Conclusions and Reflection

This book shows that intra-European movement not only raises various practical social and governance issues, but also deepens important theoretical and conceptual issues. This includes fundamental questions concerning the conceptualization within migration studies about its core object of analysis; when can something be considered as migration? In this book this concerns in particular whether to conceptualize intra-European movement as ‘migration’ or ‘mobility’; can those who move in the EU be considered ‘migrants’ in a sociological sense or should they be concep-tualized merely as mobile EU citizens making use of their right to free movement? The contestation of this very basic conceptualization reveals not only the political character of some of concepts used in this research field, but also the need for more cross-disciplinary work in the conceptualization of migration, here in particular between sociology and political sciences. guest century cannot the contemporary intra-European labour movement highlights the political context which movements based on empirical research in various countries,

that the implications of intra-European movement become especially visible on the local level, in urban settings where intra-European movers often settle, work and interact. In particular, the book reveals a high-degree of internal complexity and diversity in terms of various (urban) implications for different forms of intra-European movement. This clearly renounces simplified objectives of intra-European movement in terms of 'EU citizens' 'moving freely' for 'economic purposes'.
This speaks directly to a third theoretical contribution from this book, regarding the conceptualization and theorization of multi-level governance in this area. Adopting a critical lens on relations between various levels of governance, and bringing together sociological research on the implications of intra-European movement with a thorough analysis of governance on these levels, the book shows that multi-level governance is more an ideal than an achievement in this policy area. In fact, various chapters in this volume speak of decoupling or a mismatch between levels, with a variety of implications both for EU free movers, as well as for the places in which they settle. This speaks more broadly to the literature on multi-level governance, which has often focused primarily on EU-national relations and has presumed the existence of effective vertical channels for policy coordination between different levels (Hooghe and Marks 2001). However, our analysis shows that the local level is equally important to understanding multilevel governance, that vertical channels are difficult to achieve and to some extent even absent in this case, and that sometimes vertical relations between levels are initiated from below by local governments rather than top-down from the EU (Scholten et al. 2017).
A key issue running through these three theoretical contributions is the need for a reflexive use of categories and even theories to understand pertinent issues within the research-policy nexus. The book shows that in various ways, the political context is central to understanding the language scholars use to approach intra-European movement. This applies not only to the conceptual contestation on migration versus mobility, but for instance also on whether the implications of intra-European movement can be understood in terms of 'integration' and even on whether we should speak of 'multi-level governance' in this area. This political context should therefore be considered endogenous to our conceptual and theoretical understanding of intra-European movement. We need to be reflexive in the use of concepts and theories for understanding a phenomenon that is in itself politically constituted. Working across disciplines, bringing together disciplines and fields such as sociology, political science and governance studies, provides a strategy for enhancing this reflectivity.
In this concluding chapter we will bring together the key (analytical) findings from this book and elaborate on the main contributions to the literature that have already been briefly outlined above. This also involves confronting the empirical chapters on intra-European movement (based largely on the IMAGINATION project) with the theoretical chapters.

The Diversification of Intra-European Movement
The book started with a number of expectations based on previous studies of (European) migration. First of all, we expected that especially in terms of time-span and socio-economic background, free movement of people would result in a 'diversification of diversity', a further diversification of migration types. This echoes findings from various studies that show that intra-European movement can be temporary or circular, but can sometimes also evolve into a more permanent form of settlement migration, as well as into 'in-between' categories that have been described as 'liquid mobility' (Engbersen 2012).
