Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking: Bordering Europe [1st ed.] 978-3-030-10646-1, 978-3-030-10647-8

This book examines the timely topic of controlling the borders of the European Schengen Area. It considers the state per

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Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking: Bordering Europe [1st ed.]
 978-3-030-10646-1, 978-3-030-10647-8

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xvii
Introduction (Federica Infantino)....Pages 1-31
Front Matter ....Pages 33-33
Schengen Visa Policy-Making: Shifting Competence While Authorizing Discretion (Federica Infantino)....Pages 35-65
Morocco: One ‘Third Country’ but Three National Contexts (Federica Infantino)....Pages 67-101
The National Sense Making of EU Visa Policy (Federica Infantino)....Pages 103-121
Front Matter ....Pages 123-123
The Politics of Management (Federica Infantino)....Pages 125-154
Policy Work in Visa Sections (Federica Infantino)....Pages 155-176
The Making of Decisions (Federica Infantino)....Pages 177-215
Transnational Policy-Making from Below (Federica Infantino)....Pages 217-236
Conclusions (Federica Infantino)....Pages 237-245
Back Matter ....Pages 247-267

Citation preview

Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking Bordering Europe

Federica Infantino

Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking “This timely and tightly argued book is full of fascinating insight into the making of EU migration policy from the ground up. Through a fine-grained and closely observed study of three different European consulates in Morocco, Infantino offers us a rare look into the ‘black box’ of EU visa policy - showing, through compelling analysis, the high political stakes and conflictive everyday realities taking shape around the hotly desired ‘Schengen visa’. A crucial read for anyone who wants to understand the shifting boundaries of migration control today, in Europe or beyond.” —Ruben Andersson, Associate Professor of Migration and Development, University of Oxford and author of ‘Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe’ “Infantino makes an original and important contribution to understanding vexing issues of migration and border control with an innovative organizational study of Schengen visa practices. Her carefully developed analysis demonstrates the crucial, yet often hidden ways, in which street-level organizations shape bordering policy through their everyday practices.” —Evelyn Z. Brodkin, Associate Professor at the School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago “This book is a great example of the way in which public policies and European studies may become friendly to large audiences when they are connected with sociological and anthropological research, bringing everyday life to arid questions as the ones of the implementation of EU visa policy in the consulates of Belgium, France and Italy in Morocco. This is a great success and a book which will encourage others to follow this path. Her description of how civil servants in different consulates share narratives that convey sense to visa policy on the ground by suggesting the issues at stake is exemplary.” —Didier Bigo, King’s College London, UK, and Sciences-Po Paris, France

Federica Infantino

Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking Bordering Europe

Federica Infantino FNRS Université Libre de Bruxelles Brussels, Belgium

ISBN 978-3-030-10646-1 ISBN 978-3-030-10647-8  (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018965229 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Andrey Kobylko/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To border crossers and to aspiring border crossers

Acknowledgements

This book would not have been possible without all the people I have interviewed, observed, and spent time with. I am profoundly indebted to the consuls general of Belgium, Italy, and France who authorized my research. Every worker in those consulates deserves mention for generously giving me their time to speak during the course of my fieldwork, even outside the workplace. Thanks also go to the several civil servants, in national ministries and EU institutions, who replied to my questions. Many academics have supported the research process and inspired my work. Special thanks go to my mentor, Virginie Guiraudon, for her unfailing guidance over many years. Warm thanks go to Andrea Rea for his tireless support, constructive criticisms, and uncountable conversations. During the research process, I have relied on the precious guidance of Marco Martiniello and Dirk Jacobs, which I wish to warmly thank. Friends and colleagues from many institutions and several countries have been enriching my academic life, too numerous to mention here. Above all, I am grateful to Letizia and Paolo, my parents, for their encouragement, to my sister Milena, for her constant support, and to my wonderful niece Lavinia, for the tremendous fun and the joy of discovery.

vii

Contents

Introduction 1 The Bordering of Europe: A Comprehensive Implementation Perspective 4 Discretion and Policy-Making 7 A Research Design for an Evolving Puzzle 11 The Selection of the Comparative Case Study 14 Contributions of the Comprehensive and Comparative Implementation Approach 16 The Outline of the Book 21 References 26 Part I  Texts and Contexts Schengen Visa Policy-Making: Shifting Competence While Authorizing Discretion 35 EU Visa Policy: A Compensatory Measure to Free Movement 37 From 1993 Onwards: Communitarizing Schengen Rules 43 Foreign Affairs Concerns for New EU Institutional Players: The ‘Friendly and Unified Europe’ Frame 45 The Regulation of Decision-Making: A Source for National Discretion 55 Conclusion 63 References 64 ix

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Contents

Morocco: One ‘Third Country’ but Three National Contexts 67 Old and Interdependent: Migratory Movements Between France and Morocco 69 Seeking the Opportunity: Visa Requirements to Go to France 73 The Need of Workforce: Moroccan Migration to Belgium 77 The End of Immigration Policy: Visa Requirements to Go to Belgium 81 The Reversed Tendencies: Italians in Morocco, Moroccans in Italy 83 Joining the European Club: Visa Requirements to Go to Italy 86 The Measures of Distinct Flows and the Challenges of Statistics 90 Conclusion 98 References 99 The National Sense Making of EU Visa Policy 103 The Understandings of Visa Policy in Morocco 104 Visa Policy as Sensitive Migration Control 105 Visa Policy as Scorned Migration Control 108 Visa Policy as Migration Control and Diplomacy 110 The Narration of Flows 113 The Networked Applicants 113 The Demanding Applicants and the Clientes 115 The Wrong Applicants 117 Conclusion 119 References 120 Part II  Bordering in Practice The Politics of Management 125 The Materialization of Sovereignty 126 Processing People into Visa Applicants 127 Street-Level Diplomacy: The Visa Application Process 133 Humans and Non-humans: The Visa Examining Process 139 Managers and Frontline Workers 139 Interventions from the Home Country 143 Non-humans: Schengen and National Technological Toolboxes 147 Conclusion 153 References 154

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Policy Work in Visa Sections 155 Visa Sections: A Downgraded Workplace? 157 The Mismatch Between Hierarchy, Responsibilities, and Tasks 158 Belgium: Suspicion Within 159 France: The Co-nationals 161 Italy: New and Old Generations 163 The Knowledge Required to Perform the Job 165 The Framing of Decision-Making 169 The Structuring of Understandings: The Case of Belgium 169 Supervisory Authority and Consistency: The Case of France 171 Lack of Supervisory Authority: The Case of Italy 172 Conclusion 175 References 176 The Making of Decisions 177 Understanding Decision-Making 178 Split and Divided: The Belgian Implementation Style 181 The Consular Tracking of and Fight Against ‘Pseudo-Legal Migration’ 185 The Management of the Risk of Contestation: The Aliens Office 189 The Subjectivity of Facts: Empirical Examples 191 At the Front Line of French Migration Control 196 Inside the ‘Assembly Line’ 197 Uncertainty in Action: The Italian Case 204 Maintaining and Making New Routines 206 Conclusion 213 References 214 Transnational Policy-Making from Below 217 The Birth of a Local Community of Practice 218 Shared Know-How for Detecting ‘Fake’ Marriages 225 Informality Versus Local Schengen Cooperation 230 Transnational Policy-Making from Below 232 Conclusion 235 References 236

