Movement of persons has been a key feature in the whole history of European integration, and the time has come for historians, along with political scientists, jurists, economists, sociologists and demographers, to discuss and draw some conclusions on its evolving conceptions and practical applications, placing both of them in the wider context of the social and demographic transformation of Europe and the political and economic narrative of continental integration.

Argument

It is well known that, in the immediate postwar period, international migration and  opening of labour markets in Western Europe were important topics of debate in the Organisation for European Economic Organisation (OECE) and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The Treaty of Paris establishing the ECSC, in particular, recognized a right to free movement for workers in these sectors and, after that, the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) provided a right for the free movement of all workers. That said, the implementation of this principle was delayed for a long time and only in the late 1960s the Community was able to adapt its legislation to the general principles stated in the Rome Treaty. Implementing such a policy was difficult because of its multifarious and delicate connections with welfare, employment and educational policies.

In the meantime, a combination of pull and push factors resulted in mass immigration from former European colonies in Asia and Africa and from non-EEC European countries, especially in the Mediterranean region – i.e. Portugal, Spain, Yugoslavia and Turkey.

In the enlarged Community, the presence of non-EEC immigrants grew in number and political importance. Manpower issues entered the main forums of the Euro-Mediterranean dialogue and the Lomé Convention, though soon as a bone of contention. Largely as a consequence of the oil crisis in 1973, European countries experienced a marked decline in economic performance and a significant rise in unemployment rates. As a result, the influx of foreign workers was not welcomed any more and the major European countries, including West Germany, France and Great Britain, adopted more restrictive immigration policies and even voluntary repatriation measures. The closing of European labour markets severely affected sending countries, making a negative impact on balance of payments, economic output and socio-political conditions of neighbouring countries and regions, though the newly affluent oil exporting countries in the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf provided alternative destinations. At the same time, it affected receiving countries in Europe, as the inadvertent result of trying to slam the front door of legal immigration was the permanent settlement of temporary migrants and the opening of side doors, especially family reunification, illegal immigration, and false refugee claim.

After that, with Greece, Portugal and Spain's applications to join the European Community (EC), movement of workers also became, for the first time, an important issue in accession negotiations. Concomitantly, the concept itself of freedom of movement was changing. The political, economic and social transformations that occurred in the 1980s led to new interpretations of such a notion, which no longer involved only manual workers but also other categories such as students and professionals. More importantly, the goals of a European Single Market and a People's Europe implied the shift from freedom of movement for workers to freedom of movement for persons, so rocking the traditional nationalist approach to border control that had characterized European politics for centuries.

In this context, the Schengen regime was established, which removed internal border controls while simultaneously introducing measures to harmonize and strengthen external border controls and to fight against drug-trafficking, international crime and illegal immigration. Begun as an intergovernmental initiative taken by a group of Community members outside the institutional framework of the EC, it was incorporated into the European Union (EU) in 1999, after the entry into force of the Amsterdam Treaty.

While the collapse of Communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe was raising the spectre of an immigrant invasion, the EU thus created its own ring fence and, when it went to negotiate accession with these countries, it considered free movement of persons and consequently inclusion into the Schengen area as one of the most important and most delicate issues.

At the same time, the Schengen regime and, more generally, the Schengen philosophy, in addition to changing the concepts themselves of border and border control, have been affecting cultural, political and diplomatic relations between the members of the EU, between the members of the EU and third countries, especially in the Mediterranean basin and the former Soviet area, and EU external relations, including the European Neighbourhood Policy as a whole.

Conference Aim

Movement of persons has been a key feature in the whole history of European integration, and the time has come for historians, along with political scientists, jurists, economists, sociologists and demographers, to discuss and draw some conclusions on its evolving conceptions and practical applications, placing both of them in the wider context of the social and demographic transformation of Europe and the political and economic narrative of continental integration.