Indeed, various chapters in this volume confirm that 'CEE migrants' cannot be considered as a homogenous group based on their region of origin, culture or ethnicity. Instead it is a rather differentiated category with high and low skilled, as well as temporary and permanent migrants. The research confirms our expectation on the diversification of diversity, showing a wide range of types in terms of socioeconomic status and duration of stay. It shows that the free movement of persons in Europe enables a wide range of Europeans to move outside their national-state borders and search for opportunities in other nation-states. This however does not imply that the status one has by leaving the origin region is the same status in the receiving region. The valuation of skills and the socio-economic position differs from both perspectives. And to put it more sharp, sometimes one starts as a manual worker and end up as homeless and sometimes one begins its trajectory in the agricultural industry but ends up in a blue-collar profession. This economic mobility within territorial mobility complexifies this diversification argument even more and illustrates the heterogeneous picture of this population. This is an important empirical observation that is not always reflected in societal or political debates and has important implications, also described in this book, which we will elaborate on in this chapter. Next to this diversification, it also reveals a feminization of migration, which is described here as an increasing number of female migrants in CEE migration, but we lack knowledge about gender relations or the changing profile and status of female migrants.
Next to this diversification of diversity, the previous chapters show some significant data on migration corridors, or on the historical path dependency of sending and receiving regions. The cases illustrate the importance of the historical context and the legacy of certain migration networks. For example, the Chaps. 10, 11 and 12 of Marta Kindler, Dusan Drbolav Lena Pavelkova and Deniz Korfali and Tugba Acar show that the migration corridors between Poland and the Netherlands, Czech Republic and Austria and Bulgaria and Turkey are quite substantive and transformed over time. In many ways, institutional regimes (such as the European framework of free movement) rather than geographical proximity (such as in the case of Bulgaria and Turkey and Poland and the Netherlands), have played a significant role in these transformations. In other cases, such as the Czech and Austrian commuting routes show the importance of even further diversifying the mobility argument towards a 'mico-type'; between migration and commuting.
The country cases, with all different transitional restrictions, also show some interesting findings. In those countries where transitional restrictions were exercised, it only had consequences for formal employment. Sometimes despite these transitional rules, deploying different tactics, such as self-employment, migrants from the CEE member states still arrived and worked in all these countries. However, it did show quite clearly the labour market as governance tool, since this type of movement is mainly characterized by socio-economic reasons, such as work. Not insignificantly, because the European framework is designed to make the 'Single Market' more flexible. While all EU citizens have the right to move, but this right can be better applied, when one has a position on the labour market. It shows the significance of the European and national labour market to regulate, legalize and penalize some of the newly moving EU citizens. Moreover, taking everything into account, we see a diversification of intra-European mobility, where historical pathdependency and political-institutional structures have contributed to specific migration corridors.

Consequences of Intra-European Movement
A second expectation that lay at the foundation of this book was that, given the 'uneven distribution' of migrants in specific localities, the diversification of intra-European movement would also lead to a diversification of local consequences: not only in terms of labour market issues, but a wide range of issues that evolve from short-term (housing) to long-term implications (language and education) in the receiving and sending countries. We developed this expectation since there are huge differences between types of migrants in terms of access to and provision of local resources, the respective trajectories as well as barriers they are facing.
The Chap. 3 of Ursula Reeger also shows a nuanced perspective to intra-European movement, a perspective that proves that the triple-win scenario promoted by the EU does not entirely hold true (Favell 2008). Especially if we take the consequences on the labour market into consideration, as one of the most significant domains. Migrants may sometimes gain on their socio-economic circumstances, in terms of higher wages, but have to take in on their socio-cultural position and status, especially regarding their work and living circumstances. It reveals that individual implications are often interrelated with each other, resulting in a 'chain of implications', or like 'the dominoes of dependency ' (Zelano et al. 2016). With a close look at these implications, despite that EU citizens have almost the same rights as nationals and being treated like them legally, does not necessarily result in equal outcomes (e.g. Favell 2008;Ciupijus 2011;MacKenzie and Forde 2009;Sabater 2015). EU citizens still face obstacles and are in need of help and guidance at least at the beginning of their stay, and this is where they do not differ much from third country nationals (TCN) (van Ostaijen et al. 2017). But contrary to TCN, EU citizens are, at least up to now, often not subject to integration policies due to the principle of non-discrimination of EU-citizens which could evolve into some unintended consequences as well.