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Contents

Conclusions 237 Lessons from the ‘Black Box’ 237 Perspectives for Future Research 243 References 245 Appendix A—Methodological Note 247 Appendix B—Standard Form for Notifying and Motivating Refusal, Annulment or Revocation of a Visa 257 Appendix C—Exchanged E-mails, Local Schengen Cooperation 261 Index 265

List of Figures

The Politics Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3

of Management Window to notify refusals (Photo by The Author) 129 Entrance to the Italian visa section (Photo by The Author) 130 The platform to the entrance (Photo by The Author) 130

Diagram 1 Diagram 2 Diagram 3 Diagram 4

The staff of the consulate of Belgium in Casablanca The staff of the consulate of Italy in Casablanca Consulate of France: The staff working for the visa section Hierarchical organization of the short-stay visa section of the Aliens office—Ministry of the Interior, Brussels

140 141 142 144

The Making of Decisions Fig. 1 Relevant information to examine Grand Public short-stay visas applications 201 Fig. 2 Relevant information to process Schengen visa applications 207

xiii

List of Tables

Introduction Table 1 Evolution of Moroccan-origin populations (registered population, possessing Moroccan citizenship, including second and third generations), 1968–2012 15 Table 2 Rates of non-issued short-stay visas out of visas applied for (consulate general of Belgium, France, and Italy in Casablanca, 2009–2017) 16

Schengen Visa Policy-Making: Shifting Competence While Authorizing Discretion Table 1 Visa removal under the Benelux Convention and visa introductions under the Benelux Convention and the communitarization of visa policy 42 Table 2 Continuity between Visa Code provisions and the Common Consular Instructions 56 Morocco: One ‘Third Country’ but Three National Contexts Table 1 Number of short-stay visas applied for, issued, and refusal rates. Consulates of Belgium, France, and Italy in Casablanca (2009–2017) 91 Table 2 Short-stay (C) visas issued and non-issued by category of travel purpose. Consulate of Belgium in Casablanca (2009–2011) 94 Table 3 Short-stay (C) visas issued and non-issued by categories of travel purpose. Consulate of France in Casablanca (2009–2011) 95 Table 4 Short-stay (C) visas issued by travel purpose and total of non-issued. Consulate of Italy in Casablanca (2008–2011) 96 xv

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List of Tables

Transnational Policy-Making from Below Table 1 Interviews to control ‘fake’ marriages (Belgium) 227 Table 2 Interviews to control ‘fake’ marriages (France) 228 Table 3 Interviews to control ‘fake’ marriages (Italy) 229

List of Boxes

Schengen Visa Policy-Making: Shifting Competence While Authorizing Discretion Box 1 Steps of the legislative procedure to adopt the Visa Code 46

The Politics of Management Box 1 Categories of applicants and applications handled in the Visas Spéciaux subsection 133 Box 2 Categories of applicants and applications handled in the Grand Public subsection 134 Box 3 The Schengen and national technological toolbox for Belgium, France, and Italy 147

The Making of Decisions Box 1 Relevant information to examine short-stay visa applications (reproduction of a computer screen) 183

Appendix A—Methodological Note Box A Fieldwork research: Where, what, who 247

xvii

Introduction

A ruined hope, a pass to a new life or simply an administrative procedure, the visa to Europe is not just a document but also a catalyzer of passionate emotions and broader reflections on the state of (in)equality, (in)justice, and (im)mobility. The visa to Europe attracts so much interest that songs, poems, novels, and even web series focus on it. Fascination—a mix of desire and fear—surrounds the machinery that is responsible for visa issuing. The bureaucracies that deliver visas are privileged objects of ordinary people’s reactions. In these reactions, the symbolic roots subsist of what is often considered to be the expression of modern rational legal order—‘Western’ bureaucracies (Herzfeld 1992). Can applying for a visa be considered to be playing lottery? What happens in the backstage? Are visas reproducing privileges and inequalities? Why are some would-be travelers trapped in their country of origin? This book replies to these, and many other questions by providing an original account of the practices that put EU visa policy into action. While the clandestine journeys and the strategies to circumvent the filtering work of borders receive much analytical attention, the actual filtering work of borders via EU visa policy implementation remained a black box. To begin, it should be recalled that such a common feature of contemporary societies has not always existed. Actually, it is a recent invention. The first known use of the word ‘visa’ dates back to 1831. The word originates from the Latin verb videre, to see, and means literally

© The Author(s) 2019 F. Infantino, Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8_1

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‘something that has been seen’. Generally associated with administrative documents, the term visa indicates that a document has been verified. That use of the word implies that an authority, embodied by an individual, has examined, verified, and approved the validity of a document. The meaning that is currently associated to visa is an official mark or stamp on a passport that allows someone to enter or leave a country, usually for a particular reason. The modern international passport and visa systems originated during the First World War, and it is strictly interrelated to the constitution of modern nation-states whose ‘stateness’ also consists in the monopoly of the ‘legitimate means of movement’ (Torpey 2000). An entry or exit visa might be put on a passport by border guards at points of entry or by consular officers, prior to the arrival at the border. A consular visa was a stamp, but nowadays it tends to be a sticker containing the biometric information of its holder (photograph and fingerprints) just like the Schengen visa that is also noticeable in another respect. It is issued by one state, but it authorizes entry and circulation in a region that is composed of more than one state in which internal frontiers have been lifted: the Schengen area.1 This book sheds light on day-to-day Schengen visa implementation by focusing on the consulates of Belgium, France, and Italy located in Casablanca, Morocco. Border control policies fulfill a competing objective, facilitating and speeding up the mobility of some, and ensuring the immobility of others. Borders should not block but filter out the desirable travelers from the undesirable migrants. As Bigo et al. (2011, 77) stated, ‘Rather than stopping or blocking, the emphasis is on filtering, on sorting out people and banning the undesirable more efficiently.’ Visas accomplish the filtering work of borders away from the territorial limits of polity. Reflecting the debordering of the worlds of states (Albert and Brock 1996) and the re-bordering of Europe, the physical manifestation of state borders shifts in externalized spaces of control. The debordering and re-bordering of Europe suggest, on the one hand, that the f­unction

1 The perimeter of the Schengen area has varied over the years. It includes non-EU Member States whereas some EU Member States are not part of it. For an up-to-date map of the Schengen area, see https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/ borders-and-visas/schengen_en.

