Dignity Amidst Despair: Migration Challenging European Solidarity

Solidarity is not uncontroversial. Anyone who comes forward today with a plea for the need for solidarity can expect a series of classic objections. Disagreements about the importance of solidarity often turn out to be disagreements about the precise terms and conditions of solidarity. In this first introductory lesson, we explore three historical contexts to show the ideological tensions and theoretical debates that manifest themselves around the idea of solidarity.

Herbert De Vriese is a professor at the Centre for European Philosophy at the University of Antwerp. In 2011 he obtained his PhD at the University of Antwerp with a dissertation on the Young Hegelians, a group of German thinkers who gave Hegel’s philosophy a practical twist. His central research interest concerns the transformation of European philosophy in the transition from Hegel to Nietzsche, the so-called ‘revolutionary rupture’ in nineteenth-century philosophy. In a broader perspective, he examines the history of modern metaphysics (criticism) and the connection between the history of philosophy and cultural history. Together with Guido van Heeswijck, he has further elaborated Max Weber’s disenchantment thesis in relation to numerous current social problems. He is the coordinator of the lecture series and Spring school on Philosophical Sources of European Identity.

Henk de Smaele is a professor of history at the University of Antwerp. He started his career as a political historian, studying nineteenth-century Belgian elections and parties (with an emphasis on the Catholic party). His research focus has shifted towards the history of gender and sexuality, and – more recently – to the history of cultural encounters between European and Ottoman/Turkish citizens in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is interested in challenging the still dominant paradigm of ‘modernization’ in much of today’s historiography.

His main affiliation is with the research unit Power in History: Centre for Political History. Furthermore, he is involved in several interdisciplinary projects on gender and sexuality, collaborating regularly with colleagues from other disciplines of the Antwerp Gender and Sexuality Studies Network (A*). He is also affiliated to the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), of which he was the first chairman (2014-2017). He has been Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex (2002-2003), Honorary Lecturer at the History Department of University College London (2015-2017) and Visiting Research Fellow of the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, University of London (2017-2018). He is also co-chair of the Belgian Archive and Research Centre for Women’s History (Brussels) and founding member of the Forum for Belgian Research in History of Women, Gender and Sexuality.

Starting from insights in these three case studies, we try to develop a more general vision. The concept of solidarity is refined by distinguishing it from other forms of support and association. Finally, we assign it a specific context to enable meaningful theoretical argumentation.

Herbert De Vriese is a professor at the Centre for European Philosophy at the University of Antwerp. In 2011 he obtained his PhD at the University of Antwerp with a dissertation on the Young Hegelians, a group of German thinkers who gave Hegel’s philosophy a practical twist. His central research interest concerns the transformation of European philosophy in the transition from Hegel to Nietzsche, the so-called ‘revolutionary rupture’ in nineteenth-century philosophy. In a broader perspective, he examines the history of modern metaphysics (criticism) and the connection between the history of philosophy and cultural history. Together with Guido van Heeswijck, he has further elaborated Max Weber’s disenchantment thesis in relation to numerous current social problems. He is the coordinator of the lecture series and Spring school on Philosophical Sources of European Identity.

Henk de Smaele is a professor of history at the University of Antwerp. He started his career as a political historian, studying nineteenth-century Belgian elections and parties (with an emphasis on the Catholic party). His research focus has shifted towards the history of gender and sexuality, and – more recently – to the history of cultural encounters between European and Ottoman/Turkish citizens in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is interested in challenging the still dominant paradigm of ‘modernization’ in much of today’s historiography.

His main affiliation is with the research unit Power in History: Centre for Political History. Furthermore, he is involved in several interdisciplinary projects on gender and sexuality, collaborating regularly with colleagues from other disciplines of the Antwerp Gender and Sexuality Studies Network (A*). He is also affiliated to the Antwerp Research Institute for the Arts (ARIA), of which he was the first chairman (2014-2017). He has been Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Sussex (2002-2003), Honorary Lecturer at the History Department of University College London (2015-2017) and Visiting Research Fellow of the Birkbeck Institute for Social Research, University of London (2017-2018). He is also co-chair of the Belgian Archive and Research Centre for Women’s History (Brussels) and founding member of the Forum for Belgian Research in History of Women, Gender and Sexuality.

The abstract of this presentation will be added shortly.

