Historical Insights to Address Current Challenges to the EU’s Free Movement of Persons as a Fundamental Right’ (FUNDEU)
Funding body: NextGenerationEU
Duration: July 2022 – July 2024
Principal investigator: Dr Cristina Blanco Sío-López
Summary:
This project is based on a historical analysis of primary sources from archives of materials on European integration (HAEU, HAEP, BSEUDC, etc.), which cast light on the transnational roots, debates and conditions surrounding the implementation of free movement of people in the European Union (EU). The overall objective of the project is to highlight the value of critical historical analysis in this area and the legislative legacy on human mobility rights in the European integration process in order to explore current challenges relating to the free movement of people in the EU. Ultimately, this documentary corpus may help us ‘look back’ to ‘see beyond’ as forgotten archives are unveiled and key historical accounts on the topic are brought to light. Until now, the importance of the historical, legal and sociopolitical heritage of free movement of people in the EU as an anchor for the introduction of public policies on human mobility rights as part of the European integration process has been overlooked. Moreover, research on these topics has been dominated by legal, political and sociological studies, while historical analysis in academic spheres has not yet contributed sufficiently to balance their critical perspective. The aim of this project is to bridge this gap through a comparative analysis of the role and impact of the European Parliament (EP) and the European Commission (EC) as paradigmatic observatories of the changing modes of implementation of this ‘fourth freedom’ within the Schengen Area. These two case studies will be explored as part of a broader study on belonging and displacement in a ‘Europe under construction’. With regard to the timeline, the project will examine human mobility rights through a historical analysis of the European integration process from 1985 (establishment of the Schengen Area) to 2015 (an important turning point triggered by the so-called ‘refugee crisis’, which will be analysed as a crisis of governance and solidarity). Changing attitudes towards human mobility rights are a key indicator of deeper social change. Therefore, studying these rights will provide us with expedient tools to interpret the multiplicity of concepts that are emerging in the design of inclusive environments in increasingly globally interconnected societies.
Project activities:
Organised sessions:
Blanco Sío-López, C. Chair and Moderator of the Panel ‘Governing European Education’, 28th International Conference of Europeanists ‘The Environment of Democracy’, organised by the Council for European Studies (CES) at ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, 20/06/2022.
https://ces-columbia.secure-platform.com/a/organizations/main/home
Presentations:
Blanco Sío-López, C. ‘Fronteras y Derechos de Movilidad Humana: Los legados históricos de la construcción de una libre circulación de personas en la UE’, II Jornada de la Academia Joven de España (AJE) Cruzando Fronteras: Futuro de la Ciencia, la Cultura y el Conocimiento, Academia Joven de España (AJE) and Centro de Ciencias Sociales y Humanas, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid, 28/10/2022.
Blanco Sío-López, C. ‘Empowering Historical Legacies of Human Mobility Rights: discursive uses of crises in the building of the EU’s free movement of persons’, RE: MIGRATION – New perspectives on movement, research, and society, 21st Nordic Migration Research (NMR) conference, Session: ‘Histories of Refugeedom’, Centre for Advanced Migration Studies, University of Copenhagen, 19/08/2022.
https://virtual.oxfordabstracts.com/#/event/2938/submission/144
Blanco Sío-López, C. ‘Kant’s “Perpetual Peace” and the Building of a European Integration Process: Blueprints for an Alternate Future’, International Conference on the Future of Peace – The Role of the Academic Community in the Promotion of Peace, Inter University Centre (IUC) Dubrovnik, Croatian Association of the Club of Rome and Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia, 03/08/2022.
https://futureofpeace.clubofrome.hr/govornici
Blanco Sío-López, C. ‘The Future that Once Was: 1989 and the Eastward Enlargement of the European Union’, Temporalities in History, Association for Global Political Thought (AGPT), Invited Lecture, Harvard University, 29/07/2022.
Blanco Sío-López, C. ‘Salvador de Madariaga and the “Solidarity of Being”: echoes of an imagined “free movement of persons” from interwar Europe’, XIII Annual Conference of the Research Network on the History of the Idea of Europe: Rethinking Liberal Europe. Ideas of Europe and Notions of Freedom between 1848 and 1945, Collegio Carlo Alberto (CCA); Fondazione Luigi Einaudi onlus Turin; Stiftung Reichspräsident-Friedrich-Ebert-Gedenkstätte, Heidelberg; Institute for the Study of Ideas of Europe, University of East Anglia, CCA in Turin, Italy, 01/07/2022.
https://www.villavigoni.eu/event/rethinking-liberal-europe/
Preliminary publications:
Blanco Sío-López, C. (2021) ‘Salvador de Madariaga’s meeting points with Julien Freund: “Europe” as Construction and Evolution’, International Political Anthropology Journal (IPA), Vol. (14) 1, St. Catherine’s College – University of Cambridge, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5018911
Blanco Sío-López, C. (2021) ‘Salvador de Madariaga and the “Solidarity of Being”: Limits and Potential of an Imagined “Free Movement of Persons” in Post-WWII Europe’, EuropeNow Journal, Research Section, Council for European Studies (CES) – Columbia University, Issue 40.
Blanco Sío-López, C. (2020) ‘Schengen as a Political Territory: Sources of Differentiation in the EU’s Free Movement of Persons from 1985’, Politique Européenne, Special Issue 2020/1 (67-68) ‘Differentiated European integration beyond mainstream approaches’, pp. 26-52, Paris: CNRS – L’Harmattan, ISSN: 1623-6297, DOI: 10.3917/poeu.067.0026
Blanco Sío-López, C. (2020) ‘Decoupling Fundamental Rights and Security: A History of Human Mobility Rights in European Integration from 1985’, EuropeNow Journal, Council for European Studies (CES) – Columbia University, Issue 35.
Blanco Sío-López, C. (2019) ‘Transitional Margins to Re-Join the West: Spain’s Dual Strategy of Democratisation and Europeanisation’ in Margins for Manoeuvre in Cold War Europe: The Influence of Smaller Powers, Routledge – Taylor & Francis, ISBN: 9780429425592.
Blanco Sío-López, C. (2019) ‘The Future that Once Was: 1989, the EU’s Eastward Enlargement, and Democracy’s Missed Chances’ in 1989 and the West: Western Europe since the End of the Cold War, Routledge – Taylor & Francis, ISBN: 9781138505070.
Blanco Sío-López, C. (2019) ‘Echar la vista atrás para ver más allá: Redescubriendo el potencial de los legados históricos de la Libre Circulación de Personas en la UE’, Routed – Revista de (in)movilidad y migraciones, Special Issue: ‘Movilidad en la Historia’, cc BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Blanco Sío-López, C. (2019) ‘Looking back to see beyond: Rediscovering empowering historical legacies on the EU’s Free Movement of Persons’, Routed – Migration & (Im)mobility Magazine, Special Issue: ‘Historical Mobilities’, cc BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Blanco Sío-López, C. (2017) ‘Unveiling Covectors: Correlating Migration and EC Enlargement in the Case of Spain’, Journal of European Integration History (JEIH), Special Issue 2017, vol. 22: Peoples and Borders: 70 Years of Movement of Persons in Europe, to Europe, from Europe (1945-2015), pp. 211-236. DOI: 10.5771/9783845277868-210, History 2017 – Q1.
Blanco Sío-López, C. (2015) ‘Dialogues beyond the “Fortress Europe”: the Genesis and Evolution of the “Free Circulation of Persons” Concept through EP Schengen Area Debates, 1985-2015’ in The Borders of Schengen, Brussels, P.I.E. Peter Lang – European Integration History, pp. 33-5, ISBN: 978-3-0352-6576-7.