The Politics of Irregular Migratory Flows in the Mediterranean Basin: Economy, Mobility and ‘Illegality’

Abstract

Because of the irregular migration flows and use of irregular labour in their economies, most Mediterranean countries of southern Europe face administrative battles over the issue of so-called migration management. The main aim of this article is to elaborate how several countries of the northern Mediterranean Basin have experienced irregular migration flows in the past decade. Particular attention is devoted to the process in which, when economies are in need of labour, international labour flows might be inevitable even if the related rhetoric and policies towards immigration are unsympathetic. This is debated here over the triad of economy, mobility and ‘illegality’.

Notes

¹ For an elaboration of the definition and historical background of the notion of irregular migration, see Baldwin-Edwards (2006).

² For the related discussion see, for instance, the special issue of International Migration on ‘Perspectives of Trafficking of Migrants’, 38(3) (2000).

³ For the related discussion see, for instance, Papademetriou (1998), Tapinos (2000), Entorf (2000), and Baldwin-Edwards (2005).

⁴ For a similar discussion on this issue see Collinson (1999: 10).

⁵ For the various examples of press coverage of the issue see for instance the following three internet-based newsletters: (1) CISNEWS of the Center for Immigration Studies, Washington, DC, USA (http://www.cis.org); (2) Asian Migration News of the Scalabrini Migration Center, Quezon City, Philipinnes (http://www.scalabrini.org); and (3) Immigration New Digest of the Technical Cooperation Centre for Europe and Central Asia of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) (http://tcc/iom.int).

⁶ See, for instance, various studies on irregular migration, and trafficking and smuggling produced by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

⁷ Several studies by the IOM plus various reports of the ‘Push and Pull Factors of International Migration’ (Eurostat-NIDI) project offer hard evidence about these two types.

⁸ For related discussion see Pugh (2000: 14–15).

⁹ It is argued that irregular migrants generally have relied upon a third party to assist them, whether they employed a forger to make a false visa (facilitator), paid a person to help them across the border (smuggler) or were exploited after transit by the person who transported them across the border (trafficker) (for these definitions see IOM, 2000b: 7).

¹⁰ See, for instance, Monzini's essay in this volume of Mediterranean Politics.

¹¹ Data evaluated here on the regularization of irregular migrants were obtained from the SOPEMI Report Series of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005).

¹² The Eurostat-NIDI project (1994–2000) was a comparative international migration survey on the push and pull factors determining international migration flows. For the detailed elaboration of this study, see EC (2000a). The main focus of the project was on migration from the southern and eastern Mediterranean region and from sub-Saharan Africa to the European Union. Surveys were conducted in five predominantly migrant-sending countries – Egypt, Ghana, Morocco, Senegal and Turkey (see for instance, EC, 2000b, 2000c, 2000d, 2000e, 2000f) – and in two predominantly migrant-receiving countries – Italy and Spain (see, for instance, EC, 2000g, 2000h) – between 1996 and 1998. The Netherlands was also included in the migrant-receiving countries but only secondary data analysis was conducted using existing survey data and statistics (see EC, 2000i).