INTRODUCTION 

3

of borders is detached from the edges of the territory (an issue on which I will return hereafter) and, on the other hand, that the borders of Europe are diffused and multiplied. Guiraudon and Lahav (2000) underlined the post-1980s states’ strategies to prevent migration at source by incorporating various actors via the development of visa regimes, carrier sanctions, transnational cooperation, and international and bilateral agreements. Among these wide-ranging state and nonstate actors concerned with migration control, consulates and their officers, by delivering the Schengen visa, represent the state agencies that are expected to stem migration at source as well as to promote travel. Visa policy represents a strategic response to what Guiraudon and Joppke (2001) termed the ‘control dilemmas’ that contemporary liberal states face: Liberal legal norms constrain state capacity over migration control, populist politics create incentives for anti-immigration policies, and economic interests encourage policies facilitating the movement of desired wealthy travelers, highly skilled and unskilled workers. Visa policy is one ‘Europeanized’ instrument of a broad and old strategy that states adopt to respond to contemporary control dilemmas: remote control. Remote control is a notion that the historian Aristide Zolberg (1999) used to describe the arrangements that have an aim at controlling migration before the actual arrival on the territory of the USA notably carrier sanctions and the introduction of visa requirements. The Schengen visa regime can be therefore characterized as one of the key policy instruments of European remote control (Guiraudon 2003). In their pioneering study on the Schengen visa, Didier Bigo and Elspeth Guild (2003) brought more focus on security concerns underlining the construction of the Schengen visa regime and defined the Schengen visa as a strategy of ‘policing at a distance’ (police à distance). A strategy of policing at a distance relies on the identification and filtering of ‘risks’ before the actual arrival on the territory. The Schengen visa therefore acts as a ‘border made of paper’ (Bigo and Guild 2006). The border is activated according to the individuals. Elspeth Guild (2001, 13) characterized the Schengen approach as ‘moving the borders of sovereignty and the borders for persons’. The border is most activated where profiles defined as potential risks are most encountered. Collecting information, identifying, and categorizing are the main tasks whereby the bordering of Europe is carried out in Schengen consulates.

4  F. INFANTINO

The Bordering of Europe: A Comprehensive Implementation Perspective To study the bordering of Europe that is achieved via day-to-day visa issuing in consulates abroad, this book adopts the perspective of public policy implementation. In the vast literature that investigates the European integration, implementation tends to be understood in terms of the transposition of European directives (Sverdrup 2007; Falkner et al. 2008). This and other works look at the ways in which migration and border control are put into practice and argue that implementation is a relevant and distinct stage of policy-making that deserves analytical scrutiny (Jordan et al. 2003; Dörrenbächer and Mastenbroek 2017; Ellerman 2009; Eule et al. 2017). The study of this European policy tool—EU visa policy—follows the lines of those scholars that encourage research agendas concerned with the study of the European Union which focus on themes, theories, and modes of analysis derived from classical disciplines (Favell and Guiraudon 2011) and those scholars that attempt at normalizing the object ‘European public policies’ by mobilizing classical tools used for analyzing public policies (Hassenteufel and Surel 2000). This study is not just interested in the local/consular location of policy-making, but it also includes the national and supranational locations, although the analytical stance to study the bordering of Europe via EU visa policy is public policy implementation. Most of the literature on street-level implementation does not take into account multiple locations of policy-making in the same way. It is true that this case study is similar to the USA since there are EU official levels of decision-making, national, and consular/local. A parallel could be drawn with the context of the USA and the landmark 1973 study of Jeffrey Pressman and Aaron Wildavsky, Implementation, that was interested in the level of government from the federal to the state, to the local, to the private level notably the renegotiations in the passage from one level to another one and the impact of local politics and local private entrepreneurs. The authors know from the beginning that ‘decisions are dashed’. But they were interested in the moment of passage from one level to another rather than in what happens at the local levels. In the end, the book assesses the gap between policy promise and policy performance and concludes that government’s programs fail. This study understands street-level implementation as policy-making

INTRODUCTION 

5

therefore entailing a shift in focus toward the actors and the organizations on the ground. Such a definition of street-level implementation also encourages, on the one hand, the reappraisal of the so-called gap argument that assesses the mismatch between policy goals and policy outcomes and, on the other hand, the rethinking of the very idea of policy failure. The notion of implementation gap rests on the premise that a policy hierarchy exists, whereas critics of that approach highlight that policy-making is ubiquitous. If policies are remade at each stage of the policy process, then the gap will be somehow expected. Michael Lipsky’s seminal work, Street-Level Bureaucracies: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services, focuses on the bureaucratic agencies that deliver public services, the street-level bureaucracies, which are defined as ‘agencies whose workers interact with and have wide discretion over the dispensation of benefits and the allocation of public sanctions’ (Lipsky 1980, xi). As Lipsky (1980, 13) noted: ‘street-level bureaucrats make policy in two related respects. They exercise wide discretion in decisions about citizens with whom they interact. Then, when taken in concert, their individual actions add up to agency behavior. (…) The policy-making role of street-level bureaucrats is built upon two interrelated facets of their positions: relatively high degrees of discretion and relative autonomy from organizational authority’. Individuals taking discretionary decisions over the allocation of benefits or sanctions and having a relatively autonomous position in respect of the organization make policies, as their daily actions determine the nature, amounts, quality of benefits, and sanctions provided by public agencies. Street-level bureaucracies make policies as they effectively determine ‘who gets what, when, how’ (Lasswell 1936). The need to study the ‘black box’ of policy implementation per se opens the way toward empirical criticisms of the idea that policy fails and that the fault lies with bureaucrats. As Palumbo and Calista (1990, xiii) note: ‘(…) Implementation failure is more complex than just the result of bureaucratic incompetence. The behavior of bureaucrats must be understood as byproducts of the complex political, organizational, social, and economic context in which they work.’ Before digging further in organizational action, let us clarify some points on the relationship between policy-making from above and policy-making from below, the definition of policy goals and the shaping of policy outcomes. Implementation might be analyzed following the principal-agent model. In that view, information is key and the action of implementers (the agent) is understood according to the binary opposition of compliance or subversion.

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Evelyn Brodkin (2008, 320), scholar working on the implementation of welfare reforms in the USA, highlighted the paradoxical situation resulting from, on the one hand, the development of research on implementation focusing on the compliance toward legislative authority and, on the other hand, the development of research in political science finding that legislative policy-making did not represent a straightforward direction for action: ‘Both the literature on American legislative policymaking and ordinary experience indicates that policy is often replete with ambiguity, conflicting objectives, and uncertainty. Paradoxically, while the emerging field of implementation searched for bureaucratic deviance from legislative authority, political scientists were documenting and, at times, lamenting the failure of U.S. institutions to provide authoritative lawmaking.’ Political scientists have extensively documented that legislation and policies are very often ambiguous and vague, as they typically are the product of logrolling and compromise rather than authoritative decision-making. Applied to the legislative policy-making in the context of the European Union, such an argument does not lose its pertinence. On the contrary, European policy-making is the product of negotiations involving highly differentiated nation-states from which vague and ambiguous legislation result. Given that goals are ambiguous and policy-making at the level of policy design is far from authoritative, the compliance/subversion perspective as a guide for research shows its limit, for the underlying assumption that one might observe compliance or subversion only in relation to an unambiguous objective. In the context of France, the work of Vincent Dubois and Alexis Spire adds complexity to the relationship between policy goals and outcomes by insisting on the fact that policy objectives might not only be ambiguous or broadly worded but also symbolic or tacit. First of all, they call ‘politique des guichets’ or ‘politique du guichet’ the strategic use of bureaucratic means of policy-making.2 In his study about French prefectures allocating residence permits to foreigners, Spire (2008) defined the bureaucratic means of policy-making (politique des guichets) as the result of ‘trompe-l’œil policy’ (politique en trompe-l’œil). Governments make trompe-l’œil policies whenever they adopt repressive legislation that apparently respect fundamental rights but actually delegate to local administrations the duty of rendering those rights ineffective. 2 These scholars focus in particular on the bureaucratic encounter at the window (the guichet) as the locus to analyze policy implementation (see also Weller 1999).

