Shopping for Migration Clauses in EU Trade Agreements

While early generation agreements included only few relevant rules, mainly related to the social rights of established third country nationals in the Union, newer agreements have focused on security related aspects (esp. readmission) and trade-related mobility clauses. Drawing on the literature on venue shopping (Guiraudon 2001; Lavenex 2006; Helfer 2009) and institutional complexity (Alter and Meunier 2009), the project analyses how political actors within the EU’s multilevel system as well as from third countries make use of EU trade agreements for inserting their preferred migration related rules and the conditions under which such venue-shopping succeeds. Moreover, relying on quantitative analysis tools (e.g. regression analysis), the research investigates potential explanations for the variation observed across countries and across time in terms of various types of migration-related clauses included in these trade agreements. In addition, a number of key case studies will be added to the research design, thus offering a comprehensive picture of migration regulations encompassed in EU trade agreements.