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Der "Sommer der Migration" 2015 transformierte die europäische Migrationspolitik. Die Autorin analysiert anhand des Fluchtursachen-Diskurses, wie gesellschaftliche Akteur*innen strategisch darum ringen, ihre Interessen durchzusetzen. Dazu zeichnet sie die Herausbildung des hegemonialen Verständnisses von Fluchtursachenbekämpfung kritisch nach. Dieses schreibt sich in die Reorganisation des EU-Grenzregimes nach 2015 ein. Gleichzeitig verweisen die diskursiven Kämpfe auf eine stärkere Sichtbarkeit von Geflüchteten vor dem Hintergrund globaler Nord-Süd-Verhältnisse.

Nothilfelager sind Orte innerstaatlicher Grenzziehungen im europäischen Grenzregime. Sie schließen abgewiesene Geflüchtete ein und damit aus der Gesellschaft aus. Die Autorin analysiert in einer ethnografischen Studie die herrschende "politische Rationalität" von Migrationsbehörden bei der Etablierung und Legitimierung des Nothilfe-Regimes. Im Fokus stehen dabei die Nothilfelager, die sie als totale Institutionen beschreibt. Zentral sind zudem die Bewältigungsstrategien abgewiesener Geflüchteter gegen die Demütigungen und Entwürdigungen, die der institutionellen Logik der Nothilfelager innewohnen.

Religious actors in public life and political work have been argued to break with secular assumptions about their expected role in modern societies. Previous interdisciplinary research in the field of international relations has analyzed this development for organizations as religious actors but tends to overlook the individual. The current study investigates this individual experience and explores the positioning of self-identified Christian religious actors as they reflect on the implications of their engagement in church asylum practice in Germany. Through semi-structured interviews with sanctuary actors operating from the summer of 2018 to the winter of 2020 in Berlin and Brandenburg, it provides insights into the challenges of church asylum in Germany during its most recent impactful happening, the nationwide changes of the application of the EU Dublin III Regulation. Supported by theories related to migration, religion, and (post-)secularism, the study identifies three areas in which sanctuary actors may position themselves when reflecting on the implications of their involvement: the personal, institutional, and societal. The research demonstrates that in their reflections, sanctuary actors both differentiate between and unite Christian being and political action. It concludes that, in their self-reflections, church asylum actors both reproduce and challenge a secular narrative of contingent "religious" and "secular" categories and situate themselves through this in the midst of German secularizing society.

The aim of the article is to attempt to identify the state of, and prospects for, the development of the common policy of the European Union regarding legal migration from third countries. The subject of interest is, above all, legal economic migration, which is crucial from the perspective of certain demographic processes taking place in the EU, the changes and needs of the Community’s labour market, and the challenges posed by the digital transformation. The adopted hypothesis assumes that, within the framework of EU migration and asylum policy, policy as regards legal economic migration is still an underdeveloped area and remains in the hands of individual Member States. Initiatives undertaken in this area remain overshadowed by the main focus of the common migration and asylum policy, namely the development of a common asylum system and the prevention of irregular migration. Policy regarding legal economic migration in the near future will mainly be created by Member States and play out on the domestic stage due to the lack of direct motivation for its development at the Community level. In this case, the strength of particular stakeholders’ interests is not balanced out by any direct and easily identifi able benefits to be gained from the adopted common solutions.

This article presents a Finnish perspective on harmonization within the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). The article analyses results from a study of the judgments and experiences of Finnish civil servants concerning the harmonization of the CEAS. The year 2015 constitutes a shift in asylum policies in many European countries, and a key question is how this shift has influenced the process of harmonization of asylum policies and practices. Senior civil servants working in the state administration of asylum and migration issues in Finland were interviewed anonymously as part of a comparative European research project (CEASEVAL). The interviews indicate that EU‐wide administrative cooperation has developed into a broad and diverse cooperation in recent years. The interviewees in Finland generally found harmonization of the asylum system to be necessary, which was connected to a need for greater predictability of the outcomes of the system. The results of the study suggest that Finnish asylum administration is developing toward harmonized practices involving transnational and supranational administrative cooperation in the field of asylum. The results support the conclusion of previous research that there is a process of horizontal Europeanization in which administrative practices develop organically within national asylum administration, independently of political disagreements at the EU level. This is relevant both to the framing of political issues and to research on Finnish migration and asylum policies, which need to take into account the ongoing European harmonization of policies and administrative practices.

The provision of high‐quality reception conditions and the effective inclusion of refugees are permanent challenges in the implementation of the European asylum agenda. The EU legal framework for the reception of refugees has evolved over time through various legislative reforms, notably including those launched in 2016 and the New Pact on Migration and Asylum proposed in 2020. The European Union has also tried to reinforce its non‐binding integration policy with the adoption of the Action Plan on Integration and Inclusion 2021–2027. While this plan is intended to promote an alternative “social resilient” integration model for refugees that emulates community sponsorship in Europe, it also generates great bottom‐up expectations to provide better integration. These legislative reform proposals and their programmatic framework are theoretically intended to consolidate the European reception and integration system, but in practice have increased the dichotomous tension between utopia and dystopia. Drawing on a political interpretation of both concepts, this article critically analyses the real nature of the changes proposed in the legislative CEAS reforms and in the action plans. Both visions are useful to evaluate the desirability, viability, and achievability of these transformative changes in the future asylum system.

On their journeys to and through Europe, refugees and other migrants are commonly subjected to violence in its multifaceted forms. We argue that these “journeys of violence” are a direct effect of a fundamentally uneven and asymmetric global mobility regime that creates frictions and fragmentations in the European border space and beyond. Our argument is based on: (1) a state-of-the-art literature review on refugees’ mobilities towards Europe and new patterns of involuntary immobilisation through border regimes, (2) a secondary analysis of recent quantitative data from the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), which includes a large data set on refugee’s journeys to Germany, and (3) original qualitative interviews that were conducted with migrants in Germany and Bosnia-Herzegovina. We will first show that mobility in the context of violence is highly selective and that trajectories of mobility significantly depend on mobility capital. Second, we consider the fortification of European borders and the externalisation of control regimes as facets of structural violence and demonstrate their effects on refugees’ mobility, namely the fragmentation of journeys and the systemic production of situations of protracted immobility at multiple border sites. Third, we provide insights into refugees’ exposure to and experiences of direct violence on their journeys, which must be understood as immediate consequences of the structurally violent conditions that govern their mobility and the cultural violence of delegitimising and illegalising refugees’ movements. * This article belongs to a special issue on "Refugee Migration to Europe – Challenges and Potentials for Cities and Regions".

