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The article offers a fresh insight into the relations between the European Union and Africa from “migration diplomacy” perspective which is being introduced in migration and international relations research in Russia. The author notes the explanatory and predictive potential of the “migration diplomacy” concept for considering the complex relations between states within different migration systems. The analysis of interactions and cooperation of the EU, as a receiving side, with the states of origin and transit of international migrants in Africa allowed to highlight the specifics of the EU approach. The latter consists in using various diplomatic means and formats to address the problem of illegal immigration and reducing the number of asylum seekers in the EU. The increasing dependence of the European Union on cooperation with third countries results in the use of migration as a tool of political pressure by partner states. Intra-continental migration processes are at the centre of the migration diplomacy of the African continent, including those related to freedom of movement. Despite the differences in the approaches of the parties, the potential for cooperation lies in the development of channels for legal labour migration.

The author of the article looks into the place of Islam in France through the prism of republican values that have formed the modern French state. The civic understanding of a nation has defined the approach to immigrants’ integration in France which is close to assimilation. The French model of citizenship implies membership in the political community through the adoption of republican values, regardless of ethnicity or religion. At the same time, the principle of laïcité en- shrined in the 1905 law, on the one hand, consolidated the Church’s independence from the state and, at the same time, the state’s equidistant attitude towards all religions. On the other hand, it defined that religion strictly belongs to private sphere. The growth in the number of Muslims in the country, both among citizens and due to immigration, raises new questions for the Republic such as to what extent the peaceful existence of a growing Muslim community within a secular state is pos- sible considering that Islam draws no division between public and private life. In the long run it will depend on whether laïcité is understood as an autonomy, rather than the complete exclusion of religion from the public sphere.

The author of the article refers to the concept of «European social model» and looks into various theoretical and methodological approaches to its definition. Despite the different social systems existing in the EU member states (Scandinavian/North European, Anglo-Saxon, сontinen- tal, Mediterranean and Eastern European), a number of common features make it possible to distin- guish the ESM as a unifying and distinctive focus of the European Union on social cohesion and inclusion which is noted both in the fundamental documents and in recent EU programmes. In the second part of the article the author examines actual practical issue of realization of the idea of «So- cial Europe» under two European Commission headed by J.-C. Juncker and U. von der Leyen, not- ing the difficulties and contradictions of harmonization of social legislation in the EU including the introduction of a single criterion for establishing the minimum wage in all member states. In con- clusion the author highlights the factors impeding the consolidation of the ESM, among them: the limited competence of the EU in this field and the national interests of individual member states for which social policy remains a sensitive issue of domestic policy.

The author of the article addresses to the problem of integration of third-country nationals in the European Union and provides a detailed analysis of the development of the concept of «civic citizenship». The establishment of the rights of legal immigrants in the European Union at the supranational level, despite the contradictory goals of the Commission and member states, brings a new quality to the common immigration policy of the EU. The main instrument for ensuring the rights of immigrants in the European Union is Directive 2003/109/EC concerning the status of third-country nationals who are long-term residents. The author highlights the role of supranational institutions (the Commission and the CJEU) in promoting the uniform application of the directive and guaranteeing the rights of legal immigrants in the European Union. The author notes that the EU long-term resident status can be considered as a step towards a post-national form of membership in the host community that overcomes the restrictive nature of national citizenship. However, despite the supranational regulation of legal immigrants’ rights in the EU, member states retain parallel national schemes and the right to impose integration conditions as well as they remain responsible for granting the EU long-term resident status.

The article analyzes the differences in approaches to the integration of migrants that exist in the European Union and Russia. In the EU, integration policy is ensuring the rights of foreign citizens and their socio-economic inclusion in the life of host societies. Russia relies on temporary labour migration, which explains the absence of a developed system of integration measures in the country's migration policy. At the conceptual level, in Russia prevails understanding of immigrant integration in its cultural and linguistic aspect with the emphasis on the role of state in the implementation of integration measures

The development of close cooperation with third countries in migration regulation became one of the priorities of the EU’s common migration policy in 2005. However, since then the EU has achieved only limited success the migration crisis has made the necessity to further develop an external dimension of migration policy even more clear to the European Union member states but not with a focus on the carrot policy but a more pragmatic approach that would primarily protect EU interests in the field of securit

Having to overcome the consequences of financial and economic crisis, migration crisis and the decision of the UK to leave, the European Union is facing new challenges. A number of foreign policy actions of the closest EU ally – the United States, jeopardize not only the long-term transatlantic cooperation, but also it can shake the EU credibility as successful integration project. Taking all this into consideration, the European Union puts a stake on eurocentrism