The EU-Russia readmission-visa facilitation nexus: an exportable migration model for Eastern Europe?

Despite the lack of cooperation in other issue areas, EU-Russia migration cooperation has been fruitful to the present. The internal security driven EU migration policy towards third countries has so far led to the conclusion of readmission and visa facilitation agreements as policy outputs in Russia. This article looks at the patterns of policy convergence between the EU and Russia in light of the Common Space of Freedom, Security and Justice in the fields of irregular and regular migration. It claims that Russia's leverage vis-a-vis the Union shaped the migration policy output, in which the visa facilitation regime was introduced as an incentive to readmission. Finally, it stresses the role of Russia in shaping the EU external dimension towards Eastern European countries, once the readmission-visa facilitation nexus has been institutionalised to all the countries in the area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]