In 2015 and 2016, the enormous increase in asylum seekers travelling along the Balkan Route confronted the Member States of the European Union with an exceptional pressure on national asylum systems. Since then academic literature has revealed a reappraisal of the Common European Asylum System at regulative and policy implementation level, notably regarding the fair distribution of asylum seekers across Member States and regions. Yet we know very little about the locational choices of forced migrants or how those choices evolved and transformed during their journey. In this paper, we aim to shed light on those decision-making processes and (individual, subjective) locational choices based on the aspiration-ability model, drawing from a series of qualitative interviews with migrants held in Luxembourg and Germany in the context of the H2020 project CEASEVAL. We focus on the migrants’ journeys to their actual recipient countries, highlighting mobility trajectories from the moment of first departure and on the process of decision-making regarding their choice of location. Then, we examine further mobility aspirations, which may lead to secondary mobility within or out of the country of residence. In the concluding section, we discuss the consequences of our findings for migration and asylum politics against the background of the “autonomy of migration” framework. * This article belongs to a special issue on "Refugee Migration to Europe – Challenges and Potentials for Cities and Regions".

The effects of the intra-African and European deportation regimes brought about since the European Union's externalization of its migration and development policy by transferring it to countries of sub-Saharan Africa remain largely understudied - especially their effects on people's everyday life after forced returns. Based on extensive field research, Susanne U. Schultz's book analyses the supposedly "failed" migration of Malian men, the social situations in which they find themselves following deportation, and the implications of their "failure" for their social environment and broader society. This important ethnographic study creates empirical knowledge on key issues in migration research, policy, and practice in the context of a charged debate.

This article aims to make an insight into the conditions of immigration policy and actions undertaken by the Swedish authorities and political parties in the face of the migration crisis in Europe after 2015. A hypothesis presented here assumes that a decisive evolution of the attitudes of the Swedish authorities, political parties, and society towards a restrictive approach to immigration arose from the awareness of the negative consequences of migration management for the Swedish socio-economic model and the political scene. The theoretical framework used in this article is the concept of policy responsiveness, including the ability of political authorities to respond effectively and lawfully to the needs and expectations of the citizens. Process tracing was applied as a research method useful for following the transformation process of Sweden's immigration policy. Statistical data, documents issued by the government and political parties, as well as the subject literature were the sources utilised in the research. Conclusions drawn from the research point to the tightening of immigration policy as a result of the fear of a prolonged pull effect on foreigners and concern surrounding the appropriate handling of immigration in full accordance with the adopted model of immigration policy.

Article 21 of the recast Reception Conditions Directive 2013/33/EU (RCD) stipulates that member states shall consider the special needs of asylum seekers with, inter alia, mental illnesses. Similar to other member states, Germany failed to transpose the RCD into national law within the two years prescribed. Due to the inactivity of the federal legislator, the Directive became directly applicable. In the German system of cooperative federalism, this means that the application of the RCD moved downstream to the responsibility of the German Länder (states), which have since found themselves with vague responsibilities, lacking a clear regulation cascade from the federal level. How do Länder implement the RCD and how is its implementation in Germany affected by the federal institutional setting? The objective of this article is to analyse and systematise the patterns of the RCD’s implementation on the subnational level in Germany. On the one hand, the findings suggest that the open formulation of the RCD and the federal government’s inactivity allow for a higher degree of liberty in applying the Directive on the subnational level. On the other hand, most measures taken hitherto have been rather small and ad‐hoc and some Länder have even failed to adopt any significant changes at all. The RCD’s implementation in Germany has consisted of a “tinkering” process, generating an incoherent patchwork of policy outputs. The resulting unequal standards in the reception of asylum seekers displaying mental illnesses present far‐reaching consequences for the people affected.

After the end of the Cold War, a decade started within which the idea of European unity gained considerable traction. The Maastricht Treaty transformed the Economic Community into the European Union and the scope of collaboration between its member states widened to include justice and home affairs. By the end of the decade, it had become clear this was not enough to address the challenges caused by refugee migration. Thus the Amsterdam Treaty aimed at proper joint policy and law‐making in the sphere of migration and asylum. This ought to be done with full respect to the 1951 Refugee Convention. By 2004, when the Union was joined by ten new member states, the essence of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) had been formulated and turned into Regulations and Directives as part of the Union’s body of common law. The system was further fine‐tuned during the next decade, but during the 2015 “refugee crisis” the system collapsed for lack of solidarity and solid agreements on responsibility‐sharing between the member states. Since then, the single goal member states share is that asylum seekers and refugees are best kept from finding a way into Europe—for once they arrive political stress is the unavoidable consequence. Paradoxically, precisely the ideal of a CEAS has introduced practices that deviate from the EU’s norms regarding international protection. This thematic issue reviews some of those issues but also finds examples of harmonization and good practices.

Der Ruf nach einer koordinierten Asylpolitik wird angesichts der ungleichen Bedingungen, die Geflüchtete vor und in Europa vorfinden, immer lauter. In diesem Sinne arbeitet die Europäische Union seit Jahren an einem »Gemeinsamen Europäischen Asylsystem«, das gerade auch das Verwaltungshandeln vor Ort verändern soll. Dieser Band stellt die Ergebnisse einer Forschungsstudie vor, die das praktische Arbeiten in deutschen und schwedischen Asylbehörden vergleichend untersucht. Im Fokus stehen der behördliche Umgang mit den Vorgaben der europäischen Asylpolitik, das Ausmaß einer Europäisierung des lokalen Verwaltungshandelns und die Schwierigkeiten einer grenzüberschreitenden Verwaltungskooperation.

