ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the many different constructions put on the phenomenon of immigration in Europe. Immigration, both 'economic' and 'political', has been a socio-political issue for West European nation states since the end of the Second World War. From the 1980s the EU has sought an ever closer convergence of immigration policy. The scale of the 2015 crisis has exposed its fragility, as member states have retreated into national discourses and policy making. In the midst of the 2015 crisis, the German federal government led by Angela Merkel relaxed EU rules for the entry of refugees, forecasting that Germany was likely to receive 800,000 refugees in 2015 at a cost of £4.4 billion in 2016. The passage of immigration legislation in the 2000s took place against an intense public debate about German culture and identity, formed around the concept of a German Leitkultur, the notion of a predominant, essential national culture, a particular version of Western Judaeo-Christian civilisation.
