Integration duties in the European Union: Four models
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X211048605 |
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| Author | Sarah Ganty |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Integration duties in the
European Union: Four models
Sarah Ganty *
,
**
,
***
,
****
Abstract
Integration is becoming increasingly important in law, due to the growing involvement of the legisla-
tive, executive and judicial powers at European, national, regional and local levels. This phenomenon
concerns third-country nationals and EU citizens, despite the fundamentally different legal regimes
applicable to these groups. In this article, I discuss the expansion of integration duties and the different
legal mechanisms which they are based on. I propose four conditions- a nd obligations-based integra-
tion models likely to be found in EU law and national laws: the symbolic model, the meritocratic
model, the activation model and the selective model. From a legal perspective, identifying these inte-
gration mechanisms is essential for assessing compliance with fundamental rights and EU law.
Moreover, such a typology is likely to help researchers, policy-makers and the public obtain a better
sense of how the conception of integration evolves in our societies and in the legal fieldinparticular.
I conclude by briefly sketching a common trend which I observed throughout the four models: they
are imbued with a strong socioeconomic dimension hindering the socioeconomically underprivileged
categories.
Keywords
integration, immigration, free movement, discrimination, social rights, merit, EU citizens
1. Introduction
How integration is considered by the European Union (the ‘EU’) and its Member States has
evolved significantly over the past 20 years, including in European, national and regional
*Yale Law School, New Haven, USA
**Universiteit Gent, Gent, Belgium
***Université Saint-Louis –Bruxelles, Bruxelles, Belgium
****Central European University, Vienna, Austria
Corresponding author:
Sarah Ganty, Yale Law School, 127, Wall Street, New Haven, USA.
Email: sarah.ganty@yale.edu
Article
Maastricht Journal of European and
Comparative Law
2021, Vol. 28(6) 784–804
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/1023263X211048605
maastrichtjournal.sagepub.com
laws.
1
The EU and its Member States have been replacing their previously laisser-faire
approaches to integration with much more ‘interventionist’ones at an exponential rate.
2
Specifically, European states have recently considerably imposed integration conditions
and obligations prior to the granting of residence permits and rights, in particular social
rights, as well as citizenship. Integration duties are likely to apply to all non-nationals, third-
country nationals and mobile European citizens alike, but these integration conditions and obli-
gations are developed differently, depending on the categories involved, due in particular to the
fundamental differences between the two regimes applied: that of freedom of movement on the
one hand, and of immigration and asylum law on the other. In some instances, even non-mobile
EU citizens are obliged to comply with integration duties. In other words, the concept of inte-
gration has increasingly pollinated the legal field to such an extent that today, we can speak of
‘integration law’,
3
although the concept of integration has never been defined as such in the
legal field, especially in EU law (section 2).
When speaking about integration conditions and obligations, authors tend to lump them in
the same basket, while they are likely to apply at different levels (immigration, social rights,
citizenship), target different categories, encompass different integration narratives and take
very different shapes –not only with regard to the so-called ‘civic integration’policies,
4
but
also more generally as a way to make sure that targeted people bring added-value and
conform to the host state, including from an economical perspective, as I will explain. In this
context, I argue that given the numerous variations within the obligations or conditions justified
in the name of integration, it is important to distinguish between the different legal mechanisms
at work better to understand the complexity and the differences emerging within the common
trend for imposing integration obligations and conditions. I distinguish four models, namely the
‘selective’,‘symbolic’,‘activation’and ‘meritocratic’integration models (section 3).
1. K. Groenendijk, ‘Pre-departure Integration Strategies in the European Union: Integrationor Immigration Policy?’,
13 EJML (2011), p. 1; K. de Vries, Integration at the Border: The Dutch Act on Integration Abroad and
International Immigration Law (Hart Publishing, 2009); S. Carrera, In Search of the Perfect Citizen? The
Intersection between Integration, Immigration and Nationality in the EU (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2009);
E. Guild, K. Groenendijk and S. Carrera (eds.), Illiberal Liberal States: Immigration, Citizenship, and
Integration in the EU (Ashgate Publishing, 2009); R. Van Oers, E. Ersbøll and D. Kostakopoulou (eds.), A
Redefinition of Belonging? Language and Integration Tests in Europe (Martinus Nijhof Publishers, 2010);
M. Jesse, The Civic Citizenship of Europe: The Legal Potential for Immigrant Integration in the EU, Belgium,
Germany and the United Kingdom (Brill, 2017).
2. I. Adam , Lesentités fédérées belges et l’intégration des immigrés (Université Libre de Bruxelles, 2013). Also see
C. Joppke, ‘Civic Integration in Western Europe: Three Debates’,40West Eur. Politics (2017), p. 1153 and
S. Carrera, In Search of the Perfect Citizen. Their past laisser-faire stance was often voluntary, at national
level, and involuntary, at EU level, since the EU did not itself have the necessary competences to adopt certain
initiatives in this area: see case C-281, 283 to 285, and 287/85 Federal Republic of Germany and others
v. Commission of the European Communities, EU:C:1987:351.
3. S. Ganty, L’intégration des citoyens européens et des ressortissants de pays tiers en droit de l’Union européenne.
Critique d’une intégration choisie (Larcier, Collect. Droit de l’Union européenne, 2021).
4. See for instance: D. Kostakopoulou, ‘The Anatomy of Civic Integration’, in F. Anthias and M. Pajnik (eds.) Contesting
Integration, Engendering Migration (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
Ganty 785
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