Furthermore, the analyses in this book show significant variation in the implications for urban regions and cities. This involves both different types of implications, ranging from labour market issues to housing and social security, language and integration, as well as variation between cities. Here the type of movement that is involved as well as the history of intra-European movement to a specific city, matters significantly. For instance, whereas in Sweden there was a strong focus on the situation of homeless and beggars, in the Netherlands the focus was almost entirely on low-skilled manual workers, housing and labour market issues, whereas in Austria the focus was more on circular migration from household and manual workers.
What speaks from these findings is that implications of intra-European movement cannot simply be understood only by economic motives. In fact, this book shows that intra-European movement has broader social implications, often situated at the urban level. This includes implications that are described by stakeholders in terms of 'integration issues.' Although from a regulatory perspective the notion of integration would not apply to intra-European citizens, this study shows that from a more sociological perspective, integration issues do arise particularly at the local level. The extent to which this is problematized differs between cities, with the Dutch cities being most particularly focused on integration while Austrian cities, also because of proximity and the history of migration, were much less concerned about integration issues in relation to intra-European movement.
However, this also involves implications for intra-European movers themselves. Especially in the Dutch case, examples emerged of intra-European movers being put in situations of significant economic and social dependency. For example, some situations occurred where labour recruitment agencies developed integral packages for intra-European movers, which included next to a labour contract also housing, transport, security and health care. Combined with the fact that many intra-European movers do not register in the place where they live, have little knowledge and understanding of where and how to get services when required, and the fact that there has been significant malpractice in terms of housing facilities, this has led to clear cases where intra-European movers were exploited. The 'economic' freedom of movement within the EU can thus sometimes come at significant costs.
Finally, this book also shows that intra-European movement has consequences not only for the urban regions of arrival but also for the regions of origination. As Kindler observes (Chap. 10), this includes positive as well as negative consequences. Positively, financial remittances have been rather important for sending regions (such as Opolskie), as well as (more limited) social remittances. Negatively, depopulation but in particular the decline of the workforce in the sending region, is also indicated as an important effect. In fact, the Polish case shows a combination of policies facilitating labour migration in Europe, facilitating return migration, but also facilitating labour migration into Poland in order to replace the workforce that left for other parts of Europe. In this sense, sending regions can develop into central areas of chain migration, such as in the case of Poland sending labour migrants to other parts of the EU as well as receiving labour migration from Ukraine in particular.

Between 'Multilevel Governance' and 'Disjointed Governance'
A third expectation explored in this book was that to what extent the wide range of local consequences leads to multi-level governance: mutual collaborations between the European, national and local governmental levels resulting into a coordinated 'politics' of 'European free movement'. Despite this expectation, the Chaps. 6 and 7 of Zelano and Bucken-Knapp et al. show that in spite of a multilevel setting, not much has emerged in terms of multilevel governance. In other words: the EU level is more or less absent. Curry suggests in his Chap. 8 that it can be seen as troubling and indeed, what stands out is that many of the issues connected with CEE migration appear at the local level and are dealt with at the local or maybe national level, which is remarkable. Local level municipalities and cities sometimes seek for financial or legal support from the national level which result in some immediate horizontal ties and networks at the local level. But this does not always result into vertical collaborations between governments or institutional venues where problem definitions are met. As such, we cannot confirm our expectation on multi-level governance, which is at least theoretically, surprising. When new laws, policies and legislations were developed, these mostly concerned the most primary issues such as housing, employment and registration. It is clear that depending on the policy area, different institutional logics applied in different countries (and sometimes in different regions within the same country). Moreover, different historical paths guided how governments reacted upon this EU migration. All the studied cases show large variety in their local-national approaches and focus areas, but the absence of the EU level is a comparative element observed in all cases.
In some cases active engagement of local municipalities was visible, pushing up this issue on the agenda not only of their local council but striving for national attention as well. This kind of policy entrepreneurship has not been observed in all cases, sometimes also because of a lack of political significance, social urgency or historical-institutional path dependency. But in the cases where this policy entrepreneurship worked, and levels of government felt responsible to act and collaborate, these levels surprisingly seemed to have the same ground. In terms of Durkheim, these actors did not only have an agreement in terms of logical but also moral conformity: they not only agreed on their logical presuppositions and perceptions but also agreed upon their values. However, in most cases this did not occur, and one important lesson is that in spite of its broad theoretical definition and application in the literature, multi-level governance is hard to achieve in practice and need to be seen as one of the varied ideal types of governance in a multi-level setting.
