Since the early 1990s, the issue of migration of third country nationals to the Member States of the European Union has become increasingly important, not only for the individual Member States, but also at the level of the European Union. The Treaty of Amsterdam already shifted the issues of external border controls, asylum, entry and the safeguarding of rights of third country nationals from the third (intergovernmental cooperation) to the first pillar of Community policy-making (albeit not all of the first pillar procedures are yet applicable). Subsequently, the European Council at its meeting in Tampere in 1999 set the political guidelines and some concrete objectives for the development of a common EU policy with regard to immigration. An important element in this common policy is the development of a vigorous integration policy to ensure fair treatment of third country nationals aimed at granting them rights and obligations comparable to those of EU citizens (European Commission 2001). Within this framework however, Member States remain responsible for a number of significant issues, particularly with respect to the admission of economic migrants and for developing and implementing integration policy.

In the view of the European Commission it is not possible to develop an integrated approach to immigration without considering the impact of migration policies on the recipient society and on migrants themselves. The social conditions which migrants face, the attitudes of the host population and the presentation by political leaders of the benefits of diversity and of pluralistic societies are all seen as vital to the success of immigration policies.