The cautious approach of European Legislators towards the integration of non-EU third country nationals (TCNs), mirrored in the provisions of Long-Term Residence Directive 2003/109/EC, has brought about the creation of 'spatial temporal waiting zones'. Migrants are confined in both place and time before being able to access the (as of yet, very limited) mobility rights conferred upon them by the Directive. Restricted mobility rights for TCNs can seriously impinge on the economic growth of the EU. This paper reveals three 'faults' of the current system. First, we show how TCNs already evade 'temporal borders' by moving across geographical ones to take up employment before being entitled to do so under the provisions of the Directive. Next, we show how formal integration in one member state (MS), paradoxically, opens the door to another MS and, third, how a second MS fights off these near-EU citizens. Finally, we observe the importance of taking the phenomenon of spatial and temporal waiting zones into account, not only when structuring intra-EU mobility policies for TCNs but also when addressing the issue of the (labour market) integration of recent arrivals: soon they too will become European long-term residents.

No abstract

Not very long ago, scholars saw it fit to name a new and quite widespread phenomenon they had observed developing over the years as the “judicialization” of politics, meaning by it the expanding control of the judiciary at the expenses of the other powers of the State. Things seem yet to have begun to change, especially in Migration Law. Generally quite a marginal branch of the State's corpus iuris, this latter has already lent itself to different forms of experimentations which then, spilling over into other legislative disciplines, end up by becoming the new general rule. The new interaction between the judiciary and the executive in this specific field as it is unfolding in such countries as the UK and Switzerland may prove to be yet another example of these dynamics.