EU State Fundamentalism in Relation to Immigration

Abstract

Since the European Union Treaty (1992), there have been two contrasting conceptions of how one should approach EU political union. From the EU standpoint, this process is a gain, but from the States’ point of view a loss. There is, however a third logic thatmakes up the EU: that of third country immigrants residing in the Member States (Euroimmigrants). In contrast with the two previously cited logics, for this population the same process is neither a gain nor a loss, but simply something that is being discussed and carried out without taking them into consideration. This lack of attention shows that at present the treatment of Euroimmigrants is following a state fundamentalist logic and not a multicultural logic as would be historically appropriate for the EU. In the interests of allowing a discussion of this argument, this paper presents relevant considerations in four steps: the first section presents the theoretical framework that will be followed on focusing the discussion; the second section sets out what is called state fundamentalism with a brief historical review of how the European States have treated immigrants politically; the third section sums up how the EU dealt with immigration from the Trevi Group of 1975 until the Amsterdam Treaty (1997); and the fourth and final section, contains closing comments that, with reference to the Tampere Summit (1999), highlight the normative dilemmas and institutional challenges that are the product of the relationship between the EU and the presence of Euroimmigrants.