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Dubois (2010) opposes to the notion of implementation gap the notion of implementation trick (ruse de la mise en œuvre). Implementation studies are not just about the mismatch between policy goals and policy outcomes. According to Dubois, the issues at stake are rather the statement of goals that are unachievable or the achievement of goals that are not stated as such. In his analysis of the implementation of welfare policies in France, Dubois (1999) highlighted that front-line workers appointed to allocate welfare benefits were actually making operational choices that provided practical responses to issues that the reform of the welfare policy did not treat explicitly or achieved policy goals that were not explicitly stated, like the reduction of the number of welfare benefits’ stakeholders. Front-line workers find themselves in the position of deciding on matters that were not solved or were impossible to solve at the level of policy design. Under these conditions, much policy-making is left in the remit of implementers as a result. Similarly, Brodkin (1990, 108) argued that ‘ambiguous policy is produced when politicians seek to avoid thorny political issues and, effectively, “pass the buck” to the bureaucracy’. This exploration of the bordering of Europe puts the actors and the organizations on the ground first. However, it analyzes street-level policy-making by looking at the interactions between local, national, and supranational locations of policy-making. Following the lines of the anthropological approach to public policy (Wedel et al. 2005), the book looks at the supranational locations of legislative design to shed light on the understandings of public policy questions, the controversies and the undecided issues, the broad wording of policy on paper. It looks to the ways in which street-level policy-making takes into account national and EU, legal and symbolic guidelines. In other words, the interest is in the sources of discretion and the ways in which discretion is used. Discretion and Policy-Making Social scientists think of discretion in terms of decision-making—the power to make decisions—that is inherent to the law enforcement and policy application processes. Discretion is not a synonym of arbitrariness. The tendency of thinking of discretion as an unauthorized space of rulemaking derives from both the classical Weberian understanding of bureaucracy and the conventional legal view of discretion. The recognition of discretion as an inevitable part of bureaucratic action departs

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from a Weberian view of bureaucracy according to which there is no need for discretion, as bureaucracies perform functions formalized in written rules. The conventional legal view of discretion identifies legal rules as the only meaningful constraint on discretion (Dicey 1915; Davis 1969). According to that view, the relationship between law and discretion is a zero-sum game. Sociologist Robert M. Emerson who has written extensively on ethnographic and field-research methods and has examined social control decision-making across a variety of settings has described the sharp dichotomy characterizing the relation between rules and discretion in the early scholarly analysis on discretion. Emerson and Paley (1992, 231) noted: ‘in this view discretion involves decisions that are unconstrained by rules, whether because rules do not apply, are vague or multiple. Nondiscretionary decisions, in contrast, are those that accord with (and presumably are determined and constrained by) rules’. The conventional legal view of discretion is encapsulated in the so-called doughnut analogy according to which ‘discretion, like the hole in a doughnut, does not exist except as an area left open by a surrounding belt of restriction’ (Dworkin 1977, 31). Social sciences have contributed to important developments in the analysis of discretion by focusing on ‘“extra-legal” or “non-legal” influences on discretionary decision-making in particular contexts’ (Pratt 1999, 203). Many studies carried out by social scientists and focusing on the actual implementation of programs and policies in different policy domains (Calavita 1992; Edelman 1990; Hawkins 2002) pointed out the ambiguous nature of law to emphasize the need for discretion as rules fail to specify instructions for their enforcement. In effect, the analysis of the legislative acts identifies the sources of discretion that stem from the legislation itself. As Brodkin (1987, 576) noted: ‘policy complexity provides a partial explanation for the wide range of bureaucratic discretion. It would be impossible to legislatively delineate policy in such detail that bureaucratic discretion could be eliminated. Nor might that be desirable with respect to flexibility and adaptiveness’. Lipsky (1980) also discusses one crucial reason for the existence of discretion: Agents in public services adapt general rules to the specific and individual cases that they face. The complexity of the bureaucracies’ task cannot be reduced to programmatic formats. Rules, guidelines, and instructions do not cover the variety of cases that street-level bureaucrats face. Vincent Dubois (2010, 275) encourages the development of the sociology of discretion given that ‘the uses of the room for maneuvering are neither good nor

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bad. They are phenomena to be established and be analyzed by building on empirical observations (my translation)’. Discretion as decision-making has been analyzed following a rational choice model, which is premised on the fundamental assumption that decisions are purposive choices made by informed, disinterested, and calculating actors working with a clear set of individual or organizational goals. Decision-making, in this view, is an intentional and consequential activity that a rational individual carries out. Rational choice models have received many critiques mainly for the assumption that goals are clearly stated and unambiguous and for the lack of attention to the social context in which decisions are made. As Keith Hawkins (1992, 22) noted, ‘It is often difficult to conceive legal decision or a legal institution as having a single or clear set of purposes; purposes are often confused, unknown, or disputed. Furthermore (according to rational choice model) decisions are seen as the work of autonomous individuals, exercising discretion unconstrained by colleagues or context.’ Hawkins (1992, 46) criticized the rational choice model for its normativity, as it describes how social reality should be: ‘it is often not clear whether the writing is descriptive of actual practice, or prescriptive of preferred practice.’ Rational choice models were used to investigate but also to predict behaviors. The first major alteration of this model occurred with the famous book of Herbert A. Simon (1947), Administrative Behavior, which modified the idea of rational choice suggesting that rationality was in fact bounded. Rational choice is limited by the capacity of decision makers to access and process relevant information. Because the rationality of decision makers is bounded by limited information, Simon has argued that the decision maker ‘satisfices’, that is, takes the first satisfactory solution encountered rather than the solution that corresponds to the optimum. A successive critique addressed to rational models from social psychologists (Nisbett and Ross 1980; Kahnemam et al. 1982) suggests that what is relevant information depends on the ways in which decision makers think about the issue. Therefore, even if information is available, it might not be considered to be relevant. The ways in which individuals assess the relevance of information depends on the understanding of the purposes of action. Information is relevant to a goal. The recognition of uncertainty of policy goals, purposes of legislation, and goals of the organization remains the most important critique of models premised on rational assumptions. As political scientist Martha S. Feldman who has worked