Alessandro Volpe is a researcher in Moral Philosophy at the Faculty of Philosophy, Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. He is a member of the European Centre for Social Ethics. His research focuses on contemporary critical theory, the idea of solidarity, and the relationship between Europe and philosophy.

Previously, he was a research fellow and received his Ph.D. in Philosophy at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University. He was also a research fellow at the Fondazione Fratelli Confalonieri (Milan) and a Visiting doctoral fellow (2019-2020) in the Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders” at the J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, under the supervision of Rainer Forst. He currently teaches “The Western Tradition: Moral and Political Values” at the University of Milan-UniSR and “Ethics for Engineers” at Carlo Cattaneo University in Castellanza (VA). He is a member of the Italian Society of Critical Theory; the Italian Society of Moral Philosophy; member of the editorial board of the scientific journal “The Future of Science and Ethics”.

Since 2022 he has been also a scientific consultant for Fondazione Umberto Veronesi. Since 2017 he has been coordinator of the permanent seminar “History, Utopia, Emancipation” at UniSR and since 2021 co-curator of the series of seminars “Europa anni ‘20”, in collaboration with Casa della Cultura in Milan, a project winner in 2022 of the “University4EU” Prize.

Public lecture by Marie-Claire Foblets, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology
Response by Milena Belloni MIGLOBA, University of Antwerp

The abstract of this presentation will be added shortly.

Marie-Claire Foblets is Director of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. Born in Belgium, she soon became interested in plural societies and the conditions for sustainable peace among diverse groups. She was trained in law at the universities of Antwerp (1977-1979) and Leuven (1979-1982) in Belgium, and also studied Thomist philosophy in parallel with law. Thanks to a study fellowship (1982-1983), she was given the opportunity to pursue further study in philosophy at the Wilhelms-Universität of Münster, in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, and to complete her studies in social and cultural anthropology (1985). Upon completion of her studies, she was called to the French-speaking section of the Brussels Bar. She spent a decade practicing law with a firm that specialised in matters related to migration and minority issues. In the same period, she defended her doctoral thesis in social and cultural anthropology, which was inspired to a large extent by her legal practice. For more than twenty years Marie-Claire Foblets has taught law as well as social and cultural anthropology in the universities of Antwerp and Brussels. Before becoming a member of the Max Planck Society in March 2012, she was professeur ordinaire (full professor) at the Catholic University of Leuven, where she headed the Institute for Migration Law and Legal Anthropology. She has also been a member of various networks of researchers focusing either on the study of the application of Islamic law in Europe or on law and migration in Europe, including the Association française d’anthropologie du droit (AFAD), of which she served as co-president for several years. In 2001, she was elected to the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts (KVAB). In 2004, she received the Francqui Prize, the most distinguished scientific award in the humanities in Belgium. In 2012, Prof. Foblets accepted her current position with the Max Planck Society, with a view to establish a new Department of Law & Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

 Milena Belloni is Director of the Network on Migration and Global Mobility MIGLOBA of the University of Antwerp. She is an ethnographer specialized in migration and refugee studies. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Italy, Belgium and Holland. Her research mainly concerns refugees’ migration dynamics and inclusion pathways, transnational refugee families, migrant smuggling, protracted displacement in Europe and in the Global South, home and housing studies, and ethnographic methods. She published in several international peer reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Refugee Studies, the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Global Networks. Her monographic study on the migration of Eritreans to Europe, The Big Gamble, is published by the University of California Press (2019). 

This lecture discusses the socialization of the European social project. It presents how the EU originated as an economic and political project, with social rights as derivative to the market. It then traces the – sometimes creeping, sometimes abrupt – changes to EU social policy making, and considers the current state of social policy making at the EU-level.

Sarah Marchal is an assistant professor at the Centre for Social Policy (CSB) at the University of Antwerp, where she teaches courses on European Societies and Inequality and policy. She looks into the design, accessibility, and effectiveness of targeted social policy provisions, from a cross-national comparative perspective. She uses micro- and hypothetical household simulations to understand the impact of social policy on vulnerable target groups. Importantly, in her research, she takes account of the impact administrative implementation decisions have on the experiences of target groups with limited and spotty labour market attachment. She has collaborated on various international research projects on social policy, poverty reduction, and inequality.

http://www.uantwerpen.be/en/staff/herwig-verschuerenThis presentation will focus on the social rights that EU guarantees to migrants. It will first give an overview of how EU law ensures the social rights of migrant Union citizens and their family members and this in the context of European citizenship and the free movement of persons within the Union. Next, this presentation will look at the social rights to which certain categories of third-country nationals are entitled under EU law. Finally, the presentation will evaluate the extent to which this legal framework contributes to solidarity within the EU.

