Research Papers

The interpretation and implementation of the Long-term Residence Directive are at the centre of a lively debate. The potential process of incorporation of third-country nationals outlined in the Directive itself is undermined by the fragmented framework of integration conditions operating at the level of Member States. The present paper aims at offering a theoretical approach to frame quot; and to better understand quot; such paradoxical contradiction. We suggest that, within this context of EU migration law, the third-country national person oscillates between two figures: the legal Other and the Xenos. On the one hand, she is seen as a legal Other, someone different from "we" Europeans, but that can be part of our society. To this extent, she is understood as a subject that helps us to build our own identity through a dialectical process of ethical recognition and political integration and that, by this very process, contributes to the constitution of the legal "Us". On the other hand, she is treated as a Xenos, a radical Other that we reject and ostracize, something that is fundamentally alien to our society and that should be kept at bay, distrusted and subjugated. Looking at the history and purpose of the European project through the lenses of migration law, this paper suggests that European Institutions should abandon such ambiguous understanding of the stranger and embrace diversity not as something that we have necessarily to cope with under the strains of globalization, but as an opportunity to develop a true European identity and develop new democratic values.