• Country trends

Country trends

People moving across borders may, through their mobility, be involved in a form of back and forth movement between their places of origin and of destination. Because of their repeated and fluid cross-border mobility they are circular migrants. This study lays emphasis on the existence of various patterns of circular migration in South Mediterranean countries, which are shaped by changing circumstances and structural factors fostering and sometimes disrupting migrant mobility.

The author sets out to determine the preconditions and possible improvements in terms of measures and instruments that need to be considered to optimize circular migration programmes for developmental end, in cooperation with South Mediterranean countries. The paper highlights that there is a growing awareness that, in order to secure the cooperation of their empowered and strategic Mediterranean neighbors, the EU will have to devise additional accompanying measures or actions which enhance the contributory impact of return on the mobility of migrants. Further steps forward include:

• new structural legal and institutional mechanisms will have to be taken into consideration in both origin and destination countries
• at the level of the EU a green paper on a community policy on return and development focusing among others on the temporary return of circular migrants, could be launched
• giving circular migrants a concrete opportunity to go back and forth between their countries of destination and origin will depend on the extent to which these countries will be about to adopt adequate legal and institutional mechanisms to support reintegration.
  

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