REFUGEE INTEGRATION(S): POLICY AND PRACTICE IN THE EUROPEAN UNION Nando Sigona Research Associate, Development and Forced Migration Research Unit, Oxford Brookes University INTRODUCTION The present paper is based on the work I have been doing in the last few years at the Development and Forced Migration Research Unit with Roger Zetter and David Griffiths on three research projects on asylum and refugee policy of Euro- pean Union Member States (EUMS). The research projects focused in particular on asylum reception policy, poli- cy and practice of refugee integration in the EU and on the impact of UK asylum policy on refugee and asylum seeker organisations (Griffiths et al, 2005; Zetter et al, 2002; Zetter et al, 2003; Zetter et al, 2005). Here I will look in particular to the definition of integration which under- pins EUMS policy and practice of refugee integration. The context of the discus- sion is set by the ongoing process of harmonization of refugee and asylum policy in the EU. EU CONTEXT If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the highway to community harmonisation is littered with the debris of intergovernmental agreements (Blake, 2001: 95) Some background info on this process, described as “one of tentative movement from unilateral, to multilateral and finally communitarian legal instruments and interventions” (Geddes, 2000: 107), will help to frame the discussion. Four main phases can be pinpointed since it started in the late 60s: • 1967-85, from the Naples Convention on mutual cooperation between cus- tom authorities to the Treaty of Schengen (Single European Act) in 1986. A number of so-called ad hoc groups were established in this period, the most significant of whom was the TREVI 1 group. Established in 1976, it dealt originally with mechanism of counterterrorism, but was expanded to include issues such as police co-operation, drugs trafficking, border policing. TREVI lacked a coherent organisational structure although it acted as a prototype for later intergovernmental organisation prior to the introduction of the Third Pillar of the EU in 1993 (Levy 1999:23). • 1986-93, from Single European Act to Treaty of Maastricht (including the Dublin Convention in 1990 and the Convention on the Crossing of External borders in 1991). The Schengen Group was founded in 1985 by the core Refugee Survey Quarterly, Vol. 24, Issue 4 © UNHCR 2005, all rights reserved DOI:10.1093/rsq/hdi093 at Radcliffe Science Library, Bodleian Library on December 3, 2010 rsq.oxfordjournals.org Downloaded from