El discurso de la Unión Europea sobre medidas de integración de inmigrantes y sus derivaciones en España

At the start of this century, the need arose within the European Union to incorporate the integration of third-country nationals into the political agenda as a central pillar of EU migration policy. Tis study is based on the concept that while EU institutions are allowed to establish broad policy lines and, to a certain extent, influence member state strategies, integration policy is an eminently national responsibility, causing sig-nifcant differences to exist between member-state practices. Tis work will examine the main EU actions related to active or civic integration with the aim of comparing the results of integration policies on European and national levels through the analysis of legislation and other legal instruments established by both the EU and Spain. Tis study seeks to discover a paradigmatic model that the European Commission has not yet considered since its work in this area is in an initial phase. Te characteristics of the Spanish model—where immigration was quite welcome during economic boom times but where integration policies are being gradually implemented in the middle of an economic crisis far removed from those times—are key to explaining the conclusions reached in this study.