Governing Migrant Integration in the EU – An Investigation of Competing Policy Priorities and Policy Instruments

Migrant integration policy in the European Union reflects two defining processes identified by Habermas that are transforming societies in the developed world - governance beyond the nation state and increased pluralisation (cited in Koopmans & Statham, 2005: 653). Although making up less than 6 percent of the EU’s population, the vulnerability of many third country nationals to exclusion on arrival and amongst the second generation, together with the tendency for their concentration in urban areas, renders migrant integration a significant challenge for policymakers (Papademetriou, 2006: 4).