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13 Eur. J. Migration & L. 1 (2011)
Pre-Departure Integration Strategies in the European Union: Integration or Immigration Policy

handle is hein.journals/ejml13 and id is 7 raw text is: MARTINUS Jounlof NIJHOFF ==o P U B L I S H E R s European Journal ofMigration and Law 13 (2011) 1-30 brill.nl/emil Pre-departure Integration Strategies in the European Union: Integration or Immigration Policy? Kees Groenendijk* Emeritus professor, Sociology of Law, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands Abstract Several States require immigrants from outside the EU to participate in language or integration courses after arrival. In recent years, some EU Member States made passing a language test (Netherlands and Germany) or participating in a language course (France) a condition for a visa for family reunification for immigrants from certain third countries. Denmark and the UK introduced a similar requirement in 2010. The focus of his article is on three aspects: the political debate, the legal constraints and the effects. Firstly, the development of the pre-departure integration strategies is analyzed. What was the rationale behind the introduction and does is vary between Member States? Secondly, the legal constraints of EU and international law are discussed. Finally, the results of the first studies evaluating this policy instru- ment are presented. Is pre-departure a good predictor for immigrant's ability to integrate? Does it actually assist integration, and what are the unexpected or counterproductive effects? Keywords long-term residents; language test; integration; family reunification, racial discrimination; restrictive immigration policy; Directive 2003/86 1. Introduction During the first ten years of this century, the EU Council adopted a range of EU directives granting rights to large groups of immigrants from outside the Euro- pean Union. Some of those directives, however, also legitimized the introduction of language and civic integration tests, which in some cases have been turned into preconditions for immigration. The Netherlands in 2006 and Germany in 2007, began to use integration policies as an instrument to select immigrants for fam- ily reunification before admission. By requiring them to pass a pre-departure lan- guage test, those States claim to test the willingness and ability of immigrants to learn the language of the destination country before departure, which some believe is a good predictor of immigrants' ability to integrate successfully. The Dutch policy documents refer to preventing underprivileged or uneducated family migrants from coming, and to supporting the integration of the family *) This article is a revised and updated version of a paper prepared for the Bertelsmann Stiftung and the Migration Policy Group in May 2010. 0 Koniinklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2011 DOI: 10.1163/157181611X558191

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