By Alina Felder Education and research are at the fore of strategies to enhance competitiveness in the European Union. Higher education institutions thus appear as the nexus of the different knowledge related EU policies that aim at excellence in research, mobility in education or at cohesion through cross-border cooperation. In my research, I focus on […]
In the last twenty years, a heated academic debate about the role of the public in EU integration has emerged. Among the so-called ‘grand theories’ explaining EU integration, the impact of EU citizens has largely been perceived as marginal or even ineffective. Accordingly, European integration is seen as a matter of choices of the member […]
On 23rd September 2020, the EU published the ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’ that aims to be ‘[a] fresh start on migration in Europe’. The Pact contains various commitments and timelines for action ranging from proposed reforms on existing asylum procedures rules to a proposed new Screening Regulation and a proposed Asylum and Migration […]
European Union (EU) citizens have become increasingly mobile within the Union. For a long time, free movement as well as cross-border social rights of EU migrants have been extended, especially by the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In principle, economically inactive EU migrants, i.e. EU migrants who do not work, have also acquired significant transnational […]
The European Refugee crisis, which began in 2015, has provided significant challenges for political parties across Europe and for the governance of the European Union (EU). In 2015, over one million migrants and refugees arrived into Europe. This wave continued into 2016, with a substantial reduction in 2017 and 2018 taking place. The peak number of refugees entering the EU in 2015 is often referred to as the European Refugee crisis.
In the last decade, a number of European donors, including the EU, has framed their development policy within a human rights-based approach. Donors have also increasingly been willing to sanction their partners for non-compliance with human rights. Recently, the promotion of LGBTI human rights have been subsumed in several donors’ development policies. The EU, for […]
The turn of the year has brought me something I never envisaged at the beginning of 2020: residency in Portugal. The certificate available to British citizens who arrived before the end of the transition period on December 31st gives me the right to spend five years in the country, at which point I can renew […]
A mothers existential account through a son’s circumcision a la Derrida’s Circumfession Derrida’s account was what a person feels when he is trying to write, being circumscribed and naked to public, the existential crisis of should I never write or write it down and be forever humiliated. But of course it was his ideas on […]
Not many decisions taken by the European Court of Justice make it beyond the nerdish case law debates relished by our law colleagues at the UACES conference. True, a few directives make the mainstream news headlines, going as far as to impact major votes, just ask Frits Bolkestein. But, certainly, a simple ruling that triggers […]
The fields of migration studies and human trafficking research (especially in Europe) are diverse and well-researched. Much work has been done among vulnerable populations such as refugees, unaccompanied minors, and victims of trafficking, including their experiences, push and pull factors, integration, etc. However, more work is needed to understand their experiences beyond the legal and policy aspects to consider their mental health and psychosocial wellbeing in the countries of settlement.