This dissertation is dedicated to understanding and evaluating the proliferation of integration requirements for third country nationals in EU Member States over the last two decades. It examines the relationship and potential tensions between the proclaimed commitment of EU states to the core liberal-democratic values of the EU and their actual integration laws and practices.
Based on a legal-philosophical inquiry, this investigation shows that integration requirements for TCNs as conditions for attaining increased rights (i.e. family migration, permanent residency and citizenship) in EU states are increasingly legally misunderstood, misused and predisposed to have counter- productive societal outcomes. In addition, it is demonstrated that integration requirements in EU countries reinforce problematic status hierarchies between citizens in terms of their status as equal citizens.
As a solution, the dissertation argues that EU states should install an institutional ‘firewall’ between, on the one hand, laws that regulate the residential rights and naturalization of refugees and family migrants and, on the other hand, public strategies and policy schemes that promote integration.