2007 (Sriskandarajah and Cooley 2009.)
The typical pattern (to which NAFTA is a significant exception) is that other provisions of
economic integration (freedom of trade and capital flows) are implemented first, often
leading to a burst of economic development that reduces disparities and dampens
enthusiasm for migration subsequent to the easing of migration restrictions (e.g. Tapinos
2000).
As with any proposition about migration, however, one must be cautious of overgeneralizing, particularly on the basis of European and/or North American experience.
Regional integration takes a variety of forms, sometimes quite different from the EU
paradigm. Economic development in East Asia (with some countries organized under
ASEAN, the Association of South East Asian Nations), for example, has contributed to
distinctive migration flows that can be difficult to “place” in perspectives constructed for
Europe. “Integration” in this instance has not generally meant the reduction of disparities
but rather their deepening, with predictable consequences for migration (Jones and Findlay
1998). A number of frameworks exist in Africa, and although none of these involves explicit
facilitation of unimpeded migration, cross-border migration is typically unimpeded,
reflecting lack of state capacity as well as the shallower historical roots of African nation-
states, with sometimes artificial borders imposed by colonial powers (Ouchu and Crush
2001). Regional integration is a “frame” for analyzing complex processes, and expectations
of uniform patterns at a global level are likely to be disappointed.
(Hall 1995) (Fischer and Straubhaar 1996) (Ouchu and Crush 2001) (Fernández-Kelly and Massey
2007) (Cornelius and Martin 1993) (Martin 1998) (Jileva 2002) (Sriskandarajah and Cooley 2009)
(Tapinos 2000) (Jones and Findlay 1998) (van Liempt 2011) (Brochmann 1996) (Lahav 2004)
References
Brochmann, Grete (1996) European Integration and Immigration from Third Countries, Oslo:
Scandinavian University Press.
Cornelius, Wayne A. and Martin, Philip L. (1993) 'The Uncertain Connection: Free Trade and Rural
Mexican Migration to the United States', International Migration Review 27: 484-512.
Fernández-Kelly, Patricia and Massey, Douglas S. (2007) 'Borders for Whom? The Role of NAFTA in
Mexico-U.S. Migration', The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
610: 98-118.
Fischer, Peter A. and Straubhaar, Thomas (1996) Migration and economic integration in the Nordic
Common Labor Market, Copenhagen: Nordic Council of Ministers.
Hall, Stephen (1995) Nationality, Migration Rights and Citizenship of the Union, Dordrecht: Martinus
Nijhoff Publishers.
Jileva, Elena (2002) 'Larger than the European Union: The emerging EU migration regime and
enlargement', in Sandra Lavenex and Emek M. Uçarer (eds), Migration and the Externalities
of European Integration, Lanham: Lexington Books, pp. 75-89.
Jones, H. and Findlay, A. (1998) 'Regional economic integration and the emergence of the East Asian
international migration system', Geoforum 29: 87-104.
Lahav, Gallya (2004) Immigration and Politics in the New Europe: Reinventing Borders, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Martin, Philip L. (1998) 'Economic Integration and Migration: The Case of NAFTA', UCLA Journal of
International Law and Foreign Affairs 3: 419-32.
Ouchu, John O. and Crush, Jonathan (2001) 'Contra Free Movement: South Africa and the SADC
Migration Protocols', Africa Today 48: 139-58.
Sriskandarajah, Dhananjayan and Cooley, Laurence (2009) 'Stemming the flow? The causes and
consequences of the UK's 'closed door' policy towards Romanians and Bulgarians', in John
Eade and Yordanka Valkanova (eds), Accession and migration: changing policy, society, and
culture in an enlarged Europe, Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, pp. 31-55.
Tapinos, Georges Photios (2000) 'Globalisation, Regional Integration, International Migration',
International Social Science Journal 52: 297-306.
van Liempt, Ilse (2011) '‘And then one day they all moved to Leicester’: the relocation of Somalis
from the Netherlands to the UK explained', Population, Space and Place 17: 254-66.