Herwig Verschueren was professor of International and European Labour and Social Security law at the University of Antwerp. Since 1 October 2023 he is emeritus professor at this University. He previously worked as a civil servant at the European Commission in the field of free movement of workers and the co-ordination of social security schemes. His current teaching and research concentrates on European social law and more specifically on the legal position of migrating EU citizens with regard to labour and social security rights. He is the author and co-author of books, articles and reports on these issues. He frequently gives lectures at international seminars and conferences. He is an expert member of the European academic network “MoveS” (Free movement of workers and EU social security coordination).

The abstract for this presentation will be added shortly.

Lieve Verboven is Director of the International Labour Organisation for the European Union and the Benelux Countries since 2018. She graduated from the Law Faculty of the KU Leuven where, as a student, she already had a great interest in the international forum and was president of the Europa Circle. Through a Junior Professional Programme, she was able to start her career at the ILO and worked in Senegal, among other places. That was the seed for her enduring interest in social dialogue and mediation. She continued her career in Canada where she further broadened her experience in social mediation (outside the ILO). After passing the exam of social mediator, she returned to Belgium and worked for the FPS Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue. In that position, she chaired various joint committees and mediated in the social conflict surrounding Ford Genk, among other things.

The abstract of this presentation will be added shortly.

Dries Lens is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp and a consultant for Myria (the Federal Migration Institute). Within the University, he has worked for MIGLOBA’s predecessor CeMIS and is currently affiliated with the Herman Deleeck Centre for Social Policy. His research focuses on migration and the integration of migrants and their offspring, with a focus on Belgium.

This presentation will focus on the framework for immigration and asylum policies of the EU. Under Article 80 TFEU these policies and their implementation shall be governed by the principle of solidarity and fair sharing of responsibility, including its financial implications, between the Member States. Whenever necessary, EU legislation shall contain appropriate measures to give effect to this principle. The presentation will look into the application of this principle within the existing and coming legislative framework.

Dirk Vanheule is a professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Antwerp and a member of the research group Government and Law. From 2012 to 2018, Dirk served as Dean of the Faculty of Law. He is also a member of the Ghent Bar, having appeared before the European Court of Human Rights, Constitutional Court, and the Supreme Administrative Court of Belgium. His main research interests are migration and asylum law from a European, constitutional and human rights perspective. He is editor of the Belgian Journal for Migration Law (Tijdschrift voor Vreemdelingenrecht).

A visit to policy makers & institutions with Peter Bursens (University of Antwerp)

Peter Bursens is a professor of political science at the Department of Political Science and a member of the research group Politics and Public Governance. He has served as program director and vice-dean for education from 2012 until 2018. He teaches on the topics of European integration and multilevel political systems. He also teaches courses at the Antwerp Management School and the Institute for Sustainable Development and Environment.

His research agenda focuses on European decision-making, Europeanization, federalism and democratic legitimacy of multi-level political systems. He is a senior member of the Politics and Public Governance Research Group. His research is embedded in the GOVTRUST Centre of Excellence, which focuses on trust and distrust in multilevel settings. He holds a Jean Monnet Chair  on ’skills teaching in European Union Studies’, through which he develops simulation games and assessment tools for skill teaching in political science and European studies curricula.

The abstract of this presentation will be added shortly.