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on organizational decision-making put forward (1992, 172): ‘both goals and information may be ambiguous. That is, there may be many interpretations of what an organization or policy or law is trying to achieve and what information is relevant to these goals.’ The recognition of the ambiguity and competitiveness of goals allows for a consideration of the uses of discretion as an activity that lies at the very heart of the policy-making process. As Bell (1992, 96) noted, ‘discretion sometimes involves a decision about objectives, or the resolution of competing objectives – about, in the broadest sense, the making of policy.’ Accordingly, Hawkins (1992, 28) stated that ‘policy-making involves making decisions about the objectives and meaning of the law, and about how these ideas are to be shaped into strategies to permit their implementation. This is ‘the very heart of the discretionary process’ (Galligan 1986, 110)’. The power of agencies whose workers deliver policies lies precisely in their capacity of interpreting, and defining while interpreting, the objective of their action and, in turn, the objectives of policies. Not only managers through formal authority but also social limits are included in the analysis of the uses of discretion. As Feldman (1992, 172) puts forward, ‘If we take seriously the ambiguity of goals and information, we must also pay attention to the social context that promotes or inhibits differing understandings of the decision-making situation and the consequences of action.’ Locating the individuals in the organizations entails taking into account the context in which actions are embedded. According to Emerson and Paley (1992, 232), ‘context is not pre-given but is created by “filling in” relevant informational background and decision concerns’. Social interactions in the organizations make sense of action because these define the relevant information and the organizational concerns. Emerson (1983, 425) criticized the atomistic approach to social control decision-making by highlighting a holistic approach, as ‘agents process and respond to cases in relation to, or as part of, some larger, organizationally determined whole’. This study takes account of the organization as a whole by shedding light on background understandings and problem framing to untangle the implementation. The identification of meaningful problems affects the representations of the objective of individuals’ action (Manning and Hawkins 1990; Coburn 2006). Focusing on the organizations reveals the processes by which meaning emerges from social interactions. The study of the uses of discretion whereby policy is put into practice puts forward the operational meanings conveyed to broad regulations and abstract policies.

INTRODUCTION 

11

A Research Design for an Evolving Puzzle The visa policy is a communitarized policy domain which is regulated by hard law Council Regulations meaning directly binding and selfexecuting acts: Regulation listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement, Regulation laying down a uniform format for visa, and the most recent Regulation that came into effect on April 5, 2010, the Community Code on Visas,3 which establishes rules, conditions, and procedures for issuing visas. Visa policy understood as a European instrument of remote control strategy displaces migration control in countries of departure with an aim at filtering rather than blocking. EU visa policy implementation is investigated as the stage of the policy process in which outcomes are shaped and goals of visa policy are defined on the ground. Scholars have addressed and criticized the uniformity of EU visa policy as well as the very notion of ‘uniform Schengen visa’. Virginie Guiraudon (2003) put forward the desirability of discretion in implementation since the ‘Europeanization’ of remote control policy instruments needs not imply diminishing cross-national variation in the implementation process. By focusing in particular on the supporting documents that consulates require, Guiraudon (2003) substantiated the cross-national differences. Building on the accounts of visa applicants, Elena Jileva’s research in Sofia (2003) highlighted that cross-national differences remained quite significant. In their seminal study on the Schengen visa, Bigo and Guild (2003) claimed that to speak of a uniform visa is an abuse of language. From a legal point of view, the visa is not uniform because it does not ensure entry to the Schengen area: National border guards authorize entry. A traveler presenting a visa delivered by one Schengen State and crossing the Schengen border of another

3 Council Regulation (EC) No. 539/2001 of 15 March 2001 (OJ L 81/1 of 21 March 2001); Council Regulation (EC) No. 1683/95 of 29 May 1995 laying down a uniform format for visa (OJ L 164/2 of 14 July 95); Regulation (EC) No. 562/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code, OJ L 105 of 13 April 2006); Regulation (EC) No. 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code) (OJ L 243/1 of 15 September 2009).

12  F. INFANTINO

Schengen State might be denied access. In addition, the Schengen visa is not uniform because more than one type of Schengen visa exists—­airport transit visa, multiple entry visa, single entry visa, and collective visas. Bigo and Guild (2003) highlighted that the criteria to issue visas are the central elements that ensure the heterogeneity of consulates’ practices. Those studies put forward the cross-national differences in EU visa policy implementation without actually studying the inside of visa sections. The research strategy designed to carry out this study is comparative precisely because the research questions focus on the factors that account for cross-national differences. In order to provide insights into the factors of differentiation of day-to-day visa policy implementation practices, this study focuses on the comparative analysis of the consulates of three Schengen States (the consulates of Belgium, France, and Italy) that are located in a same third country (Morocco, Casablanca). The research design has determined the initial research questions: How is a European common instrument of migration/border control implemented by national bureaucracies? What does migratory ‘risk’ actually mean? To what extent do the outcomes of European bordering policy shift? Who gets in, how, why? Why do the outcomes shift? The comparative research design and the research questions that it allows to answer distinguish this study from others (Satzewich 2015; Scheel 2017; Spire 2008; Alpes and Spire 2014; Zampagni 2013) that have also focused on the implementation of visa policies. Comparative studies on implementation tend to focus on agencies from several departments within the same state (Grattet and Jenness 2005). This comparative analysis privileges a case-oriented approach rather than variable-oriented research. It aims at rich descriptions and does not establish relationships between variables (Della Porta 2008, 198): This is a small-N comparison based on three cases that are studied in depth, mainly through ethnographic immersion in the social worlds of those actors and organizations appointed to implement visa policy. The sensitivity of the fieldwork settings requires a series of methodological considerations about access, collection, and exploitation of data that are examined in the methodology (Appendix A), in which details are also given on the sources of the empirical part of the research. However, two considerations deserve mention here: First, the comprehensive implementation perspective discussed above requires a research strategy that follows the locations of EU visa policy policy-making, from the consular/local to the national and

