Policy and Practice: A Development Education Review (Apr 2017)
Migration and Public Policy in a Fragmenting European Union
Abstract
This article will assess the manner in which the principal of free movement within the European Union (EU), with particular reference to vulnerable people, has been re-construed since mid-2015 and the Mediterranean migrant crisis, and will suggest a role for public policy - including education - which will positively engage with the migrant experience. It will look at the migrant support framework as it has adapted to current geo-political changes and will reflect on how the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers has been dealt with through diverging policy interpretations and racial stereotyping. It will also review the changing system and policy architecture for the free movement of people with reference to the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees, the Stockholm Programme, the Dublin Protocol, the New York Declaration and the controversial March 2016 EU-Turkey action plan. The article will then reflect on the manner in which public policy within the EU needs to react to shifting mentalities regarding the recent flow of people, and suggests how the sensitive topic of forced migration - and the integration of the families and individuals who are subjected to this imposition - can be appropriately addressed through policy and institutional realignment (Lafleur and Stanek, 2017: 1-8; 215-224; Geddes and Scholten, 2016: 237-244).