Eleonora Milazzo is a research fellow at the Migration Policy Centre (MPC) at the European University Institute, where she works on research-to-policy engagement. She is also Senior Adviser at the European Policy Centre and Associate Fellow at the Egmont Institute in Brussels. ​Eleonora is the author of the book Refugee Protection and Solidarity. The Duties of EU Member States (Oxford University Press, 2023). Thematically, her work focuses on EU migration and asylum policies, social inclusion, development cooperation, and the policy nexus between migration, climate change, and human security. Eleonora has a background in think-tanking, policy analysis, and academic research. Before joining the MPC, Eleonora worked as Joint Research Fellow at the European Policy Centre and the Egmont Institute in Brussels. Previously, she gained professional experience at the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford and Carnegie Europe in Brussels. Before turning to migration and asylum in the EU, she worked on climate change governance and EU-Russia relations at the Ecologic Institute in Berlin and the Russian International Affairs Council in Moscow. In addition to her think-tanking experience, Eleonora conducts policy analysis as a free-lance consultant for UN agencies, international organisations, NGOs, national authorities, and international research consortia on issues related to migration policies, development, and social inclusion. Regarding her academic background, Eleonora holds a PhD in Political Science from the European University Institute (2021) and was a Postdoctoral Researcher at King’s College London. She is a political theorist by training and carried out research on the ethics of migration and refugee protection in the EU.

In recent years, cooperation with non-EU countries has become crucial for the EU’s migration policy. This lecture will discuss how the EU engages with non-EU countries in its neighbourhood and beyond on migration issues and how this policy has evolved over the last 25 years. The EU’s externalization approach can help us understand the complexities and challenges behind the cooperation, but differs between regions. We will see that as migration cooperation with the EU has become both more politicized and contentious, some African countries push back more on the EU’s agenda than, for instance, countries in the Western Balkans and Eastern Europe.

The EU has several tools at its disposal that the cooperation is based on; among them are EU Readmission Agreements and border cooperation; offering incentives for cooperation through funding such as the EU Trust Fund for Africa; and providing opportunities for legal migration with the Mobility Partnership instrument and visa facilitation. A special attention will be put on the cooperation on readmission and return, a key priority for the Union. Despite increased resources devoted to establishing new readmission agreements and arrangements, return rates have been stagnating or declining.

Philipp Stutz is a postdoctoral researcher at the Brussels School of Governance at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) from which he also received his PhD. Philipp’s research interests concentrate on EU migration policy, externalisation and cooperation with third countries, with a special interest in the EU’s return rate. Currently, Philipp collaborates on an FWO-funded project on bilateral readmission and return cooperation. 

Migration has provoked numerous tensions in Europe, particularly since the outbreak of the crisis in the mid-2010s, which undermined continental solidarity and caused fissures and rifts in the EU’s migration and asylum policies. Complexity of migration resonates with intricacies of European integration and policy ramifications in the European Union. Multiple dimensions of the phenomenon of global migration, and the diversity of migrant population, including refugees and asylum seekers, generate various pressures, tensions and quarrels over ways and means of handling this complex phenomenon in the most effective and comprehensive manner. Basically, from the horizontal perspective, they address the external dimension of migration (third countries of origin and transit), and the internal dimension (impact on stability, security and public order). From the vertical perspective, they engage with the perpetual dilemma of keeping the right balance between the supranational dimension of European integration and the national level of Member States. Regional tensions exhibit some patterns of interaction between the two perspectives, addressing the sources and effects of these tensions from a bottom-up standpoint.

Therefore the following types of regional tensions will be discussed briefly:

1. tension between EU legal principles and sovereign rights of the Member States (the case of Brexit);
2. tension between the EU’s institutional arrangements and Member States’ national policies (the case of relocation mechanisms);
3. tension between security imperatives and humanitarian arguments (the case of pushbacks in the Mediterranean region and Eastern Europe);
4. tension between cosmopolitanism and parochialism (the case of the Visegrad Four).

An insight into regional tensions between migration policies, solidarity and particularism will shed a brighter light on complex interplay between local and regional factors and international and supranational determinants. This will help to construct a more realistic outlook for effective and accountable migration governance in Europe.

Artur Gruszczak is a professor of social sciences at the Faculty of International and Political Studies, Jagiellonian University in Krakow. He is a Faculty Member of the European Online Academy, Centre International de Formation Européenne in Nice, where he teaches on EU Migration, Justice and Home Affairs.  