These findings speak to the broader literature of multi-level governance, raising attention to the agency of local, national and European governments in establishing horizontal and vertical governance configurations in a multi-level setting (Hooghe and Marks 2001;Bache and Flinders 2004;Piattoni 2010). The Chaps 8 and 9 of Curry and Balch also show "the importance of a bottom-up understanding of policy in explaining governance processes, one that takes into account implementation as well as decision-making" (Curry), sometimes even leading to disintermediation. It highlights the importance of the local level for governance in a multi-level setting, and the need to regard local actors as strategic entrepreneurs in moulding multilevel governance processes. This complements with a more bottom-up perspective to the typology of Hooghe and Marks (2003), having a rather top-down approach of Europeanization. This finding adds new insights how governance in multi-level settings work and argues that multi-level governance is not the only one but just one of the ideal types one could investigate. Rather than taking multi-level governance as a given, or as 'independent variable', our study shows why one cannot assume 'multi-level governance' but it has relevance to study this as one ideal typical configuration. It displays that a better understanding is required how and why multilevel governance evolves under specific circumstances, as a 'dependent variable.' This contributes to a more precise theoretical understanding and conceptualization of multi-level governance.
Moreover, in terms of governance in a multi-level setting, this book not only raises significance to the local level, it also gives substance to cases of nongovernance in a multi-level context, which has institutional consequences. Not only did we observe cases of institutional non-collaboration, this eventually also resulted in dispersed, contested or even incongruent policies. One example also mentioned before, there was for instance a four-Minister-letter written to the Vivian Reding to ask attention for the consequences "since this type of immigration burdens the host societies with considerable additional costs" (Mikl-Leitner et al. 2013). This was complemented with a call from the Dutch Minister Asscher in the Netherlands signalling a 'Code Orange' considering free movement (Asscher and Goodhart 2013), while a Dutch aldermen earlier indicated free movement as a 'tsunami of Eastern-Europeans' (Zuidervaart 2010) and European cities developed a Memorandum of Understanding to address the 'complex manageable influx' of EU citizens (MoU 2011). As a response, the European Commission developed a meeting for mayors in which Vivian Reding concluded "that there is not just simply one single perspective on free movement. There are a variety of experiences" (Reding 2014: 1). Moreover, the then Home Affairs Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, criticized this memberstates letter since "EU citizens who have the right to travel, live, work and study where ever they want in the Union are put on a par with immigrants from countries outside the EU. For instance, they are being called 'EU immigrants', a concept that does not exist". She even stated that: "they are mixing apples and oranges" by "mixing up internal EU mobility and immigration" (Hansen 2015) . Also, Vivian Reding, the then Commissioner for Justice wanted "to make it absolutely clear: free movement is a fundamental right, and it is not up for negotiation. Let language not betray us: European citizens exercising their right to free movement are not 'immigrants"' (Reding 2013). It made clear that the different authorities involved do not hold a comparable perspective and have dispersed interests. Moreover, in a response to the local and national level concerns, the European Commission asked for an independent research to study the effect of free movement in cities. In this study they concluded that: "the overall evidence suggests that this situation is not placing major issues and burdens on the local communities or local public services, whereas issues related to discrimination are being gradually overcome and positive attitudes towards migration and mobility are generally recorded" (EY 2014: 2). This did not marked the end of the controversy, since after this, seven European Ministers wrote a letter to the EC to address 'the improper and abusive use' of the Posted Workers Directive (Hundstorfer et al. 2015). It gives an insight in the contestation and controversy of this issue between local municipalities, member-states and the European Commission.
