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Migration to Europe: between economics and politics

On Thursday, the 20th of October, a lecture entitled “Migration to Europe” was being held by Professor Phillippe Fargues, director of the Euro-Mediterranean Consortium for Applied Research on International Migration (CARIM) in Fiesole, Italy. The lecture is part of the syllabus „THE EUROPEAN UNION: UNIQUE PHENOMENON OR RELEVANT MODEL?“ instructed by professor Roger Heacock, within the course „International Studies“. The syllabus is a collaboration between the Ibrahim Abu Lughod Institute for International Studies (IALIIS) and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Ramallah.

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In his lecture, Fargues spoke about the difficulties of defining migration. Furthermore, he described the migration policy of the European states, which in his opinion had reached a turning point with a worldwide increase in the unemployment rate following the Suez Crisis of 1975. With this, former migration-friendly countries like France and Germany changed towards a restrictive migration-policy. Fargues also mentioned a general decrease in the numbers of refugees worldwide, which he explained with the implementation of the term internally displaced persons (IDPs). Persons formerly defined as refugees now often are considered IDPs, thus decreasing the number of refugees.

Fargues ended the lecture with a display of demographic and integrative challenges to be expected in the future for the European Union. A lively discussion about the situation of the Sinti, Roma and many Palestinians concerning the problems of migration followed the lecture.

Approximately 30 students and guest auditors participated in the lecture.

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Abu Lughod Logo KAS Ramallah 2011

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