This article explores the temporal dimension of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) by exposing its teleological character and the effects of the latter on the governance of asylum in the European Union. Drawing on EU policy documents, the article shows how the CEAS has been presented since its inception as a teleology, that is, a process that is inexorably unfolding towards a specific outcome to be reached in an indefinite time in the future. The outcome consists in the establishment of a common area of protection constituted by a level playing field in which asylum seekers and beneficiaries of international protection will be treated alike regardless of the place of residence. Such a teleological narrative informing the CEAS paves the way to overly optimistic expectations on the possibilities of implementation, which in turn result in an overestimation of the potential of harmonisation. By discussing the limitations of harmonisation in relation to the reception of asylum seekers, this article calls into question the possibility of a homogeneous area of protection where equivalent conditions are offered to all asylum seekers across the EU. Such a homogeneous space is utopian because harmonisation does not aim to eradicate differences but rather to mitigate them, thus tolerating diverse arrangements. The article, therefore, argues that the level playing field projected by the CEAS constitutes a promise that has two key effects: First, it depoliticises the CEAS itself by framing problems as technical issues, requiring technical solutions; second, it paves the way to further EU intervention in this field.

This working paper traces the trajectory of Syrian official documents across Syria and Germany in times of political upheaval, flight and integration. Documents issued by the Syrian state continue to be a fundamental element in the life of Syrians in Germany as they are still needed for certain mundane, yet crucial, purposes. Syrians are therefore forced to engage with Syrian state bureaucratic apparatuses at a distance. The journey of the papers across time and geographical borders unveils the highly political ambivalences and tensions embodied in Syrian paperwork in the context of German policies of asylum and integration. In Syria, the documents and their retrieval are embedded in the politics of security governing the Syrian citizenship regime. On arrival in Germany, the papers gain new meanings in their encounter with the German integration process and legal system rooted in the Rule of Law. At the same time, the papers' enmeshment with German bureaucracy reproduces (from a distance) the political dynamics between Syrians and the Syrian state in the past. Situated at a crossroads of the web of state(-s) power in and between Syrian and German bureaucracies, the papers re-integrate Syrians’ past into their present in Germany. By revealing this complex web of relationships, this working paper offers a reflection on the limits of studying the European context of integration and asylum 'fromwithin'.

In 2015/2016 the Federal Republic of Germany and Bavaria were greatly challenged by the refugee wave from the Middle East, Afghanistan and various African states, and its management. The south-east Bavarian border areas were particularly affected due to their location at the end of the Balkan route. This article first provides an overview of the essential elements of German and Bavarian asylum and refugee policy. It then analyses the special challenges facing the south-east Bavarian border areas before addressing the spatial effects of the refugee wave in these regions. As the task of integration becomes increasingly important, a special opportunity for action-oriented bottom-up regional initiatives can be identified.

Julia Devlin, Tanja Evers, Simon Goebel (Hrsg.): Praktiken der (Im-)Mobilisierung - Lager, Sammelunterkünfte und Ankerzentren im Kontext von Asylregimen. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag 2021. 978-3-8376-5202-4

Am Beispiel von Leipzig zeigt Philipp Schäfer, dass die Allgegenwärtigkeit des Provisorischen im langen Sommer der Migration 2015 nicht das Ergebnis einer jähen Krise war, sondern das Resultat langjähriger Auseinandersetzungen rund um Fragen des Umgangs mit Geflüchteten vor Ort. Anhand von zahlreichen Interviews, Beobachtungen und politischen Dokumenten führt seine soziologische Untersuchung vor Augen, wie die lokale Regierung von Migration Vorläufigkeit institutionalisierte und es so erlaubte, Geflüchtete räumlich, zeitlich und moralisch auf Distanz zu halten. published

Die EU-Innenpolitik und die Schengen-Zone stecken in einer Struktur­krise: blockierte Reformen in der Migrations- und Asylpolitik, eingeschränkte Personenfreizügigkeit, erodierendes gegenseitiges Vertrauen. Wie sich der russische Angriffskrieg auf die Ukraine auf alle diese Fragen auswirkt, ist noch offen. Flexible oder differenzierte Formen der europäischen Zusammenarbeit werden oft als Weg gesehen, Blockaden zu überwinden. Allgemeine Konzepte, etwa für ein Kerneuropa, führen aber praktisch nicht weiter. Je nach Thema müssen die Vor- und Nachteile der differenzierten Integration sorgfältig abgewogen werden. Vergangenes Jahr ist die Europäische Staatsanwaltschaft als Verstärkte Zusammenarbeit eingerichtet worden. Mit diesem in den EU-Verträgen vorge­sehenen Verfahren konnte eine neue Integrationsperspektive eröffnet werden. Insgesamt ist der Spielraum für weitere Vorreitergruppen in der EU-Innenpolitik gering und die Kosten steigen. In der EU-Asylpolitik ist der Problem­druck indes so groß, dass derartige Ansätze als Notlösung trotzdem sinnvoll und unausweichlich sein können. "Koalitionen der Willigen" zur europäischen Verteilung von Schutzsuchenden waren bisher wenig erfolgreich. Auch die Reform des Schengen-Regimes wird die teilnehmenden Staaten kaum dazu bewegen, mehr Asyl­bewerber aufzunehmen. Neue Maßnahmen zum Umgang mit ukrainischen Flüchtlingen im Rahmen der Massenzustrom-Richtlinie sind ein wichtiger und richtiger Schritt in Richtung Solidarität, lösen aber noch nicht die Strukturprobleme der EU-Asylpolitik. Um rechtlich verbindliche Verfahren zur Verteilung von Asylsuchenden zu schaffen, sollte auf mittlere Sicht eine Verstärkte Zusammenarbeit geprüft werden, insbesondere in Ver­bindung mit Asylgrenzverfahren und einem Krisen­mechanismus für große Flüchtlingsbewegungen.

The response to the so‐called refugee crisis of 2015 in the European Union was haphazard and inconsistent with the stated mission of solidarity. This article situates the EU’s response and its Common European Asylum System (CEAS) as defensive integration producing the lowest common denominator policies. It argues that the rise of right‐wing populism redefines solidarity in narrow and exclusionary terms, in contrast to the inclusive and global solidarity espoused by the EU. Drawing on Germany as a case study of how domestic populist pressures also rise to the European level, the article juxtaposes the demise of the EU’s temporary relocation system (an attempt at internal inclusive solidarity) and the success of the EU–Turkey deal (an attempt at externalization and risk avoidance), both initiatives led by Germany. Solidarity efforts championed by Germany were quickly stymied by (Central Eastern European) member states that not only rejected efforts at temporary solutions but blocked efforts to develop permanent mechanisms and a substantive CEAS reform.

