An unprecedented number of people is currently on the move seeking refuge in Europe. Large parts of European societies respond with anxiety and mistrust to the influx of people. Nationalist, anti-migrant parties from Slovakia over Germany to the UK have gained increasing support among the electorate and challenge the political mainstream. Europe is struggling how to respond. While the search for solutions is ongoing one pattern seems to be emerging: Fortress Europe is in the making. Unfortunately, few of these discussions and measures consider the structural root causes and dynamics of migration, the motives of migrants or societal challenges more thoroughly. This book seeks to address this deficit. Taking migration and asylum policies as a starting point, it analyses the various dimensions underpinning migration. In doing so, it identifies why receiving countries are in many ways part of the problem. To eschew an overtly Euro-centric perspective and stimulate a debate between science and politics, it contains contributions by academics and practitioners alike from both shores of the Mediterranean.

Singled out by Foreign Affairs for its reporting on “the brutal frontiers of new Europe,” Fortress Europe is the story of how the world's most affluent region—and history's greatest experiment with globalization—has become an immigration war zone, where tens of thousands have died in a humanitarian crisis that has galvanized the world's attention. Journalist Matthew Carr brings to life remarkable human dramas, based on ex- tensive interviews and firsthand reporting from the hot zones of Europe's immigration battles, in a narrative that moves from the desperate immigrant camps at the mouth of the Channel Tunnel in Calais, France, to the chaotic Mediterranean sea, where African migrants have drowned by the thousands. Speaking with key European policy makers, police, soldiers on the front lines, immigrant rights activists, and an astonishing range of migrants themselves, Carr offers a lucid account both of the broad issues at stake in the crisis and its exorbitant human costs. The paperback edition includes a new afterword by the author, which offers an up-to-the-minute assessment of the 2015 crisis and a searing critique of Europe's response to the new waves of refugees.

Revised and updated for 2015, Matthew Carr provides an urgent investigation into Europe's militarised borders. In a series of searing dispatches, he speaks to border officers and police, officials, migrants, asylum-seekers and activists from across the continent in a ground-breaking critique of an epic political, institutional and humanitarian failure that now threatens the future of the European Union itself.

This volume examines the extent to which the EU is threatened by patterns of African crisis, alongside Africa's peace, security and development initiatives. The contributors analyze current migration flows from Africa to Europe, and the challenges and prospects of a comprehensive EU strategy for Africa. It is ideal for courses that discuss the impact of African political developments on international politics.

The integration of non-EU migrants is one of the most salient issues in contemporary European politics and social scientists have dedicated significant attention to this question. Even though this field is generally characterized by its richness, its weakness has been its focus on specific aspects of immigration, such as political participation, immigrant entrepreneurship, models of citizenship, etc. This book addresses migrant integration in its complexity. First, it compares and analyzes local integration regimes because levels and modes of integration vary throughout Europe, all the way to the sub-national level. Second, the book discusses integration issues in various arenas, including political party systems, welfare regimes, social movements, civil society, economic sectors, housing, urban planning, and crime. In doing so, the study addresses the relationships between integration in various spheres, thus embracing the complexity of integration processes. Finally, the book attempts to explain the links between political, economic and social integration through interdisciplinary analysis based on power, class and status.

How does religion maintain or challenge discourses on national identity? What are the roles that religion plays on all sides – from Islamophobia of the radical right to the Christian alliances on both sides of the Atlantic, to the Islamic beliefs and practices of European citizens as well as migrant communities – in the constitution of Fortress Europe? Are there any alliances shaping between belief and unbelief on either side of the battle for the future of Europe? These questions and more motivate the chapters in this timely interdisciplinary collection, with contributions focusing on diverse contexts throughout Europe involving a broad range of religious identifications and actors.

Europe is at once geographical expression, historical creation, cultural space, and political project. In the early 21st century, it is perhaps more than any of these a site of contention involving competing visions of its identity, boundaries and future. openDemocracy, which began publication in May 2001, has tracked the arguments that have defined and divided Europe in this first decade of the millennium. In this collection of articles from our website, we present a selection of some of the outstanding reflections from the more than 200 extended contributions on this subject in our archive.