EU Integration Policy: Between Soft Law and Hard Law

Since the entry into force of the 1999 Amsterdam Treaty, the EU has been granted legal competence to adopt rules in the fields of immigration and asylum. Whilst Treaty provisions defined - sometimes quite precisely - the domains that are within EU competence, the position was less clear concerning integration policy. The Treaty provisions addressed two fields related to integration: (i) rights awarded to long-term residence, and (ii) family reunification. The Tampere Summit (October 1999) emphasised that third country nationals should be granted rights comparable to those of EU citizens. With the exception of these elements, the Treaty and guidelines remained unclear about the EU's integration policy. Broadly speaking, the question remaining was to what extent the EU could intervene in the field of integration of migrants, knowing that member states remained competent in many areas related to integration (access to housing, health care, education, culture, public services, labour market policy etc.).