Attributed influence assessment 92

The comparison of the recommendations forwarded to the EU institutions with the positions adopted by the institutions has illustrated that about 60 per cent of the suggestions of the pro- migrant groups are reflected in the positions of the Commission and 42 per cent in the Council directive. As the similarities between the recommendations of the pro-migrant groups and the positions of the EU institutions do not necessarily mean that the groups have been influential in convincing EU policy-makers of their ideas, this section focuses on assessing the satisfaction of the groups with their own performance. For this purpose, interviews have been conducted with interest representatives of the Starting Line Group, ENAR, CCME, and MPG. To complement the self-assessment of the interest representatives, EU officials that were engaged in the formulation of the LTR Directive have been asked to peer assess the influence of the pro-migrant groups. As the LTR Directive was adopted in 2003, only few persons could be identified as having been involved in the formulation of the directive. This is due to the high turnover of staff within the EU institutions and the interest groups. Some of the persons that were responsible for the LTR Directive have changed their position in the meantime and cannot be retraced or are retired now. One Commission desk officer, one assistant to a MEP, and one JHA Counsellor commented on the influence of pro-migrant groups on the LTR Directive.

But before the responses of the EU officials are depicted, the following paragraphs allow space for the self-assessment of the influence of the groups. Although the former Director of the Starting Line Group did not go into detail about the influence of the group on particular provisions of the LTR Directive, she was extremely satisfied with the advocacy work. ‘That was the first time that there was a concrete proposal. And it was drafted exactly the same way as the directive was drafted,’ she said. She put particular emphasis on the influence of the group on the Commission: ‘if you look at the first proposal from the Commission and at the Starting Line proposal, it is very similar.’ With a view to the Council, the former Director of the group attested the Starting Line Group less influence. She said that the Starting Line Group did not consider the Council General Secretariat or Permanent Representations in its

lobbying attempts. To limit the opposition of the Council to the Starting Line Group, however, in its recommendations for the Commission it only asked for equal treatment among TCNs and not between EU citizens and TCNs because the group knew that member states would not have been willing to expand EU citizenship to non-nationals (Interview 42).

A representative of CCME pointed out that at the time the LTR Directive was negotiated, there were few NGOs working in the area of migration in Brussels. As CCME followed the negotiation process very intensively, the interviewee characterised CCME’s advocacy work as outstanding. Nevertheless, the interest representative remained critical regarding the material conditions an applicant needs to fulfil to qualify for long-term residence. She particularly regretted that people on supplementary benefit were excluded from the scope of the directive. Moreover, she regretted that beneficiaries of subsidiary protection and asylum- seekers did not qualify for long-term residence under the 2003 LTR Directive. According to her, their legal status should not have an impact on the right to long-term residence. To her, a person who has resided in a country for five years gets accustomed to this country and, therefore, knows best where he or she wants to reside in the long term (Interview 18).

A former Director of ENAR acknowledged the work of all interest groups in the field of migration at the beginning of the 21st century. She referred to ENAR’s advocacy work as ‘Sisyphean but very good work’. According to her, this is due to the fact that the LTR Directive was one of the first directives that had been negotiated after the inclusion of the asylum and migration policy in the acquis communautaire. As a consequence, negotiations were difficult because the member states wanted to maintain as much sovereignty as possible. Nevertheless, interest groups such as ENAR could exert influence on the policy outcome by approaching the Commission. The Commission seems to have been an adequate lobbying partner because it was eager to foster migration policies at EU level. According to the interviewee, it was also thanks to the political situation in Europe at that time that, more than nowadays, welcomed the integration of migrants into the receiving society and that enabled ENAR to reach about one third of its political objectives (Interview 39).

