Autre
| Résumé : | This Policy Brief stems from the analysis of the AspirE Project’s country reports on selected EU Member States (Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Italy, and Portugal) and Asian territory/countries (Hong Kong and mainland China, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam). These reports examined policies covering labour migration, family reunification, student mobility, investment-related mobility, tourism, and free movement within the Schengen area. The reports highlight that non-EU nationals are categorised and framed in a hierarchical way in migration policies, and that their place in the hierarchy of non-EU nationals determines their rights and degree of institutional control they are subjected to during their applications for entry, residence, and/or circulation within the EU. The analysis reveals three critical gaps in the implementation of these policies. First, there is a differential criteria applicable according to this constructed hierarchy of non-EU nationals, and amount of information (quantitative gap) required from them, but also differential information available in Member States’ embassies/consulates regarding entry to and circulation conditions within the EU. Second, there is also a difference in the quality of information (qualitative gap) given concerning access to the Member States at their embassies and consulates, as well as on the Member States’ application of the extension of Schengen visas in cases of force majeure and humanitarian reasons. Third, non-EU nationals at the bottom of the EU’s designed hierarchy face particular difficulties because their rights are legally limited to a “temporary” status (temporal gap) after which a change of status is impossible or very difficult in practice. These three gaps constitute a form of arbitrary discrimination vis-à-vis some non-EU nationals and reflects the structural discrimination inherent to the EU’s regular migration system. To address these discriminatory gaps, this Policy Brief addresses three recommendations to the European Commission: to uphold the EU Treaty’s principles of equal treatment and legal certainty; to ensure an independent evaluation model on how individual Member States implement visa policies from the perspective of these principles on the ground; and to work towards a more flexible framework for status-transition in EU migration law, including by encouraging all Member States to ratify the United Nations’ Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration and other relevant international human rights and labour standards. |
