For more than four decades labour migration policy in Western Europe has gone without forward planning, coherence, or fairness. Being a byproduct of top down decision-making, it has often been attuned to political expedience, shifting discourses about the usefulness or undesirability of migration and to fluctuating domestic economic needs. Because governments tend to be more interested in their own ‘office journeys’ than in responding to increasing human mobility, migrant labour has been used to fill gaps in labour markets without attention to long-term horizons and the welfare of human beings.
Suggested citation: Dora Kostakopoulou, Diego Acosta and Tine Munk, ‘EU Migration Law: Opportunities and Challenges Ahead’ in D. Acosta Arcarazo and C. Murphy (eds.) EU Security and Justice Law (Hart, Oxford. January 2014), pp. 129-145.