The Director of MPG was at first rather sceptical about MPG’s influence on the LTR Directive. ‘They always believed in a rights-based approach but only because the Commission now also promotes a rights-based approach does not prove that it is because of MPG,’ he said. But in the course of the interview it became more and more obvious that MPG officials had close contact to Commission desk officers working on the LTR Directive. He

further revealed that he thinks that MPG has exerted influence on the Commission’s proposal for the directive. With a twinkle in his eye he said, ‘I have seen copies, by the way, of the Amsterdam Proposals at the time we published them, and I saw them on their [i.e. Commission desk officers] bookshelves’. In this way, he implied that the Commission officials responsible for the LTR Directive consulted the Amsterdam Proposals when formulating the Commission’s proposal. Nevertheless, he was not totally satisfied with the Commission’s proposal and the adopted directive. He particularly regretted that applicants need to demonstrate five years of residence before they can apply for long-term residence, whereas MPG had recommended three years as the sufficient time period (Interview 16).

In its annual reports, ECRE presented its advocacy work as ‘an exercise in damage limitation – the importance of which cannot be underestimated’ (ECRE 2004b: 3). The umbrella group particularly regretted that refugees and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection had not been included in the LTR Directive. According to ECRE, access to the labour market, vocational training, education, and political participation are key to successful integration (ECRE 2005a: 5). ILPA (ILPA 2004: 28) also considered itself unsatisfied with the final Council directive as ‘it sets out many hurdles in the way of obtaining status, excludes some important groups (particularly refugees and persons with subsidiary protection) from its scope, and contains significant exceptions from the principle of non-discrimination’.

The Commission desk officer in charge of the LTR Directive only reluctantly acknowledged the importance of pro-migrant groups for the formulation of the proposal. In the beginning he neglected having had contact with NGOs at all. ‘In all fairness, I don‘t remember us having any contact with any NGO of whatever sort on the Long-term Residents Directive,’ he said. Only after the interviewer pointed out to him that she noticed a remarkable congruence between the recommendations of the pro-migrant groups and the Commission proposal – not only regarding the structure but the formulation of several provisions – he admitted that the Commission closely worked together with NGOs and think tanks. He said that, at the time the proposal was formulated, the information NGOs offered to the Commission was ‘extremely helpful taking into account the very limited amount of knowledge that we had [...]. We had to rely on external input from that point of view and therefore contribution was certainly welcomed’ (Interview 34). What is more, in a letter to the former General Secretary of ECRE, Antonio Vittorino (European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs 1999-2004)

thanked ECRE on its ‘constructive and informed input’ that the umbrella group provided for him (ECRE 2004b: 3).

Being questioned on the influence of pro-migrant groups on the Council, an assistant to a MEP explained that some of their recommendations are not feasible for member states. According to him, ‘NGOs have the best intentions in the world [...] and if you have a bit of a human element in you, you cannot disagree with what is on paper’. But, still, member states have to disagree with proposals such as full social rights like ‘carte blanche to the employment market, carte blanche to social benefits such as housing’ because they do not have adequate resources for that (Interview 27).

To summarise, the direct comparison of the recommendations of the pro-migrant groups with the positions of the Commission and the Council has illustrated that they bear a remarkable resemblance in structure and concrete formulation. While 60 per cent of the recommendations of the pro-migrant groups are reflected in the draft proposal, only 42 per cent are reflected in the Council directive. The result of this comparison is confirmed by the responses the interest representatives gave regarding their satisfaction with the outcome of the directive. None of the interviewees claimed that they reached all their political objectives. Nevertheless, they pointed to the notable resemblance of their recommendations and the proposal drafted by the Commission. They, however, were less satisfied with the adopted LTR Directive. Thus, they appear to have been more influential during the drafting stage than during the further negotiations. Their importance has also been acknowledged by the Commission desk officer responsible for the LTR Directive and the former European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs. Finally, an assistant to a MEP explained that pro-migrant groups can exert influence on migration legislation but only if their demands are feasible for the member states.

After having analysed the preference attainment of pro-migrant groups, the self-assessment of the groups, and the peer assessment on the part of the EU officials, the subsequent section analyses which factors affected their ability to exert influence on the respective EU institutions.