Over the past decade, asylum seekers and refugees arriving in Italy were accommodated in reception facilities located not only in large metropolitan centres but also in Small-medium Towns and Rural Areas (STRAs). Italy’s reception system evolved quickly to face the peaks of asylum applications, especially in the 2015-2017 period. At the same time, the changes in Italy’s reception policies were pushed by the increased polarisation in the asylum debate, which, in turn, has led to great heterogeneity in the development of reception practices. This paper argues that the reception-territory nexus is a critical dimension to focus on when investigating the implications connected to the arrival and establishment of asylum seekers and refugees. This appears particularly true in STRAs where the reception system provided new resources that, when well-managed, showed transformative potential, developing virtuous interconnections with the local territories and communities. These virtuous interconnections have, however, been affected by the continuous changes in reception policies and came to a critical juncture in 2018, when the so-called Security Decree entered into force. While further modifications are currently underway, such legislation profoundly affected the Italian reception system’s functioning and working principles, creating new frictions and tensions among institutional actors and within the local governance of the reception system itself. We argue that the reform contributed to disrupting, both materially and symbolically, the previous virtuous combination of refugee inclusion and local development, especially in STRAs. Our situated qualitative analysis – carried out between 2019 and 2020 through discursive in-depth interviews – investigates the interconnections between territory and reception in three small to medium-sized towns and rural areas before and after this regulatory shift. It does so by introducing a novel analytic framework, focusing on symbolic and material aspects within and around reception. The analysis suggests that the stress and disruptions connected to the regulatory changes have had a negative impact on the internal organisation of the reception as well as on the refugees’ inclusion and on the chances of local development. * This article belongs to a special issue on "Refugee Migration to Europe – Challenges and Potentials for Cities and Regions".

In the summer of 2015, a wave of solidarity washed across the European continent as 1.3 million refugees arrived. While many recent studies have explored how ‘ordinary’ men and women, NGOs and governments momentarily reacted to the arrival of refugees, this issue examines whether the arrival of refugees and the subsequent rise of civil support initiatives has also resulted in more structural cultural and political changes. The contributions assembled in this issue all delve into the enduring implications of Europe’s ‘long summer of migration’. They address four sites of change: the dynamics between civil and state actors involved in refugee protection; the gradual politicisation of individual volunteers and organisations; the reproduction of pre-existing cultural imaginaries; and the potential of cities to foster new forms of solidarity.

Between 2015 and 2016, the Netherlands experienced an asylum crisis, one that directly affected organizations working with refugee reception and integration. Besides civil society and governmental organizations (CSOs and GOs), the period also saw individuals coming together to form emergent CSOs (ECSOs). We look at these organizations to determine whether their work brought a shift in Dutch practice and policy with regarding refugee reception. We also examine literature concerning crisis governance, participatory spaces, and refugee reception governance. Finally, we investigate the views and experiences of individuals from selected organizations that played an active role during the crisis. This explorative research is based upon a qualitative and interpretative study involving panel discussions, document analysis, and interviews, conducted between 2017 and 2018 by the Refugee Academy at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. We show circumstantial and interorganizational elements that enhanced and hampered interactions between ECSOs, CSOs, and GOs. We argue that shared activities during the crisis may have created possibilities for durable forms of collaboration and for the inclusion of civil society groups in a debate mostly dominated by GOs.

Reception realities are marked by contentious moves and a strong degree of politicization. Claims made for the inclusion/exclusion of asylum seekers frame the activities of local solidarity initiatives. Based on a set of data on newly opened accommodation centres since 2015 as well as comparative case studies conducted in small-scale and predominantly rural municipalities in Austria, this research explores the characteristics and manifestations of solidarity in the context of asylum. Results show how claims of solidarity are under pressure as they are deeply rooted in exclusionary frames of deservingness on the one hand and federal disputes about the adequate management of asylum systems on the other.

In Part One, I give some background of the situation of refugees coming to Europe, especially to Greece. I give a brief outline of the EU policy of Fortress Europe and externalisation of borders. The contribution of Ireland is also discussed. In Part Two, I discuss the challenges and joys of my work in the small refugee camp Pikpa on Lesbos, run by Lesvos Solidarity where I worked for four months in 2017/2018. Other projects, such as the Mosaik Centre are also described. In view of the overall refugee population in the world of 68 million, my contribution seems just a drop in the ocean. The independent camp where I worked has around 120 residents while elsewhere on the island in the notorious “hot spot” camp Moria, 8,000 refugees are confined in a cramped space. Greece has to manage about 60,000 refugees. Still Europe’s numbers of refugees with about 0.5 % of the total population of 508 million taken in are small compared to refugees fleeing to countries neighbouring conflict and war zones.

This article sheds light on the lack of cohesion in asylum approaches between EU member states and questions the dominance of the ‘integration’ paradigm. It argues that civil society organisations (CSOs) have, through solidarity, challenged the bias ‘integration’ involves and the exclusion it generates. To do this, it examines three case-based practices led by CSOs that operate in three European capital cities—Rome, Brussels and Berlin—and that embrace mobility in the context of front-line, transit and destination countries, respectively. With the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015 acting as a threshold moment, the cases navigate a complex web of relationships amidst a fragmented debate about asylum, and varying national and local frameworks in Europe. Through the comparison of cases, the article argues that the political possibilities of such practices and their enduring engagements with the urban, remain limited. However, the shift in discourse from ‘stasis’ and ‘integration’ to ‘mobility’ and ‘solidarity’ that the three cases embody, represent a critique that fundamentally challenges urban planning and its role for asylum. ispartof: Urban Planning vol:3 issue:4 pages:79-90 status: Published online

In this book of proceedings the reader will find interesting analyses about several contemporary aspects. We have separated the volume into thirteen topics, based on the focus of the papers which were presented in the conference. The papers of the first three topics analyse aspects concerning the EU governance and leadership, the EU defence and international security as well as opinions about the EU integration, politics and governance issues. In the forth topic the contributors focus on issues of energy and sustainable development, which are crucial to the stability in Europe and its periphery and in the fifth topic the focus is on Euroscepticism and populism, which still concern the European political arena. The sixth topic focus on a very important contemporary European problem; the immigration and refugee crisis, with several contributions presenting novel research and important outcomes. Topic seven focuses on finance and investments issues while topics eight and nine on educational policy issues and their connection with social cohesion. Topic ten focuses on regional development and governance in the EU and Greece while topic eleven on media in the digital era. Finally, topic twelve analyses healthcare policy issues while topic thirteen closes the volume with issues concerning governance and politics in Greece. At the end of the volume you could find the full book of abtracts as well as the programme of the conference.

