Organised Migration within the European Union: free movement rights as a business model

Abstract: This qualitative study is examining the reasons behind the mass migration of Bulgarian citizens from Stolipinovo to Germany and the city of Duisburg in particular. The research is conducted using ethnographic approach together with carrying out interviews with the focus group – EU migrants from that area. It further examines how this process is facilitated and what kind of organisations stay behind it. Central to the study are free movement rights protected by EU law. It further examines the development of EU citizenship and how it is utilized by organisations that take advantage of gaps in the national legislation of the host member state or are often involved in illegal activities. Contradicting with the idea behind free movement and the desire for more freedoms for the EU migrants, such organisations use vulnerable people to gain control over them while exercising their migration rights. The study further adopts Foucault’s power and knowledge theory that combined with Weber’s rationality help to provide clearer understanding of organised migration and how it serves as a more sophisticated form of human trafficking. Also, in order to understand what is the reason so many people to be drawn by the German state and the services of the organisations, the push and pull factors theory is the main framework introduced in the work. The gathered empirical data is at the core of the study, providing insights of the Roma community that is central to the research and the socio-legal context of the process concerning the migration and exercising of EU citizenship rights by the migrants. As a result of that and the conducted analysis, the study provides a better understanding how organised migration works and how the groups behind it use free movement rights to establish a profitable business. Having lived in the UK, Spain, Sweden and Belgium in the past 10 years, I have witnessed similar issues with migrants that triggered my interest in the topic. With my Bulgarian background and the large migrant diaspora in the rest of the EU, combined with my interest in socio-legal issues and knowledge of Bulgarian, German, Spanish and English, the significance of the topic grew gradually resulting in this research.