ABSTRACT
The new Western European migration regime assumed its final shape between 1984 and 1992, thanks to the renewed cooperation between Germany, Britain, and France. Albeit open, the regime developed a selective and regionalist character. To date, historians have not yet fully linked the negotiation of the European Single Market, enacted by the Single European Act in 1986, with the parallel Schengen Agreement on border controls. 1 Similarly, scholars have not yet fully linked the growth of flows of skilled workers within Europe and the parallel developments in the European migration regime. 2 In this chapter, I will show how plans to abolish border controls were integrated in the dynamic towards the Single Market, and I will also develop existing scholarship on the way member states formulated general common rules on migrants from outside the Community as a precondition for the abolition of controls on persons at internal borders. I will explain how the regime evolved to favour the movement of highly skilled workers, before presenting the development of European citizenship. Finally, I will explicate how, following these developments, the member states defined common action to limit migratory pressure on Europe.