Im Koalitionsvertrag der 19. Wahlperiode haben CDU, CSU und SPD die Errichtung zentraler Aufnahme-, Entscheidungs- und Rückführungseinrichtungen ("AnkER-Einrichtungen") vereinbart. Zentrales Element der AnkER- und funktionsgleichen Einrichtungen ist eine intensivierte Behördenzusammenarbeit aller am Asylverfahren beteiligter Akteure. Die angestrebte räumliche Nähe der unterschiedlichen Akteure soll in allen Phasen der Asylverfahrensbearbeitung - von der Ankunft der Schutzsuchenden bis zur kommunalen Verteilung oder der Rückkehr - eine Optimierung des Verfahrens gewährleisten. Das Forschungszentrum des BAMF untersuchte im Auftrag des Bundesministeriums des Innern, für Bau und Heimat, inwieweit die konzeptionelle Idee der AnkER-Einrichtungen und funktionsgleichen Einrichtungen, alle beteiligten Akteure unter einem Dach zu vereinen, in den unterschiedlichen Phasen der Asylverfahrensbearbeitung zu Effizienz- und Effektivitätssteigerungen führt.

The extension of border controls beyond Europe’s territory to regulate the flows of would-be migrants is a popular – and highly controversial – policy approach adopted by European governments. The present paper examines recent developments characterizing the externalization of border management in Europe, paying particular attention to the changes that have occurred during the COVID-19 global pandemic. This represents a time when mobility has been severely restricted in most of Europe (and the rest of the world). The aim is to map the impact of the pandemic on relevant “externalizing” policy instruments (e.g., visas, extra-territorial patrolling and surveillance, external processing of asylum claims, and offshore detention of migrants) and to assess their future trajectories. The paper shows that during the pandemic, the externalization of border controls has expanded and adapted to the new conditions. As a result, some of the key dynamics that define this policy arrangement have been recreated internally, a phenomenon referred to here as the “internalization of externalized border controls.”, Historical Social Research Vol. 46, No. 3 (2021): Special Issue: Borders as Places of Control. Fixing, Shifting, and Reinventing State Borders. Starting Point and Frequency: Year: 1979, Issues per volume: 4, Volumes per year: 1

Die Rückkehr ausreisepflichtiger Migrantinnen und Migranten hat einen hohen Stellenwert auf der politischen Agenda Deutschlands und der EU. Neben dem Ziel, die Rückkehrzahlen zu steigern, haben verstärkte rückkehrpolitische Bemühungen auch eine symbolische Funktion: Sie dienen dazu, die Durchsetzungskraft des Rechtsstaats zu demonstrieren, und gelten als wichtiges Mittel, das weitere Erstarken rechtsextremer Parteien zu verhindern. In der Praxis erweist es sich allerdings als schwierig, die Ausreisepflicht durchzusetzen - im europäischen Durchschnitt gelingt dies nur in etwa einem Drittel der Fälle. Als einer der zentralen Gründe hierfür wird die mangelnde Kooperationsbereitschaft der Herkunftsländer genannt. Auf europäischer Ebene finden derzeit dynamische Entwicklungen in der internen und externen Dimension statt, was die Frage der Rückkehr be­trifft. Ziel ist es, die Zusammenarbeit mit Herkunftsländern zu verbessern sowie innereuropäische Abläufe effektiver zu gestalten. Die fortwährenden Bemühungen, die Rückkehrzahlen zu erhöhen, gehen mit entwicklungs-, außen- und sicherheitspolitischen Kosten einher, die oft nicht hinreichend beachtet werden. So kann der Druck zur rückkehrpolitischen Kooperation demokratische Transitionsprozesse in Herkunftsländern gefährden oder europäische Verhandlungsmacht in anderen Bereichen schwächen. Die Studie plädiert dafür, diese Zielkonflikte systematischer als bisher in eine umfassende Kosten-Nutzen-Abwägung von Rückkehrpolitik einzu­beziehen. Auf Basis dieser Abwägung sollten europäische Regierungen pragmatisch über Alternativen zu Rückkehr nachdenken. (Autorenreferat)

Until just a year ago, hardly anyone believed that the increasingly unrestrained growth in mobility could be so abruptly interrupted by a radical immobilisation of large population groups. Neither mobility studies nor other research fields had foreseen this kind of scenario in their mobility and migration models. In the past decades, the belief in unconstrained mobility, as well as the practice of mobility and its scientific modelling, relied on the idea of unbounded growth at the sub-national, national and supra-national level. The article focuses on immigration to Norway, showing how institutional constraints were used to deal with the spread of COVID-19 and how they affected immigration to the country.Due to complexity reasons, we focus exclusively on the situation of asylum seekers, giving additional attention to unaccompanied minors. These groups’ migration status is assumed to make them especially susceptible to the newly established immigration measures. Drawing upon a combined focus of data on migration regulations and asylum application statistics, we examine what impact mobility-related COVID-19 measures implemented in Norway since January 2020 had on asylum procedures, asylum mobility and asylum applications in Norway. © Skrobanek, J., Jobst, S., 2021

Abschiebungen nach Syrien waren bis vor kurzem kein Thema in der politischen und öffentlichen Debatte. Seit mittlerweile zehn Jahren ist das Land im Bürgerkrieg. Bis Dezember 2020 wurde der seit 2012 geltende bundesweite Abschiebungsstopp stets verlängert. Medienberichten zufolge prüft das Bundesinnenministerium seitdem intensiv, wie Abschiebungen nach Syrien konkret umgesetzt werden könnten. Bisher ist die Diskussion auf die Abschiebung von Gefährdern und Straftätern beschränkt. Dabei ist jedoch zu beachten, dass beide Begriffe viel Interpretationsspielraum zulassen. Zudem wird die umfassende Geltung des menschenrechtlichen Refoulement-Verbots (Verbot der Zurückweisung) in der Diskussion oft nicht hinreichend berücksichtigt.

