Policy Brief 1 - A critical appraisal of the EU's regular migration system: Objectifying, structurally discriminatory and not aligned with basic EU and international standards

This Policy Brief largely draws from the key findings of an EU-level report produced for the EU-funded AspirE project, and interviews held with EU officials within the context of this project. It focuses on policy issues impacting the EU’s current regular migration policy on how people who are not from an EU country – third country nationals – can move to and stay in the EU through legal channels. It shows that EU policy goals combined with the specific way they are expressed under EU law result in some main policy problems. This Policy Brief includes recommendations for a more humanising approach that the AspirE project has adopted. This approach considers third country nationals as individuals with rights and agency over their own lives.