ABSTRACT
Since the 1980s family reunification has often been the major ground for admission of immigrants in Europe. Today most of these migrants have a legal right to family reunification on the basis of EU law. The recognition and the actual realization of that right was the outcome of a long battle between actors at the national and the international level since the 1960s. In this chapter we will reconstruct how the right to family reunification developed over decades and which actors contributed to its recognition. Secondly, we present the outcome of empirical research on the effects of post-2001 measures to restrict family reunification. Did the measures reduce family migration, and did they contribute to the desired integration of the sponsors and their family members? In the final part we begin to answer the normative question on whether the wide differences in treatment between categories of migrants in the current EU rules on family reunification law are justified or incompatible with the European non-discrimination standards.