Importantly, such controversy is not limited to statements only since such statements lead to different institutional practices and sometimes evolves into policy deadlocks or policy stalemates. Such contestation or controversies can also have consequences on for instance the efficacy of multi-level arrangements. In Chap. 8, Curry also observed that "significant parts […]

display either decoupled or disjointed governance. The relative lack of EU-level coordination indicates governance decoupling between EU and member state levels. Again, this is partly the result of the unique supra-national powers of the EU, but it also creates the risk of a clear split between EU and member state goals".
This gives again a different contribution to the multi-level governance literature, with some different substance around 'ideal' typical configurations.

Central and Eastern European Perspectives; Beyond a North-West European Bias
Various contributions in this book also show that a deeper understanding of intra-European movement requires migration studies to look beyond a North-Western European bias. Intra-European movement invokes issues in receiving as well as sending regions and countries. For instance, Kindler's contribution to this volume shows that intra-European movement also has various positive but also negative consequences for the sending regions in Poland, such as Opolskie. Especially this Polish case shows how the departure of labour force to other European countries is also creating a need for labour migration towards Poland. In what is described by Kindler as a 'double governance challenge', Polish regions try to organize and enhance the benefits from migration to other EU regions as well as liberalize labour migration towards Poland (especially from Ukraine). This shows how intra-European movement is connected to broader (labour) chain migration from East to West, which also involves migration from non-European countries. Once again, the observed social reality shows much more complexity than a simplified distinction between EU and non-EU migration could cover. The Chap. 11 by Drbohlav and Pavelkova shows that across the borders of European countries, a specific form of migration is emerging that they describe as the MICO type, combining elements of migration and commuting. CEE countries are also developing their own governance responses to intra-European movement. This includes efforts to organizing the diaspora across Europe as well as facilities to promote return migration. Moreover, Chap. 12 shows the specificity of Turkey. Apart from emigration from Turkey to various parts of Europe, especially the Edirne and Istanbul areas have seen a gradual increase of migration from especially Central and Eastern Europe. To some extent this involves ethnic Turks, but it also includes broader categories of labour migrants seeking for work (industries, services, household work) in the growing Turkish economy (as well as student migration). Although there are indications that this migration recently decreased and that Turkey itself is much more concerned about refugee migration than labour immigration, this does reinforce the conclusion that intra-European movement is not bound by EU borders and should be considered as part of a broader migration system.

Reflectivity Towards Idioms on the Research-Policy Nexus
A topic that runs throughout this book, is the key role of language or 'discourses' on intra-European movement. This applies, as we have seen above, both to the conceptualization of intra-European migration or mobility as well as to whether the implications of intra-European movement are framed in terms of 'integration.' What springs from the analyses in this book is the importance of the political context in which discourses on intra-European movement develop (van Ostaijen 2016). The language we use to understand intra-European movement is itself produced in intensive and sometimes contested research-policy dialogues. From an academic perspective it is not interested whether intra-European movers should or should not be considered migrants, but rather whether the concept of 'migration' helps us to understand the phenomenon of border movement better in ways that cannot be achieved with other concepts. Therefore, as this book has argued at various points, a more reflective use of idiom is required, especially when it comes to concepts that originate from broader research-policy dialogues. This reflective use of idiom should involve a more critical use of concepts, based on a sound conceptualization as well as a sound empirical understanding of social reality, also when this may counteract specific institutional discourses. For instance, this volume brings insights by showing that European movement cannot solely be seen as just migration from a settlement perspective, but it can also not be seen as just mobility from a circular or liquid perspective (See also Chap. 4 of Engbersen). Furthermore, it shows that many stakeholders, including representatives from intra-European movers themselves, clearly recognize the importance of integration issues, while it also shows that traditional theories of assimilationism or even transnationalism are not always suited to understand these consequences. In fact, what the book shows is that the social (and political) reality of intra-European movement is characterized by much more complexity than implied in simplifying dichotomies such as migration versus mobility. Rather than reducing this complexity, migration research should aim at enriching its conceptual apparatus in order to grasp this complexity, to which this book has sought to contribute.
