#2017-018 Challenged by migration: Europe's options
Amelie Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann
This paper examines the migration and labour mobility in the European
Union and elaborates on their importance for the existence of the EU.
Against all measures of success, the current public debate seems to
suggest that the political consensus that migration is beneficial is
broken. This comes with a crisis of European institutions in general.
Migration and labour mobility have not been at the origin of the
perceived cultural shift. The EU in its current form and ambition could
perfectly survive or collapse even if it solves its migration challenge.
But it will most likely collapse, if it fails to solve the mobility
issue by not preserving free internal labour mobility and not
establishing a joint external migration policy.
Keywords: labour mobility, migration, European Union, refugees
JEL Classification: D01, D02, D61, F02, F16, F22, F66, J6