INTRODUCTION 

13

supranational. I have conducted participant observations in the consulates general of Belgium, France, and Italy in Casablanca for ten months, interviews in the national ministries that are in charge of visa policy and in the visa unit of the European Commission. The research strategy allows for putting forward EU and national, legal, and symbolic guidelines and the ways in which local, national, and supranational locations are connected. To assess the sources of discretion and the national and supranational understandings of visa policy, I used interviews of key informants about the legislative processes. I also used documents, archives, and minutes of European Parliament debates. I analyzed the legislative documents in light of actual practice and using an anthropological approach that is interested in de-masking the framing of public policy questions (Wedel et al. 2005). Second, the condition of openness to the unanticipated that, according to sociologist Howard Becker, makes the epistemological distinctness of qualitative research has determined the evolution of the puzzle. According to Becker (1996, 55), ‘the situations of data gathering present fieldworkers, whether they seek it or not, with a lot of information, whether they want it or not. If you do a survey, you know in advance all the information you can acquire. There may be some surprises in the connections between the items you measure, but there will not be any surprise data, things you didn’t ask about but were told anyway’. In effect, after the first field research in the three visa sections I started to observe similarities in practice that were unexpected in light of all the differences that I had observed. I started to realize the unanticipated: The issue of knowledge sharing and transfer of policy practice were central. Getting into these fieldwork settings modified the research questions. The puzzle shifted throughout the fieldwork. It was counterintuitive to observe continuities rather than discontinuities. The comparative research design and the qualitative approach contributed to shifting the focus of this research from an international comparison, interested in unraveling the determinants of cross-national differences, to a ‘transnational comparison’ (Hassenteufel 2005) interested in unraveling the ways in which elements of policies are transferred, who are the actors operating the transfer and what are the motivations underlining the transfer. The unanticipated and additional research questions that have emerged during the fieldwork are: How does visa policy change at the street-level? What is the process whereby knowledge is shared? What are the effects of knowledge sharing on visa policy on the ground?

14  F. INFANTINO

Before turning to the main findings of this study and the outline of the book, the next section briefly considers the criteria used to select the comparative case study. The Selection of the Comparative Case Study The research focuses on the implementation of EU visa policy in the consulates of Belgium, France, and Italy in a same third country, which is Morocco. Morocco meets the criteria that were necessary to carry out the research. To question the issuance of the Schengen visa as migration and border control, the third country should be a migrant-sending country. Migratory movements between Morocco and Europe make Morocco ‘risky’. In a country considered to be a migratory ‘risk’ for Europe, the bureaucratic enactment of remote control is a salient feature. Therefore, the case study has not been chosen according to the criterion of the largest number of issued visas. Russia is the third country in which the largest numbers of Schengen visas are issued. However, Russia is not considered to be posing a migratory problem to Europe as Morocco does. ‘Russian’ visas are particularly interesting for reasons of tourism. Because of the comparative design of this research, the migrant-sending country should be a country whose nationals are established in more than one European Member State. This is the case for Turkey and Morocco. Turkey was not selected for several reasons: Turkish immigrants are represented in their largest numbers in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, which are all old immigration countries. These countries are also four out of the five original Schengen Contracting Parties that have participated in the definition of the original Schengen visa policy. Furthermore, Germany and the Netherlands could not be selected for feasibility issues, as I do not speak either German or Dutch. Moroccan immigrants are established in old northern immigration countries but also in southern immigration countries such as Italy and Spain. Table 1 shows the evolution of the stock of Moroccan immigrants in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Spain from 1968 to 2012. The case of Morocco permits to compare the visa policy implementation practices of ‘old’ and ‘new’ immigration countries, original Schengen Contracting Parties and countries that joined the Schengen process afterward. The largest number of Moroccan immigrants is

INTRODUCTION 

15

Table 1  Evolution of Moroccan-origin populations (registered population, possessing Moroccan citizenship, including second and third generations), 1968–2012

1968 1975 1990 2005 2012

France

Netherlands

Belgium

Germany

Spain

Italy

84,000 260,000 653,000 1,025,000   (2002) 1,147,000

13,000 33,000 184,000 316,000  (2002) 363,000

21,000 66,000 138,000 214,000  (2002) 298,000

18,000 26,000 62,000 73,000  (2004) 127,000

1000 9000 59,000 397,000

NA NA 78,000 253,000  (2004) 487,000

672,000

Source Hein de Haas, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/morocco-setting-stage-becomingmigration-transition-country

established in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and Italy. Among these European Member States, Spain and the Netherlands have not been selected because of feasibility issues: I do not speak either Dutch or Spanish. Also, the Netherlands issues visas in the embassy located in Rabat whereas France, Belgium, Spain, and Italy have a consulate general in Casablanca. The fieldwork setting would have been distinct as the hierarchical organization of visa sections in an embassy is different (the consul general does not exist for instance), and visas are not the core business of embassies. Therefore, the European countries selected are France, Belgium, and Italy. Compared to Belgium and France, Italy is a new immigration country. Colonization has not represented a major influence in establishing initial migration itineraries. Immigration in Italy was not started through programs for the recruitment of foreign workers. I use the term ‘new’ immigration country in relative terms. Since immigration in Italy has existed long before 1973, the absolute novelty of immigration in Italy has been criticized (Colombo and Sciortino 2004). The data about foreign-born populations by country of birth show that Morocco-born populations are a significant share of the foreign population in Belgium, France, and Italy. From 2009 to 2017, they are the first group of non-EU immigrants in Belgium, the second in both France (data available up to 2013) and Italy.4 4 Source: International Migration Outlook 2018, OECD Network of International Migration Experts, formerly SOPEMI, https://doi.org/10.1787/migr_outlook-2018-en.

16  F. INFANTINO Table 2  Rates of non-issued short-stay visas out of visas applied for (consulate general of Belgium, France, and Italy in Casablanca, 2009–2017)

2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017

Belgium (%)

France (%)

Italy (%)

36.8 39.7 42.1 43 42.9 39.5 42.8 43.5 41.5

8.9 7 8 9.2 7.9 6.2 5.9 5 5.6

26.5 28.4 23 24.7 21.2 18.6 21.7 19.1 29.5

Author elaboration based on the ‘Complete statistics on short-stay visas issued by the Schengen States’, https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/visa-policy_en

The refusal rates of short-stay visas for Belgium, France, and Italy in Casablanca shift considerably, as Table 2 shows. The statistical differences between the refusal rates suggest that these three Schengen States provided a suitable case to investigate comparatively the filtering work of national bureaucracies in Morocco.

Contributions of the Comprehensive and Comparative Implementation Approach The comprehensive and comparative implementation perspective puts forward a series of counterintuitive findings that shed light on the black box of EU visa policy implementation as well as on the policy transfer at the street-level of policy-making that I term ‘transnational policy-­making from below’. Claims about arbitrariness of implementation practices should be nuanced since the research puts forward that the individual bias might exist, but organizational action in visa sections builds on routines whereas decision-making on visa sections uses categorizations that are organizationally grounded. Thus, the analysis shows that although a common and binding legal framework exists, cross-national variations in the domain of visa policy implementation persist. Such a finding is not counterintuitive, as theories predict it most notably the burgeoning literature of comparative policy studies, which is interested in policy change but has mainly focused on the limits to change and follow the lines of

