To what extent does the European Union policy of free movement of Essay

To what extent does the European Union policy of free movement of persons discriminate against the non-European 'others' - Essay Example The paper tells that the EU (European Union) policy concerning free movement within its member states has, in many quarters been taunted to be extremely discriminative in nature.This policy on free movement of persons tend to, in particular, discriminate against people from other parts of the world- the non Europeans, commonly referred to as â€Å"others†. The E.U’’s hostility towards immigrants has been discussed at length in various forums. A very important aspect of the said immigration policy that many find not friendly is in the treatment of people who are from troubled countries, for instance due to problems like wars, lawlessness and require humanitarian assistance like, for instance refugees. In most cases helpless and poor or stateless individuals who basically throw themselves around or on the mercy and sympathy of the state that they deem safe, seeking refuge from ill treatment in their country of origin have always had it rough upon attempting to gain entry in countries that subscribe to the European Union. For the sake of highlighting the xenophobic treatment and approach that immigrants face countries like France, United Kingdom and Italy will be used because they are believed to be very notorious for this kind of discriminative treatment. Majority of these member states always claim that with the steady rise of terrorism and related activities worldwide they have all the reasons to be discriminative against anybody coming into their country. Another commonly blamed excuse, which to them is a major concern, is the national and regional security of the various nations that allow people to cross over their borders. They have this mentality that terrorists and other people with ill intensions are very likely to come in from overseas2. These kinds of concerns and worries often lead to very thorough and intrusive security checks and scrutiny and stringent visa requirements and in the process discouraging immigration, short term and temporary visitors from other parts of the world and even the movement that people like having within their continent and countries. There has been frantic search to solutions to this tight regulations and even pressure from all over the world for European Union to loosen some of the aspects of the immigration policy and inspections to create an ample environment which can help promote tourism and other developmental aspects like relocation and transfer of businesses to other countries from, for instance, destabilized countries or better yet regions3. Since most of the member states of the European Union allow free movement of individuals within the union under an exemption commonly known as Schengen arrangement which many immigrant refers to as the discriminative extra communitarian movement of individuals i.e. non-European Union citizens4. This is, indeed an irony in the sense that the European Union allows movement of individuals freely within its various member states but unfor tunately takes a very tough and harsh approach towards immigrants from non European Union countries. This xenophobic treatment and approach of the European Union is basically rooted in very complex historical, political, social and economic contexts which this paper intends to intensively and extensively look and discuss in details. Historical Historically, even before the establishment of the European Union, most of the countries that are now in the union had a negative attitude towards people moving into their countries because they believed that such moves would create competition for the available resources .The historical perspective and aspects of the heinous xenophobic approach that EU had, greatly affected the ambitions and desires of many immigrants who really yearned to visit or even temporarily move into the EU