Furthermore, a more reflexive use of idiom should treat the political context in which migration discourses originate, as endogenous to our analyses. In the case of intra-European movement, this involves in particular a problematization of the European context in which key concepts emerge. Since the European Union plays a key role in defining citizenship, constructing a territory and managing a regulatory and legal framework, European movement displayed in different member-states need to be understood in this specific 'new' political and institutional context. And this context is unprecedented from a European point of view, but is also incomparable with the US context, as an immigrant country of 'united' states. It shows that scholars in the European context studying intra-European movement, need politicalinstitutional sensitivity, not only to embed this case in its right legal context but also to refine and be reflexive of the vocabulary used. For instance, terms as migration and integration are commonly associated with nation-states, while the European Commission defines this phenomenon as 'EU movement' and the 'mobility' of 'EU citizens'. This is not just a linguistic difference, but a clash of discourses, representing different institutional consequences on this topic ( van Ostaijen 2016). This volume displays that such a struggle cannot be met without a political sensitive lens of our conceptual tools to understand the topic of investigation.
Finally, we believe that a more reflective idiom on intra-European movement requires more cross-disciplinary cooperation. All key findings from this book originate from a confrontation between sociological research on the character of intra-European movement, its (social) implications and a more political science driven analysis of the governance of intra-European movement at various levels. It is this cross-disciplinary work that brought to light not only the discrepancies between concrete implications and the policies developed at the local level, but also the conceptual contestation to understand and address intra-European movement.

The Consequences of Failing Multi-Level Governance
Furthermore, speaking more broadly to the literature on governance studies, this book shows that contestation of intra-European movement is not without consequences. The contestation on discourses is not just some juggling with words, but is the epitome why multi-level governance fails. The conflicting discourses, the contested perspectives on this phenomenon, and the non-congruent positions consequentially sometimes have led to a dialogue of the deaf. It led to a deadlock situation in which certain governmental authorities did not met in terms of cooperation, concerted interventions and synchronized actions. Instead it led to a diversified palette of varied laws, policies and legislations active on 'EU migrants' and 'EU citizens', sometimes even widening the gap between authorities than bridging it. It shows the significance of the different positions, resulting in different discourses, causing a wide range of varied institutional actions.
As argued above, our analysis shows little evidence of effective multi-level governance, in spite of intra-European movement clearly being a policy area that is characterized by a multi-level setting. The absence of common basic understanding of intra-European movement obstructs the development of a common or even coordinated approach across various levels. The different logics (political, social and sometimes economic) per governance level appear so strong that the logic of governance in this area is primarily 'horizontal' (per level) rather than 'vertical' (across levels). This shows that the concept of multi-level governance should not be used too light; it remains an empirical question whether multi-level governance is actually achieved across levels. We have seen efforts, especially by local governments acting as policy entrepreneurs, to establish such multi-level governance relations, but this has not resulted (at least not yet) in strong horizontal governance logics per level.
As a consequence, this book finds many illustrations of 'disjointed' or 'decoupled' governance and points out the need for much more work to understand why governance decoupling occurs and what the effects may be. However, this book clearly shows that the dominance of level-specific factors (including legal and political principles such as free movement) seem to be much stronger than the will to cooperate across levels. It also shows that the overall effectiveness of the governance of intra-European movement decreases because of this decoupling. For instance, issues of social integration at the local level can be much less addressed for intra-European movers than for instance for TCN migrants, which may in itself also pose an impediment to achieve free movement in the EU itself.
Besides consequences in terms of disjointed governance, the failure of multilevel governance also has consequences for intra-European movers themselves. It stimulates the dominance of a hospitality paradigm on the national level by the discourse of welfare chauvinism. This crucial point, made by Balch in Chap. 8, reminds us that "the result of conflicts and compromise over intra-European mobility has been to construct a kind of social denizenship for mobile European citizens by those Member States that have been the main recipients of this kind of migration". The continued dominance of such national paradigms rearticulate the dividing lines between the excluded and included ones based on nationality. Consequentially, this causes that despite legal and regulatory European frameworks to equalize the rights of European citizens, the position of a substantive group of European 'mobile workers' stays precarious and vulnerable (Sennet 1998;Beck 1992). It means that the labour market position of European mobile workers, especially in low skilled positions, does not extremely differ from that of undocumented or irregular migrants such as Third Country Nationals (Ruhs and Anderson 2010;Bommes and Sciortino 2011;Favell 2008;Standing 2011;van Ostaijen et al. 2017). This demonstrates the relevance of a more differentiated perspective on the downsides and benefits of European free movement.

