Europe: the EU regulation of migration

The aim of this chapter is to provide a brief overview of the legislative framework on EU labour migration, comprising rules covering EU workers exercising their right to free movement, workers who are posted by a company to provide services, and workers coming from outside the EU, referred to as ‘third country nationals’. It presents the development and content of the main instruments of the EU acquis covering these three categories of foreign workers. It then moves on to discuss whether the legislative framework described has responded adequately to challenges identified in relation to the different groups of foreign workers by focusing specifically on the outcomes of the EU acquis on third-country-national workers, the differentiated right to equal treatment depending on the category of foreign workers, and the enforcement problems of the frameworks discussed. The chapter ends with some concluding remarks, including ideas for future research.