Abstract

Circular Migration (CM) is a long standing way of dealing with the need
for temporary migrants across the globe (Wickramasekara 2011) involving
the temporary movement of workers to and from areas requiring
labour. Its attraction (in a well-managed form) is that it offers to
maximise the benefits from migration for the countries of origin, the
destination countries and the actual workers.
NMG were developed in response to the view that many of the European
Union’s (EU) traditional modes of governance had proved ineffective.
In the case of migrant flows across the internal and external EU’s
borders no single actor has the power to solve the problem of managing
the flows and dealing effectively with multilevel actors. The nature of
the interdependent world means that in order for policy to be enacted
successfully there is a need for cooperation across borders and between
the different areas of governance, However, this cooperation comes at
a cost because of the very nature of the compromises that are required
to make it work effectively. NMG are designed to deal with the very different
situations that arise across the 28 member states and are seen as
a way of supplementing established methods of governance (the community
method) where attaining agreement may be difficult.
CM schemes have proved difficult to replicate because each members
state has its own issues and protects its own sovereignty, despite
the potential gains from cooperation. Critically however, many of the
aspirations concerning the ability of these schemes to create a stable
migration environment have not been achieved in the teeth of the recession.
Whilst CM seemed to offer a way forward to help resolve the
issue of continuing high levels of irregular migration this is an issue
that has started to be resolved in a different way by the depth of the
recession and the flow of migrants returning to their home countries
(although depressingly large numbers of migrants still perish in an attempt
to reach the EU). This is especially the case with respect to Spain,
a country of very high inward migration during the era of high economic
growth and now experiencing a severe and prolonged economic
downturn. Therefore it would appear as if CM is a new mode of governance
is deeply flawed that may not provide a solid basis for developing
future initiatives because it does not remove the mismatch between the
demand for labour. Also, CM schemes are biased against the interest of
many of the workers who participate in them.