Driven from the Outside: the EU’s Impact on Albanian Immigration and Asylum Policies

Abstract

Transnational interdependence has increased since the 1970s, bringing with it new challenges to the problem-solving capacities of nation states. In response to the dilemma of diminished capacity at the national level, some domestic policy fields have been at least partially transferred to supranational responsibility (see, for example, Scharpf 1997; Zürn 2000). One such issue area is migration. During recent years, EU member states have realized that they were no longer able to deal adequately with the phenomenon of international migration on the domestic level and instead needed to combine their efforts regarding immigration and asylum policies on the European level. But in transferring domestic policy fields to the EU, they have simply pushed policy challenges up to the supranational level. Indeed, in the face of the very same problems, the EU itself has only limited capacity to act because it depends on the cooperation of neighbouring countries. This is most obvious in issues related to border control, immigration restrictions and return of illegal migrants. The process of European integration and demarcation of effective borders has thus created a paradox: those countries included in the EU depend on the cooperation of those excluded.