While existing historiographical literature mostly focuses on the period between the mid-1940s and the mid-1970s and has generally analysed the issue of migration from a national viewpoint and from a socio-economic perspective, the aim of this conference is to integrate the existing fragmented analyses, place them in a longer perspective and extend the analysis further by:

• examining the role played by the movement of workers and, afterwards, persons in the process of continental integration;
• examining the impact made by migration flows to Europe on the European integration process, and the European consciousness;
• investigating the role played by EC/EU policies in internal and international flows of migrants and asylum seekers;
• investigating the impact made by EC/EU immigration policies, especially the Schengen regime, on the external relations of both the EC/EU and its member states;
• integrating internal and international movement of persons within, to and from Eastern European countries during the pre-1989 period into the history of European migrations.

Filling a gap in European integration historiography, however, is only one of the reasons to organize a conference in which several approaches and innovative research themes can be included, thereby contributing to open a channel of communication and collaboration between scholars from different disciplines and with different approaches.

Our conviction, in fact, is that European migration policies and their impact on national societies and economies in the postwar period cannot be fully understood without taking into account the Community framework, and that historians of international relations, particularly historians of the European integration process, have an important contribution to offer for a better understanding of such a topic. In addition to offering the opportunity to widen the knowledge of socio-economic and political-diplomatic dimensions of the European integration process, therefore, this conference also aims to significantly contribute to migration studies as a whole.

Conference Structure

The conference will be organised in three days and four sessions, which will be respectively devoted to:

Theme 1. Migration flows and policies in Western Europe from the Second World War to the Rome Treaties

• What were the implications of the Marshall Plan for migration flows and policies in Western Europe?
• What was the role played by the migration issue in the negotiations for the Paris Treaty and the Rome Treaties?
• What was the approaches to migration in the member states of the EC?

Theme 2. Movement of European workers and immigration of non-European nationals from the economic miracles to the crisis in the 1970s

• What were the implications of free movement of Community workers in the EC for migration flows and strategies in the Euro-Mediterranean area?
• What were the consequences of decolonization on migration flows, policies and perceptions in Eastern and Western European countries?
• What was the impact of migration flows on sending and receiving societies and cultures?

Theme 3. Shift from free movement of workers to free movement of persons and parallel building and strengthening of the common external borders

• What were the consequences of restrictive migration policies on migration and refugee flows and on political and socioeconomic relations between European and developing countries?
• What were the reasons and repercussions of the shift from free movement of workers to free movement of persons in the enlarged Community?
• What were the reasons and repercussions of the establishment of the Schengen area?

Theme 4. Current EU migration and asylum policies and their impact on both domestic policies and external relations of the EU

• What were the consequences of the collapse of Communist regimes in Central and       Eastern Europe on EU migration policies and on migration flows in Europe?
• What was the role played by the migration issue in the European Neighbourhood Policy?
• What is the role that the EU could and should play in the migration field?

The conference is jointly organised by the European Union Liaison Committee of Historians/Groupe de Liaison des Professeurs d'Histoire Contemporaine Auprès de la Commission des Communautés Européennes and the Department of Political Science, Law and International Studies of the University of Padua, with the contribution of the FIRB (Italian Basic Research Investment Fund) 2010 “The Engine of Growth”.

Submission guidelines

Deadline for proposals submission: JUNE 1, 2014

Proposals must include:

• Name (and Surname) of Applicant
• Position
• Affiliation
• Contact: Postal Address, Phone Number, E-Mail Address
• Title of Paper
• Abstract of Paper (no more than 500 words)

Proposals can be submitted in English or French.

Working languages of the conference are English and French.

Proposals must be sent in a single email message in word and/or PDF format to:

• Prof. Antonio Varsori (antonio.varsori@unipd.it)
• Prof. Elena Calandri (elena.calandri@unipd.it)
• Dr. Simone Paoli (simone.paoli@unipd.it)

Selected applicants will be informed by June 15, 2014. Written papers must be sent by November 1, 2014.

Conference to be held on 6-8 November, 2014, Department of Political Science, Law, and International Studies, University of Padua, Padua, Italy

Accommodation and travel expenses will be covered by the organisers of the conference.

Selected papers will be published in an edited volume.

Scientific committee

• Prof. Antonio Varsori (antonio.varsori@unipd.it)
• Prof. Elena Calandri (elena.calandri@unipd.it)
• Dr. Simone Paoli (simone.paoli@unipd.it)