Abstract
The chapter treats the issues of migration policies and their influence on migrants’ flows and integration. Policies and legislation concerning the migration relations between Bulgaria and Switzerland in the periods before and after the Bulgarian accession to the EU are explored. The implementation of transitional arrangements, which allow Switzerland to exert regulations over incoming labour migration from Bulgaria, even after the extension of the Swiss-EU bilateral agreements to Bulgaria, have hampered the freedom of movement acquired by Bulgarian citizens. The Swiss popular vote “against mass immigration” of 2014 could alter the policy framework in restrictive terms and influence migration patterns by endangering the overall agreements with the EU.
Bulgaria, as a predominantly emigration country, tries to facilitate return migration, especially of young and well-educated persons. The efforts, however, seem to be of no significant effect. The general socio-economic conditions in the country, policy gaps, ways of policy implementation, etc. should be taken into account in order to assess the effectiveness of the Bulgarian policy.
Migration policies are considered as a framework that affects Bulgarian migrants in different ways over time and according to certain categories. Empirical evidence for the role and influence of migration policies is presented. The results from the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data on Bulgarian migrants suggest that migration policies exert sizable influence on the choice of destination, size and patterns of migration and migrants’ integration.
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- 1.
As of 01.01.2015 State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) .
- 2.
We refer in this chapter to the data of the SEM because they provide more detailed data for our purposes.
- 3.
The Federal Act on Foreign Nationals was approved by the Swiss voters on the 24th of September 2006 and has been in force since the 1st of January 2008. The law deals primarily with the entry and residence of persons who are not EU or EFTA citizens and are not asylum seekers. The law restricts access to the Swiss employment market to those who are particularly well qualified for jobs in Switzerland but are not EU or EFTA citizens.
- 4.
On 11.02.2015 the Federal Council approved the draft of the new legislation on foreign nationals and additional measures to make better use of the potential workforce within Switzerland. It also made a final decision on the negotiating mandate with the EU on the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons. The new article 121a of the Federal Constitution contains two assignments for completion by February 2017, which are aimed at introducing a new immigration system and negotiating with the EU on an amendment to the Agreement on Free Movement of Persons (AFMP) .
- 5.
The research is undertaken by Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) and the Migration Policy Group (MPG) in cooperation with the research partners (37 national-level organizations are integrated with the MIPEX project).
- 6.
According to data of the State Agency for Refugees, the main refugee flow to Bulgaria comes predominantly from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Since 2012, and especially in 2013 and 2014, the number of asylum seekers sharply increased; having been 890 persons in 2011, it reached 1387 in 2012, 7144 in 2013 and 11,081 in 2014.
- 7.
Because of the change in conditions since 2000 and the accession of Bulgaria to the EU, a new up-to-date law is expected to be devised.
- 8.
The strategy builds upon the National Strategy for Demographic Development 2006–2020.
- 9.
The data correspond to the official statistics. According to FOM (SEM) data, the duration of stay of 3796 persons out of 5644 Bulgarian immigrants is between 0 and 4 years, 1043 persons between 5 and 9 years, 492 persons between 10 and 14 years, 185 persons between 15 and 19 years and 128 persons more than 20 years (FOM 2014).
- 10.
The official statistical data of the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration show that at the end of 2014 the share of the short-term residents (L) of Bulgarian origin is 7.7 %, of the residents (B) 73.5 % and of the settled residents (C) 18.8 %.
- 11.
The Law on Bulgarian Citizenship (1999) allows dual nationality in specific cases.
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Zareva, I. (2017). The Impact of Policies on Migration Between Switzerland and Bulgaria. In: Richter, M., Ruspini, P., Mihailov, D., Mintchev, V., Nollert, M. (eds) Migration and Transnationalism Between Switzerland and Bulgaria. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31946-9_5
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