Returning migrants without legal residence status to their countries of origin is high on the political agenda of Germany and the European Union. As well as seeking to increase the number of returns, policy efforts in this area also serve a symbolic function: They demonstrate that the state is upholding the rule of law and are regarded as an important means for stemming the growing popularity of political parties of the extreme right. In practice it is difficult to enforce the obligation to leave. Across Europe, governments succeed in only about one-third of cases. The lack of co­operation by countries of origin is regarded as one of the central reasons for this. The European Union is currently witnessing dynamic developments in the internal and external dimensions of return policy. The objective is to improve cooperation with countries of origin and make European processes more effective. The development, foreign policy and security costs associated with on­going efforts to increase the number of returns are often not adequately accounted for. For example pressure to cooperate on readmissions can endanger democratic transition processes in countries of origin and weaken European bargaining power in other areas. The study calls for a comprehensive cost/benefit analysis of return policy that addresses these potential trade-offs in a systematic manner - and that provides the basis for pragmatic discussions about alternatives to return. (author's abstract)

Since the refugee crisis of 2015, European institutions and governments strengthened policies to better manage migration flows and protect EU’s external borders. In the external dimension, the Union implemented a wide variety of economic, political and deterrence measurers to regain control over migratory flows. Though development cooperation was declared one of important tools for addressing root causes of migration, the externalization of migration management to neighboring transit countries became the main pillar of anti-crisis strategy. Although this policy enabled to essentially reduce the number of irregular arrivals to Europe, it cannot be considered as a long-term solution, as recent developments on Greece-Turkey border reminded. To be better prepared for migration challenges of the future the EU should rethink its development cooperation with the origin and transit countries and include both forced and economic migrants in its comprehensive response. Aid can be a useful tool for the EU if it is used to manage rather than to stop migration.

The article analyses various forms of care and social protection that forced-migrant transnational families exchange despite their individual members living in different countries. It presents outcomes of a small-scale empirical study of the family practices of mobile individuals from Syria and Afghanistan who arrived in Germany during and after the "long summer of 2015". Building on social protection research and transnational care studies, the article introduces the concept of care and protection assemblages, which highlights the heterogeneity, processuality and multi-scalar quality of migrant families’ efforts to improve well-being. It includes an empirical analysis that illustrates key elements of the proposed concept and shows the significance of cross-border circulation of remittances, the selectivity in the cross-border circulation of emotions and limitations on the cross-border circulation of hands-on and practical care. These findings are framed by an analysis of solidarity organizations at the meso-level and (multiscalar) securitized asylum policies at the macro-level in the German context. The proposed conceptual framework takes into consideration migrant families’ simultaneity of solidarity and inequality experiences by locating the examination of family-making at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels of analysis., Journal of Family Research, Early View

ZusammenfassungDieser Beitrag befasst sich mit Möglichkeiten und Begrenzungen sozialarbeiterischen Handelns in Geflüchtetenunterkünften in Deutschland. Er zeigt auf Basis einer Fallvignette Strategien einer pädagogischen Fachkraft auf, ihr pädagogisches Mandat auszufüllen, dabei aber an Grenzen des Machbaren und der eigenen Belastbarkeit zu stoßen. Ausgehend von diesem Fall reflektiert der Beitrag die Bedeutsamkeit einer menschenrechtsbasierten und interprofessionellen Verortung Sozialer Arbeit im Spannungsfeld von nationalstaatlichen Partikularinteressen und universalistischem Gleichheitsanspruch.

The plight of refugees in the Syrian province of Idlib, on the Greek islands, and on the EU's external borders has worsened dramatically over the last few months. Once more, the European Union (EU) is split on questions of asylum and migration, and it portrays limited capacity to act in issues of foreign and security policy. What options does the EU have to address the deteriorating situation? This question has become even more pressing due to the spread of Covid-19. The EU-Turkey statement of 2016 has strengthened cooperation with Ankara on humanitarian aid and border controls, but it also has major weaknesses. A comprehensive approach is needed. The EU should prioritise providing new financial resources for Turkey that should be com­plemented by scaling-up assistance to Greece as well as to Syria's neighbours. In addition, the Europeans should support the creation of a safe zone in northern Idlib. (author's abstract)

The massive mobility restrictions in the Schengen zone that were imposed to control the Corona pandemic are to be lifted from mid-June onwards. If a second wave of infec­tions does not follow suit, the German EU Council Presidency may oversee the end of all remaining internal border controls. The reform of the Schengen regulation, which has been overdue since the migration crisis, can be relaunched. The link between secure external borders and internal freedom of movement should have already been reappraised. Looking forward, targeted checks on persons for reasons of public health must be better coordinated. The forthcoming EU pact on migration and asylum will be even more difficult to agree on, however. Access to asylum procedures must be guaranteed without fail, despite national responsibility for public health. (author's abstract)

In this article, we introduce the key themes of our Special Issue on "Transnational care: families confronting borders". Central to this collection is the question of how family relations and solidarities are impacted by the current scenario of closed borders and increasingly restrictive migration regimes. This question is examined more specifically through the lens of care dynamics within transnational families and their (re-)configurations across diverse contexts marked by "immobilizing regimes of migration". We begin by presenting a brief overview of key concepts in the transnational families and caregiving literature that provides a foundation for the diverse cases explored in the articles, including refugees and asylum seekers in Germany and Finland, Polish facing Brexit in the UK, Latin American migrants transiting through Mexico, and restrictionist drifts in migration policies in Australia, Belgium and the UK. Drawing on this rich work, we identify two policy tools; namely temporality and exclusion, which appear to be particularly salient features of immobilizing regimes of migration that significantly influence care-related mobilities. We conclude with a discussion of how immobilizing regimes are putting transnational family solidarities in crisis, including in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, gripping the globe at the time of writing., Journal of Family Research, Early View