Intra-European Movement as a Critical Case in Migration Studies, Governance Studies and European Studies
Finally, we conclude this volume by a concise discussion about how the case of intra-European movement speaks more broadly to theoretical developments in migration studies, governance studies and European studies. For migration studies, intra-European movement invokes not only an important topic in terms of its size and degree of public contestation (as seen for instance in Brexit debates), but also touches upon one of the most fundamental questions in this research field; how to conceptualize migration. Thus far, migration scholars have been able to ground their analyses on a clear distinction between domestic and international movement. Intra-European movement defies this simple distinction, and shows that different political contestations (such as within the EU) matter to the conceptualization of what can be seen as migration. It also shows the importance of the political setting to understand how migration is framed for the 'migrants' involved and its governance. This means that migration studies will increasingly need to problematize the political constitution of anything as 'migration' to understand such a phenomenon. This also raises a further need for cross-disciplinary work between migration studies and governance studies, and touches upon various questions of broader relevance to governance studies. This book shows that the issue of intra-European movement raises issues that apply at the EU as well as the national and the local (urban) level. This makes intra-European movement into a critical case for the study of multi-level governance in Europe. Reaching beyond traditional state-centric views on policymaking or top-down perspectives on Europeanization, multi-level governance is positioned in the literature (and in policy discourse) as a response to those complex policy issues that call for a broader approach across policy levels. However, this book shows that multi-level governance appears more as an ideal type than as a reality when it comes to intra-European movement. This can be attributed towards the dominant policy logics per level ('horizontally') but also because of the lack of a shared understanding of intra-European movement that would allow crosslevel ('vertical') interactions. For governance studies, this raises questions how multi-level governance could be designed in more effective ways especially in the context of such a complex multi-layered policy systems as the European Union.
To conclude, this brings us to a final contribution, which applies in particular to European Studies. Intra-European movement perhaps touches upon the most fundamental 'pillars' of the European project, which is free movement. While this book and this research has not been an attempt to undermine the 'fundamental' belief in this 'pillar' of free movement, it delivers empirical insights that inform such beliefs in free movement and the European project. This book shows that free movement invokes fundamental questions at the local level regarding 'integration' issues of intra-European movers. Regardless of how such questions will be addressed, which is in itself a political decision, our research shows that the local implications of intra-European movement are in many ways in conflict with the ideal of free move-ment. In fact, this book has shown that intra-European movement can also work out rather negatively for intra-European movers involved. This ranges from a lack of access to information and services to more extreme cases of exploitation of intra-European workers. Despite new European legal and regulatory frameworks to equalize the rights of European citizens, this book shows that the position of a substantive group of European 'mobile workers' stays precarious and vulnerable (Sennet 1998;Beck 1992). Their precariousness and vulnerability carries some resemblances pointing at a 'new Victorian servant class' or a 'new precariat', characterized by a lack of agency, stability and security (Favell 2008;Standing 2011). It means that the labour market position of European mobile workers, especially in low skilled positions, does not extremely differ from that of undocumented or irregular migrants such as Third Country Nationals leading to exploitative and greedy relationships in many countries (Favell 2008;Standing 2011;Ruhs and Anderson 2010;Bommes and Sciortino 2011;van Ostaijen et al. 2017). As such, this volume contributes to a more balanced understanding of the 'shadow sides' of European free movement, as it shows that not all free movement of persons is totally free (Ciupijus 2011). Moreover, instead of bold political statements, this book demonstrates the relevance of a more differentiated perspective on the downsides and benefits of European free movement. We hope this volume gives constructive empirical insights and critical theoretical substance for various publics and speaks to the daily reality of those readers involved in this topic personally and professionally.
Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.
The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.