ABSTRACT
The growing importance of the mobility of persons in regional integration processes and of migration on the policy agenda worldwide can easily be noticed. Due to the smaller number of participating states with more compatible interests and affinities, regional frameworks generally tend to reach more encompassing agreements on mobility, including more categories of workers or citizens, than global multilateral frameworks. Regional agreements offer not only a well-adapted structure to tackle the issues of migration, but also policy prospects for the free movement of people: they put forward a multilateral stage for discussion and policy-making that is not as restrictive as the nation-state level while not being as broad as the global one. Migration policies still have a strong territorial dimension. However, migrations represent transnational flows that often challenge the national territorial dimension of the political process (at all the stages from decision to implementation). As such, the process of coordination with other states can be a means to enhance and go beyond nationally or territorially restricted policies.