INTRODUCTION 

17

the ‘new institutionalism’ approach (Evans et al. 1985). New institutionalism seeks to elucidate the role that institutions play in the determination of social and political outcomes. The findings of this study adopt the perspective of path dependency and policy legacies (Brubaker 1992; Pierson 2000). History matters, and therefore, one cannot expect different countries to interpret, translate, and reappropriate EU legislation in the same ways. The study proposes elements that limit change in visa policy implementation such as the history of bilateral relations and migratory movements, historically rooted understandings of the issues at stake, and organizational conditions. There is a vast literature under the label of ‘Europeanization’ (Graziano and Vink 2007; Radaelli 2002) that focuses on how the decisions are reached in Brussels and whether Member States then comply with EU laws. This literature seems relevant to this study since it analyzes policy implementation of EU/EC regulation. Most scholars predict divergence in implementation even though they disagree on the sources driving divergence. This literature focuses on the legal-political aspects of policy-making and offers typologies of Member States, different ‘worlds of compliance’ (Falkner and Treib 2008), and seeks to identify factors that explain differences in the implementation of EU legislation, administrative cultures for instance (Héritier et al. 2001). An analytical perspective that focuses on the actors and the organizations that make policies through their daily work routines and using a cross-national comparative design allows for observing processes of transfer at the level of street-level policy-making which challenge the theoretical predictions regarding the observation of divergences. Convergence has been predicted but at the level of cognitive dimensions (Bennet 1991). This study does not reject that argument: The objective of visa policy as the assessment of migratory and security risks is set by the common legal framework and suggests the purposes to which daily action is bent, i.e., assessing the migratory risk. Nevertheless, a street-level body of research and qualitative fieldwork show that visa policy implementation practices cannot be fully understood only by considering the definition of policy goals, which are also broadly worded. On the contrary, observing the local level of policy-making has allowed for shedding light on how implementers make policies in their own terms and for making a counterintuitive argument: This study argues that whether similarities in practice are observed, those are the outcome of processes of transfer at the street-level of EU visa policy policy-making.

18  F. INFANTINO

The street-level view of EU visa policy reveals that bureaucratic action is aimed at stemming potential lawful migration. That is a practical meaning of the migratory ‘risk’. This finding contradicts the existing literature that claims that the objective of visa policy and migration control is stemming irregular migration (Rea 2009; Schain 2008 in regard to France in particular). Also Bigo and Guild (2003) have stated that the key of the Schengen system lies in the identification and prevention of threats that come from the outside, among which illegal immigration is seen as a priority. The organizations of policy implementation are actually much more concerned with managing the potential use of ‘juridical capital’ owned by certain candidates to mobility. Drawing on Bourdieu’s (1984) definition of social capital, the juridical capital can be characterized as the ability of mobilizing laws and if necessary courts and jurisprudence, to obtain the right to residency, nationality, to marry somebody, and/or to enjoy welfare benefits in a foreign country. The unwritten profiles of the risk of lawful settlement and the know-how about ways to detect them are actually converging. Thus, the targets of the filtering work of borders that is achieved via visa issuing become more and more similar. Visa policy can therefore be characterized as a response to control dilemmas (Guiraudon and Joppke 2001) through which decision-making is devolved to externalized local authorities in order to stem regular migration. This argument reinforces the argument made by Guiraudon (2000) on the ‘venue shopping’: Local and externalized authorities are strategic venues for short-circuiting judicial constraints, by pre-empting the arrival of migrants on the territory because on the territory they could claim for judicial protection. In these distinct national consulates, bureaucratic action converges on one element in particular, which is pro-activity. Bureaucratic action is intended at managing the future and pre-empting potential behaviors. It has an aim at preventing regular migration from happening. Unlike migration policy formation, the implementation of migration policy is not influenced by the ‘bureaucratic belief’ that Stephen Castles (2004, 35) defined as ‘the belief that regulations designed to categorize migrants and to regulate their admission and residence effectively shapes aggregate behavior’. On the contrary, implementers are well aware that visa applicants do not do what regulations dictate: Visa applicants could stay in the country of destination. Part of the action they take is aimed at effectively shaping the potential behaviors of visa applicants, which is why

INTRODUCTION 

19

a criterion for visa denial is the suspicion of using welfare benefits or settlement by using regulations concerning admission and residence once in the territory of the Schengen State, even though all that is lawful. The reversing of the analytical perspective from policy design to policy implementation highlights processes of transfers that lead to similarities in practices and convergence on the understandings of risks. The process is the exchange of knowledge about how to put visa policy into practice among implementers of distinct nation-states that the adoption of a common policy has transformed into a ‘community of practice’ (Wenger 1998). Informal exchange among the local community of practice is the process whereby learning occurs and triggers policy change from below that challenges the national paths of organizational action. In terms of decision-making on visa applications and the very outcome of the bordering policy, this study reveals similarities in the operational meanings that daily work routines give to the vague notion of migratory risk as well as similarities in profiles and features to detect profiles. The operational yet similar meanings of the migratory risk are the risk of lawful settlement and the risk for the welfare state. That is the outcome of Italian actors who adopt frames and know-how. The observation of continuities in practices is counterintuitive in light of theories such as worlds of compliance (Falkner et al. 2008) and other hypotheses about Europeanization (see, e.g., Duina 1997, 1999; Duina and Blithe 1999; Knill and Lenschow 1998, 2000; Börzel and Risse 2000), which predict divergence instead. This study shows that Italy is changing more than Belgium and France, as the point of departure is differentiated. The European visa regime has been analyzed as a policy instrument of remote control strategy. Nevertheless, the comparative analysis reveals that, historically, remote control is not an objective of Italian visa policy. Regulatory and institutional traditions reflect the lack of importance attached to visa policy as an instrument of migration control. The common visa policy and the understandings of migratory risk as a risk of lawful settlement are more familiar to France and Belgium, which were part of the original Schengen States. The EU visa policy builds on the original Schengen process. Italian state actors are more eager to learn from the old immigration countries to conform to ‘European’ norms, which are norms derived from the original Schengen process.

20  F. INFANTINO

One of the dominant hypotheses about Europeanization points to the degree of fit or misfit between European rules and existing institutional and regulatory traditions as one of the central factors determining implementation performance (see, e.g., Duina 1997, 1999; Duina and Blithe 1999; Knill and Lenschow 1998, 2000; Börzel and Risse 2000). This hypothesis would predict an opposite finding, as the existing institutional and regulatory traditions of Italy are more divergent from the model represented by the common visa policy, focused on pre-­emptive risk management, i.e., visa policy as remote control. As Guiraudon (2007, 303) has noted in the context of anti-discrimination policy, ‘the Europeanization literature that relies on the notion of “goodness of fit” overlooks cases where the fit is a priori “good”’. This comparative analysis puts forward a very similar argument, since the original Schengen process has become the model of EU visa policy. Furthermore, this analysis reveals that Italy, a country considered to pertain to the ‘world of neglect’ or ‘world of dead letters’ according to the typologies of compliance that Falkner and Treib (2008) have defined, does not fit in those typologies, when it comes to taking into account the day-to-day practices that put EU law into action. Falkner and Treib (2008) locate Italy in the world of dead letters because ‘what is written on the statute books simply does not become effective in practice’. EU law provisions become effective in practice provided that law is extremely precise. We will see that EU law (the Visa Code) is vague most notably when it comes to the assessment of the migratory ‘risk’. Therefore, what is written on statute books cannot become effective in practice unless it is translated into practical meanings. That is valid for Italy (and the other countries of the world of dead letters) as for any other European Member State. Italy has been also considered to pertain to a group of countries which neglect EU obligations, whereas gathering in communities of practice to learn how to assess the migratory risk reveals a concern about EU obligations. As Italy is changing most, because it is adopting novel work routines and a novel meaning of the migratory ‘risk’, one cannot argue that it is neglecting EU obligations. The convergence of operational meanings of migratory ‘risk’ is not due to compliance with the European legislative framework since the European legal framework is vague and ambiguous. That is the outcome of dynamics that occur within the frame of street-level implementation.

