Paul, Regine. "Strategic Contextualisation: free movement, labour migration policies and the governance of foreign workers in Europe". Policy Studies, Vol.34, No.2 (2013): 122-141.

Paul, Regine. "Strategic Contextualisation: free movement, labour migration policies and the governance of foreign workers in Europe". Policy Studies, Vol.34, No.2 (2013): 122-141.

• Under EU rules there is a distinction between the migration of EU nationals, who have a right to free movement, and nationals of non-EU states, whose migration can be restricted by national policy. EU countries with significant migration, like Germany, France, and the UK, have incorporated this knowledge into national migration policy, tailoring national policy based on assumed immigration from EU member states (122-123).
• Until the entry of former Communist states into the EU beginning in 2004, immigration was largely an issue of non-EU nationals enter the EU rather than movement between member states. These Eastern European immigrants soon formed the vast majority of new immigrants to Western Europe (125). This movement of persons made the pre-existing legal distinctions between EU and non-EU immigrants increasing salient (125, 127).
• Following the liberalization of its work visa regime during the 1990s, the United Kingdom established a points-based immigration system in 2008, dividing migrants into categories based on education and skills. This regulatory regime considers EU nationals part of the 'domestic' British labour market, requiring employers to exhaust both British and EU labour markets before allowing the recruitment of non-EU foreigners (128-130).
• Successive British government from the Blair government onward have used the supply of cheap labour created by opening EU internal borders as an argument for restricting low-skilled migration from non-EU countries. This logic resulted in the abolition in 2008 of the Tier 3 visa for low-skilled migrants, as the Cameron government reasoned that these occupations were already being filled by Eastern European migrants (130).
• The implementation of these more restrictive immigration policies towards non-EU countries has created a shift in the demographics of migrants in the United Kingdom, severely decreasing the immigration from the Commonwealth and resulting in the replacement of former colonial subjects with Poles in many sectors (130-131).
• Some, particularly members of the Labour Party, have claimed that this change is part of a deliberate government plot to 'whiten' the country by replacing Coloured Commonwealth migrants with White Eastern European migrants. This is unlikely as a policy source, however the change in policy has certainly weakened economic, cultural, and diplomatic connections between Britain and the Commonwealth (131).
• French immigration policy following full implementation of EU internal movement in 2006 was intended specifically to reduce migration from the former colonies, with the exception of highly skilled labour, and replace it with Eastern European labour. A work visa regime still exists for former colonials, but it is restricted to skilled workers, and even then encourages temporary work instead of settlement (131-132).
• The French work visa regime openly attempts to subvert the current realities of low-skilled work in France, which is dominated by workers from the former colonies, by replacing African migrants with Eastern European migrants, particularly Romanians and Bulgarians (132).
• Increased dependence and acceptance in France of immigrants, especially low-skilled immigrants, from Eastern Europe has occured simultaneously to attempts to reduce immigration from former colonies and expel illegal African immigrants, demonstrated by the creation of migration control frameworks between France and nine different African nations (132-133).
• In 2005, Germany established a new immigration regime with a two-tier permit system for skilled workers and unskilled workers, both, however, needed to demonstrate that they supplied skills not already satisfied by German or EU workers. The introduction of Eastern European members into the EU convinced German officials that they would not have to recruit from outside the EU to fulfill skilled or unskilled labour requirements (133).
• In cases where German officials have noted some shortages in skilled or unskilled labour, the perferred solution was the further expansion of EU freedom of movement into Bulgaria, Romania, and candidate countries rather than increasing migration from outside the EU (133-134).
• What immigration from outside the EU that does exist is carefully selected from a number of EU candidate countries through special arrangements of the Foreign Ministry. For example, elder care workers are only recruited from Croatia, whereas costruction workers can only come from Turkey or former Yugoslavia. This system serves to encourage greater specialization abroad in needed skills, while concentrating these skilled populations in countries expected to join the EU in the future (134).
• While officials in France, Germany, and the UK all discuss the introduction of free movment for Eastern European EU nationals as reducing or eliminating demands for foreign labour, substantial changes have really only been made for immigration regimes for unskilled workers, with skilled workers being prioritized regardless of national origin and without references to skills shortages. This policy choice reinforces a growing divide between global labour markets for skilled and unskilled workers (136).
• The prioritization of Eastern European migrants over former colonials in France and the UK demonstrates an active attempt to reduce ties to the former colonial empire in France, including through reducing human and demographic connections, and the lack of political salience of these ties in the UK (136-137).
• Contemporary to this article, good economic conditions have generally allowed for a dichotomy to develop between non-EU migrants and EU nationals. However, poor economic conditions may increase resentment of all forms of immigration, reconstructing a dichotomy between citizens and all migrants (138).