The current migration crisis has far-reaching challenges for EU countries. Global migration is forcing countries to completely reconsider their migration policies, the effectiveness of control, and the integration of migrants. As one of the EU's leading countries, Germany is the biggest lobbyist for the establishment of a common migration policy in the EU. This chapter contributes to the academic discussion on establishing a single mechanism for managing migration flows in the European Union. The analysis confirms that EU countries are faced with the need to find new ways to resolve the migration crisis. In this direction, Germany has become the country where one can trace the uniqueness of the political phenomenon of integration of migrants into the host community as a measure to overcome the migration crisis. The evidence reveals the growth of threats for national, regional, and international security caused by the growing migration crisis and transformation of the policy of integration of migrants in Germany under the influence of this factor.
TopIntroduction
The migration crisis that erupted in Europe in 2015-2016 has significantly affected the state of the European Union, its migration and integration policy. The crises became a serious catalyst for EU domestic and foreign policy and revealed several contradictions between EU member states in matters of consolidation concerning the new challenges of a globalizing and integrating world. The growth of Euroscepticism and the terrorist threat in Europe, Brexit, the possibility of a new “migration catastrophe” and the lack of a unified strategy in Brussels regarding illegal migration, indicate that the problems of migration policy and the integration of immigrants in the host societies have not lost their significance for the security in the EU and for the EU Member States.
As a result of the emergency measures in connection with COVID-19, the number of refugees arriving in the European Union has dropped sharply compared to previous years (Alaverdov, 2021). At the same time, the number of those wishing to enter the countries of the European Union remains quite high: at the end of June 2020, the number of applications for asylum was 841 600.
Non-linearity of migration processes involves the development of new integration models and socio-political mechanisms relevant for each phase of the historical development. Implementation of migration policy in supranational communities is determined not only by the political will of the elites but also by the combination of political, economic, socio-cultural and other factors specific to each particular country. Thus, the state migration and integration policy in the EU countries, in the context of modern challenges, is an important trend in political and scientific discourse.
The migration crisis in Europe as a threat to European security and the development of migration policy in the EU are considered in the works of M. Kahanets and K. Zimmermann (Kahanec & Zimmermann, 2016, pp. 86-88); A. Lisborg, B. Friðriksdóttir, M. Lesinska and M. Lisborg (Lisborg, Anders; et al., 2017, pp. 10-12). Studies of J. Kremers, A. Lulle, E. Ungure (Lulle & Ungure, 2017, pp. 63-65); A. Berlina, L. Harbo, R. Ole Rasmussen (Berlina, Harbo, & Rasmuss, 2017, pp. 9-10) are devoted to the problems of attracting labour force in the EU and social protection of workers; legal regulations of the activities of foreign workers are analysed by G. von D. Loeffelholz (von Loeffelholz, 2016). The role of the religious factor in migration processes in Europe was studied in the work of U. Schmiedel and G. Smith (Schmiedel & Smith, 2018, pp. 3-4), K. Tryma and N. Salnikova (Tryma & Salnikova, 2020, pp. 102-103).
The unique political experience of overcoming the 2015-2016 migration crisis in Germany attracts great interest at the academic levels. In particular, migration processes and the policy of integration of migrants into German society have become the object of analysis by F. Heckmann (Heckmann, 2015), B. Knight (Knight, 2019). Due to the aggravation of the criminal situation during the migration crisis and the growth of illegal migration, some researchers focus on improving migration laws and internal security issues in Germany: M. Baldwin-Edwards, B. K. Blitz and H. Crawley (Baldwin-Edwards, Blitz, & Crawley, 2019, p. 2141). The policy of multiculturalism, its effectiveness and problems caused controversy in German society was considered by K. Joppke (Joppke, 1996, pp. 449-450).
However, this topic is still relevant for political science and practice as well as for the necessity of its monitoring in changing conditions because of active immigration to Germany and the incompleteness of the processes in the formation of both national and pan-European migration policies.