Citadel "Virtual Nation-State": The European Union and the Policy of Internal Closure of European Migration Countries

Abstract

Following the Amsterdam Treaty and the Tampere Program of 1999 a concept for a common migration policy and policy on asylum was supposed to be passed in the EU until 2004. This objective has failed although the conditions seemed favourable: The migration regimes of the EU 15 had become alike, and already since the 1990s there had been more and more indications in some countries that migration policy was becoming more open again. However, a closer look on the inner constitution of the migration societies reveals a complex situation in the immigration region Western Europe, and, at a first glance, the migration policy of the immigration countries seems to follow a conflicting logic between external opening and internal closure with respect to migration. On the basis of a comparison of the 15 old EU countries, this article wants to take a closer look on this conflicting logic and examine if there is a strategy behind this logic by responding to denationalization in the process if the European Integration with a policy of renationalization. It is argued that one can identify essential features of a political concept of citadels consisting of "virtual nation-states" in the "Fotress Europe". This concept opposes the need for immigration as well as it sets boundaries to the European Integration.