He was Junior Visiting Fellow in Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) in Vienna, Visiting Professor at Universidad Nacional de Colombia in Bogota, Universidad Católica de São Paulo, Complutense University of  Madrid, University of Rochester, NY, among others. He taught courses on EU justice and home affairs, EU internal security policy, EU JHA and migration, International policy of counter-terrorism. In addition to migration and border management in Europe, his interests and research areas include: the transformation of war, the future of warfare and EU intelligence cooperation.  He published extensively on these topics. Recently he co-edited with Sebastian Kaempf the Routledge Handbook of the Future of Warfare (Routledge 2024). Other publications include: Internal Rebordering in the European Union: Postfunctionalism Revisited, Politics and Governance, 2022, 10(2); “Refugees” as a Misnomer: The Parochial Politics and Official Discourse of the Visegrad Four, Politics and Governance, 2021, 9(4); Securitization of neo-nomadic mobility: Frontex’s agent power in the EU’s extended borderland, The Review of European and Comparative Law, 2019, 37(2).    

This lecture introduces the concept of arrival infrastructures as an interesting lens to analyse the elements and actors that shape migrants’ pathways after arrival. Building on case studies, the lecture examines how migrants, street-level bureaucrats, local residents and civil society actors build these arrival infrastructures – with the resources at their disposal – and what role they play in the lives of newcomers. Additionally, it addresses the impact of policy frameworks and local governance on the effectiveness of these infrastructures.

Mieke Schrooten is an assistant professor of Social Work at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and senior researcher at Odisee University of Applied Sciences (Brussels, Belgium). Her main topics of interest are mobility, transnational family dynamics, transnational social work and informal social protection. 

The abstract of this presentation will be added shortly.

Ellen Desmet is a senior lecturer in migration law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology at Ghent University, where she founded the Migration Law Research Group (MigrLaw). Her research focuses on the intersection between migration law, human rights and legal anthropology. She teaches migration law and ‘law and society’, and coordinates the migration law component of the legal clinic human rights and migration law. She is a member of the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR), the Human Rights Centre (HRC), the Human Rights Research Network (HRRN), the consortium Crime, Criminology and Criminal Policy (CCCP) en the Ghent Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute (GRILI).

Ellen complemented her law studies (KU Leuven) with a Master’s degree in Cultures and Development Studies (KU Leuven) and a Master’s degree in Development Cooperation (Ghent University). She holds a doctorate in law from KU Leuven (2010). After this, she was affiliated with the Knowledge Centre for Children’s Rights, the Law and Development Research Group of the University of Antwerp and the Human Rights Centre of Ghent University. 

This lecture aims to address the multifaceted challenges and opportunities faced by migrants and refugees across Europe. With the participation of the JRS Europe network, which operates through 23 national offices and more than 125 locations, the presentation will highlight the four main priorities for tackling these important challenges. Participants will engage in a critical assessment of the new European Pact on Migration and Asylum, discussing its virtues and limitations. This evaluation will serve as a foundation for proposing a more humane, just, and sustainable model of migration and asylum in Europe. The presentation will facilitate different perspectives to explore collaborative strategies that can effectively address the pressing issues of migration, while ensuring the dignity and rights of all individuals involved. Through the presentation, attendees will discover some best practices and innovative community-based approaches to support migrants and refugees, emphasising the importance of dignity in migration processes. By fostering a comprehensive understanding of the current landscape, the lecture seeks to inspire actionable solutions that reflect the values of justice and humanity in European migration policies.

Alberto Ares SJ is the Regional Director of Jesuit Refugee Services Europe. He holds a PhD in International Migration and Development Cooperation from the Universidad Pontificia Comillas where he is a research associate and professor, and until recently, he was Director of the University Institute for Migration Studies. He was also Deputy Coordinator of the Jesuit Migrant Service in Spain until September 2021. He is the author of more than 100 articles, books and chapters in the field of international migration. Among his latest works are: The European Pact on Migration and Asylum through the lens of the Social Teachings, Communities of Hospitality as Prophecy and Hope, Human Mobility: Towards a People-Centred Approach, “Lo que esconde el sosiego”: Ethnic Prejudice and Coexistence Relations between Natives and Immigrants in Popular Neighbourhoods, or “Un arraigo sobre el alambre”: The Social Integration of the Population of Immigrant Origin in Spain. Alberto has spent much of his time as a Jesuit accompanying migrants and studying migration. His work has taken him all over the world, from the United States to Brazil, Mexico to Morocco, Spain to India and El Salvador to Albania. He has carried out research and visiting lectureships at several universities, including Boston College, Harvard University, UCA El Salvador, Landívar University in Guatemala, Unisinos University in Brazil and the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Now, in Brussels, he’ll continue JRS’s mission of serving, accompanying and advocating for refugees.