Die biographische Fallarbeit mit Individuen sowie deren sozialem und familiärem Umfeld ist ein wichtiger Bestandteil der Prävention islamistischer Radikalisierung. Oft kommen Beraterinnen und Berater dabei mit Menschen in Kontakt, deren Lebensgeschichte von Flucht- und Migrationserfahrungen geprägt ist. Solides und relevantes Hintergrundwissen über ihre Herkunftsländer und Fluchtrouten kann dann einen wesentlichen Beitrag zur Gestaltung individueller Fallbearbeitung leisten. Welche soziokulturellen Einstellungen und Verhaltensweisen sind zu erwarten? Von welchem Bildungsniveau können Präventionsberaterinnen und -berater ausgehen? Wie ist die Nähe oder Distanz zu einer bestimmten (islamistischen) Gruppe zu bewerten? Die vorliegenden Länderberichte greifen diese und ähnliche Fragen für Afghanistan, Syrien, Iran und die Türkei auf. Sie geben Überblicksinformationen und weisen jeweils auf weiterführende Quellen hin.

Die deutsche Rückkehrpolitik steckt tief in der Krise. Scheiternde Abschiebungen, überhöhte Erwartungen an die freiwillige Rückkehr, komplexe Strukturen und eine vergiftete und emotionale Diskussionskultur – all diese Probleme muss Deutschland angehen, um seine Rückkehrpolitik effektiver, menschlicher und ehrlicher zu machen.

Das dramatisch anwachsende Flüchtlingselend in der syrischen Provinz Idlib, auf den griechischen Inseln und an den EU-Außengrenzen zeigt: Die Europäische Union ist asyl- und migrationspolitisch zerrissen sowie außen- und sicherheitspolitisch kaum handlungsfähig. Was kann sie dennoch unternehmen, um das Flüchtlingsdrama zu bewältigen? Diese Frage ist angesichts der Ausbreitung von Covid-19 noch dringlicher geworden. Die EU-Türkei-Erklärung von 2016 hat die Kooperation mit Ankara bei der humanitären Hilfe und der Grenzüberwachung gestärkt, weist aber große Schwächen auf. Ein umfassender Ansatz ist nötig. Die EU sollte sich darauf konzentrieren, der Türkei neue Finanzmittel zur Verfügung zu stellen, die ergänzt werden sollten durch massive Hilfen für Griechenland und die Nachbarstaaten Syriens. Zu­dem sollten sich die Europäer für die Schaffung einer Schutzzone in Nord­syrien einsetzen. (Autorenreferat)

When looking at the “management” of refugee crises or violence induced mobility in Western Europe since the 1930s, one cannot help but notice that Belgium offers an interesting case study. In the second half of the 1940s, it recruited over 22,000 displaced persons (DPs) from Germany to work as miners, and by early 1954, it had become the first country to delegate its national competence for recognizing refugees on its territory to the representative of an international body - the Belgian delegate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This historical evolution is of course only of interest in as much as it is reflected in the archives which, in the case of Belgium, are well preserved. This contribution uses the records of the Aliens Police and of various Belgian branches of international refugee organizations over the years 1945-1957. The aim is to analyze how their archive production bears the traces of the evolving refugee mobility and Belgium’s asylum regime. Interestingly, these archives have a dynamic of their own, which makes them much more than passive witnesses of the policy-making in the past. I will argue that the latter aspect is of crucial importance for a good understanding and efficient use of such archival sources.

ZusammenfassungDer Beitrag untersucht, wie das AnKER-Zentrum als machtvolle Organisation der Asylverwaltung konzeptionell entworfen wird. AnKER ist ein Akronym für „Ankunft, Entscheidung und Rückführung“. Im Mittelpunkt des Beitrags steht eine objektiv-hermeneutische Analyse eines Auszugs aus dem Koalitionsvertrag der Großen Koalition aus dem Frühjahr 2018. Ziel ist eine Rekonstruktion der Mechanismen der Asylverwaltung, die in diesem Dokument zum Ausdruck kommen. Zentrales Ergebnis ist, dass der Koalitionsvertrag das AnKER-Zentrum als Kontrollinstanz konstruiert. Die Unterbringung geht mit einem Zugriff auf Körper, Biografie und Bewegung der Betreffenden einher. Sie werden vermessen, klassifiziert und letztlich ihren Herkunftsländern oder den Kommunen in Deutschland zugewiesen. Mit Michel Foucault lassen sich AnKER-Zentren als Disziplinarinstitutionen fassen. Sie zielen auf ein Einhalten behördlicher Regularien, während sozialarbeiterisches Handeln fall- und lebensweltbezogen ausgerichtet sein soll. Der Beitrag reflektiert auf Basis der Analyseergebnisse die Notwendigkeit Sozialer Arbeit, sich als organisationsbasierte Profession zu begreifen und in die Ausgestaltung von Geflüchtetenunterkünften zu involvieren.

Die massiven Mobilitätsbeschränkungen in der Schengen-Zone, die die EU-Staaten infolge der Corona-Pandemie verhängt haben, sollen ab Mitte Juni aufgehoben werden. Wenn in der Zeit danach keine zweite Infektionswelle ausbricht, kann unter deutscher Ratspräsidentschaft der Ausstieg aus allen verbliebenen Binnengrenzkontrollen ge­lingen. Die Reform der Schengen-Verordnung, die seit der Migrationskrise überfällig ist, kann neu angestoßen werden. Der Zusammenhang zwischen sicheren Außen­gren­zen und interner Freizügigkeit ist spätestens seit diesem Frühjahr neu zu bewer­ten. Zudem müssen gesundheitlich begründete Personenkontrollen besser abgestimmt werden. Es dürfte jedoch schwerer werden, für den kommenden EU-Pakt für Migra­tion und Asyl einen Kompromiss zu finden. Der Zugang zu Asylverfahren ist trotz der nationalen Verantwortung für die öffentliche Gesundheit unbedingt zu gewährleisten. (Autorenreferat)

