The Ukrainian political crisis over the EU association agreement stands as the most painful reminder of the unresolved issues that will determine the future of Europe in its geographical borders. Ukrainian society is deeply divided about the country’s future international alignment: while a short majority is in favour of having closer relations with the EU, […]

Social remittances are ideas, know-how, norms, values, knowledge, behaviour, practices and skills that migrants bring home with them or that they send home from abroad. These can promote or deter development in home countries, (Levitt, 1998, 2001, and Levitt and Lamba-Nieves, 2011).  Levitt (2001) argues that social remittances are, in fact, more important than financial […]

In post-Soviet states the impact of migration and induced social risks (brain-drain, aging, depopulation, etc) are now a reality. Yet, little is known about the extent to which migration rhetoric has evolved and penetrated into the political party programs of European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries– Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine–, and in Russia. […]

Executive Summary EU’s Global Approach to Migration and Mobility (GAMM) highlights the importance of evidence-based policymaking which, in turn, depends on the accurate measurement of migration in the EU and its neighbourhood. This short piece gives a brief insight into the problems associated with statistical data collection on labour emigration from the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood […]

Syria in turmoil The internal armed conflict in Syria continues endlessly with its cohorts of fleeing people. In addition to an estimated 20,000 civilian deaths, 2.5 million people have been afflicted, 1.2 million internally displaced and nearly 450,000 have sought asylum outside their homeland[1]. By mid-January 2013, the UN estimates that over 4 million people […]