On 23 September 2020, the European Commission presented its long-awaited draft of a new migration and asylum package to overcome the protracted blockade in this policy area. Central elements are the planned preliminary examinations of asylum applications at the external borders of the European Union (EU) and a new division of labour among the member states, which in the future will have the choice between accepting asylum seekers and returning those who have been rejected. The risk of human rights violations inherent in these suggestions is immense. However, since this also applies to the status quo - as the situation on the Greek islands shows - the pros and cons of the reform proposal must be carefully weighed up. Support for the reform package can only be justified if the combination of restrictive and protection-oriented elements, as intended by the Commission, is maintained in the intergovernmental negotiations. (author's abstract)

Während asylpolitische Entscheidungen des Bundes als ideologiegetrieben beschrieben werden, gelten die Kommunen seit Jahrzehnten als Vorreiter einer pragmatischen Asylpolitik. Unklar ist bislang, wodurch die Asylpolitiken der Bundesländer geprägt werden. Dieser Fragestellung geht das vorliegende Papier anhand der Einflussfaktoren auf die Unterbringungsart von Asylbewerbern nach. Es wird zunächst angenommen, dass Unterbringungspolitiken durch länderspezifischen sozioökonomischen Problemdruck geprägt werden. Kontrastierend wird ausgehend von der Parteiendifferenzhypothese argumentiert, dass unterschiedliche Landesregierungen die Unterbringungsart von Asylbewerbern gemäß ihren policy- und vote-seeking-Motiven verschiedenartig ausgestalten, diese im Wählerstimmenwettbewerb mit rechtspopulistischen Parteien aber restriktiver ausrichten. Die Befunde gepoolter Zeitreihenanalysen von 1995 bis 2016 zeigen, dass demografischer Problemdruck steigende Asylbewerberzahlen und wirtschaftliche Ressourcen die Art der Unterbringung nur teilweise erklären. Vielmehr wird sie insbesondere durch SPD und Union entsprechend ihren ideologischen Motiven beeinflusst. Auf asylkritischere Einstellungen ihrer Stammwählerschaft reagieren beide mit einer restriktiveren Unterbringungspolitik. Im Wettbewerb mit der AfD verändern die Unionsparteien ihre Unterbringungspolitik restriktiv, die SPD dagegen permissiv. Which motives shape the asylum policies of the German Länder? I investigate this question by focusing on accommodation of asylum seekers. First, I assume that accommodation policy depends on socioeconomic pressures and resources. Contrasting this, I argue that Länder governments shape accommodation policy according to their respective policy- and vote-seeking preferences. However, in competition with right-wing parties, they uniformly shift towards more restrictive measures. The results of pooled time series analyses (1995-2016) show that demographic pressure, increasing numbers of asylum seekers and economic resources only partly explain different accommodation policies. Rather, SPD and Union basically implement their policy preferences, but react differently to pressure from their electorate and from other parties. If their core electorate is xenophobic, both adopt more restrictive policies. Competing with the AfD, the SPD pursues more permissive policies, while the Union adapts restrictively.

Am 23. September 2020 hat die Europäische Kommission ihren lange erwarteten Ent­wurf eines neuen Migrations- und Asylpakets vorgelegt, das die seit Jahren andauernde Blockade in diesem Politikfeld überwinden soll. Zentrale Elemente sind die geplanten Vorprüfungen von Asylverfahren an den EU-Außengrenzen und eine neue Arbeitsteilung unter den Mitgliedstaaten, die künftig die Wahl haben zwischen der Aufnahme von Schutzsuchenden und der Rückführung abgelehnter Asylbewerber. Die menschenrecht­lichen Risiken, die diesen Neuerungen anhaften, sind immens. Da dies aber - wie die Lage auf den griechischen Inseln zeigt - auch für den Status quo gilt, ist das Für und Wider des Reformvorschlags sorgfältig abzuwägen. Eine Unterstützung des Reform­pakets lässt sich nur rechtfertigen, wenn die von der Kommission angestrebte Kopp­lung restriktiver und schutzorientierter Elemente in den zwischenstaatlichen Ver­handlungen beibehalten wird. (Autorenreferat)

This article presents results of a qualitative analysis based on biographic narratives of three young, well-educated women from Syria. They arrived in the Netherlands between 2015 and 2017 in the context of family reunion. The central question is how young Syrian women navigate between two major projects that ask for their agency, being family and work. It is argued that both occupational career development and the building of a family are ‘agentic projects’ that aim to contribute to the establishment of a new life and to regain continuity. The analyses demonstrate that both projects are closely intertwined. Agency emerges as highly relational and intersecting with the women’s position in the life course, timing of life events, ability to adapt career goals to the new situation, and impact of social contexts on family relations. Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel stellt die Ergebnisse einer qualitativen Studie vor, welche auf biographischen Erzählungen von drei jungen, gut gebildeten Frauen beruht, die aus Syrien geflüchtet sind. Sie sind im Rahmen der Familienzusammenführung zwischen 2015 und 2017 in die Niederlande gekommen. Das zentrale Anliegen des Artikels ist es zu untersuchen, wie diese jungen syrischen Frauen ihre ‘agency’ einsetzen, um den Anforderungen in zwei wichtigen Bereichen, ihren Familien und bezüglich ihren beruflichen Ambitionen, gerecht zu werden. Sowohl bei der Entwicklung von beruflichen Karriereperspektiven als auch bei der Etablierung eines Familienlebens handelt es sich um Projekte, die sich ‒ so das Argument, das sich aus der Untersuchung ergibt ‒ stark auf die ‘agency’ der Betroffenen beziehen und dazu dienen sollen, ein neues Leben aufzubauen und Kontinuität herzustellen. Die Analysen zeigen, dass diese beiden Projekte miteinander verwoben sind. ‘Agency’ entpuppt sich hier als ein hochgradig relationales Konzept, das eng verknüpft ist mit der jeweiligen Lebenssituation der Individuen, dem Zeitpunkt von wichtigen Lebensereignissen, der Fähigkeit Karriereziele an neue Situationen anzupassen und den Einflüssen des sozialen Umfelds auf die familiären Beziehungen., JFR - Journal of Family Research, Vol 31 No 3 (2019): Family migration processes in a comparative perspective