INTRODUCTION 

21

The model of compliance or subversion to law that is used to study the implementation of European legal frameworks (Falkner et al. 2008) shows its limits, as it is premised on the assumption that law is unambiguous. The comparative street-level view of EU visa policy shows that the operational meanings of migratory risk are actually converging through processes of implementers’ knowledge sharing. In light of vague legislation, it would be misleading to treat this finding in terms of compliance to law.

The Outline of the Book This book is divided into two parts that follow Schengen visa policymaking. It starts with “Texts and Contexts” (Part I) that draw the big picture and set the stage for the journey into the consulates in Morocco and the analysis of “Bordering in Practice” (Part II). There are EU texts and national contexts: Do they matter and how? To understand Schengen visa implementation at the ‘street-level’, we need to analyze the texts and contexts at the macro-level that might inform mid-level of organizations and micro-level decisions. In the case at hand, this implies an analysis of Schengen and EU legislation and ‘soft law’ to see how they address uniform application as an objective and allow for discretion in local decision-making. Part I, “Texts and Contexts”, addresses the texts, by looking at the making of the Schengen visa legal framework, as well as the contexts, both the local context in which Schengen visa implementation is carried out—Morocco—and the national contexts in which each consulate operates. The Chapter “Schengen Visa Policy-Making: Shifting Competence While Authorizing Discretion” assesses whether EU law is precise and clear enough to prevent divergence in implementation and reveals that the model of EU visa policy derives from the original Schengen States. The Chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third Country’ but Three National Contexts” traces the historical relations between Morocco and the three Schengen States that are to apply Schengen visa rules and shows the historical foundations of shifting implementation contexts. The Chapter “The National Sense Making of EU Visa Policy” reveals the different and historically rooted understandings of visa policy in the Belgian, French, and Italian contexts. In sum, Part I focuses on the factors that account for cross-national variations.

22  F. INFANTINO

The Chapter “Schengen Visa Policy-Making: Shifting Competence While Authorizing Discretion” tackles the origins of the EU visa policy legal framework and the process of legislative policy-making. It addresses the ambiguity of law and the factors specific to the process of outlining EU visa policy that have played a role in the vagueness of legislation and constitute sources of discretion. It shows that EU visa policy goals are inherently ambiguous: Visa policy aims at reducing national discretion while authorizing national discretion. The Schengen visa authorizes entry and circulation within the Schengen area, but national consulates deliver it. The functioning of this policy domain is based on mutual (dis) trust among states, which represents an incentive to foster a uniform application of regulations. Nevertheless, issuing visas is a discretionary activity at the core of each state’s sovereignty. Cross-national variations are therefore inherent in the construction of common visa policy. The chapter sheds light on the constitution of EU visa policy by focusing on its ‘original sin’: The process whereby the removal of the interstate frontiers of the European Union has been associated to the internal security deficit. It shows what is novel and what is old in the current legal framework notably the continuities with the original Schengen process concerning the security aspects of EU visa policy. Ideas about ‘risks’ and operational instructions (the Visa Code and the Handbooks) draw on the know-how and notions of the original Schengen States including Belgium and France. The chapter addresses the novel elements that characterize the formulation of EU visa policy notably the ‘friendly and unified Europe’ frame that stems from the shifting of competence to novel institutional players in visa policy legislative policy-making. The Chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third Country’ but Three National Contexts” addresses the local context on which this study focuses, Morocco, and asks a relatively simple question: Is a same foreign country a same local context? Although Belgium, France, and Italy implement visa policy in a same country, the context is differentiated. Contexts stem from the history of bilateral relations, migratory movements, and visa introduction. The colonial past and old, interdependent migratory movements characterize the case of France. The need of workforce prompts migration to Belgium in the 1960s. Moroccans migrating to Italy in the 1990s replace Italian emigration to Morocco. In the 1980s, Belgium and France introduced visa requirements to control migration. Because visa introduction in ex-colonies is sensitive, France uses the disembarkation card and the certificate of lodging as bureaucratic means to

INTRODUCTION 

23

control migration until the political opportunity of requiring visas arises. Italy has never used visa policy as an external mechanism of immigration control and, in the 1990s, introduced visa requirements to several countries to comply with European norms. The characteristics of contemporary visa applicants vary considerably, as a result of history. Building on consular statistics, the chapter shows differences in terms of volumes, rates of short-stay and long-stay visas applied for, refusal rates, travel purposes, and the challenges in using visa statistics for comparisons. History is a relevant factor explaining the persistence of cross-national variations, as it informs shared models of thinking guiding action, which the next chapter addresses. The Chapter “The National Sense Making of EU Visa Policy” tackles the shared understandings of what visa policy should do and the issues at stake for implementing visa policy in Morocco. Civil servants share narratives that convey sense to visa policy on the ground, by suggesting the issues at stake in delivering visas and what visa policy should do, and to officers’ work, by suggesting the purposes to which their daily action is bent. Narratives place current action in a series of past events. Thus, history differentiates contexts also from the point of view of the sense attributed to EU visa policy. National understandings persist although EU visa policy. Thus, the understandings of visa policy in Morocco shift considerably. According to Belgium, visa policy is ‘sensitive migration control’. According to Italy, it is ‘scorned migration control’. According to France, it is ‘migration control and diplomacy’. Narratives also portray Moroccan applicants therefore nourishing very different subjective representations of the policy recipients. To Belgium, France, and Italy, respectively, Moroccan applicants are ‘networked’, ‘demanding and clientes’, and ‘wrong’. Part II focuses on “Bordering in Practice” by bringing more focus on the national organizational conditions in which EU visa policy is day-today implemented, the managers and workers, the allocation of tasks, the nature of the work in visa sections, the ways in which decision-making on applications is carried out, and the practical meanings of the migratory ‘risk’. Part II highlights the national paths and the similarities in practices and the processes whereby visa policy change from below—the transfer of policy practice that I term as “Transnational Policy-Making from Below”. The Chapter “The Politics of Management” examines the management of visa policy implementation in light of the national sense-making of visa

24  F. INFANTINO

policy. State-bound agendas and diplomatic concerns inform the management of the visa application process, which is not merely the realm of technicalities. History affects the ways in which consulate premises materialize Belgian, French, and Italian sovereignty. The cross-national differences in the visa application process can be understood only if one considers that process to be ‘street-level diplomacy’. The chapter illuminates the national organizational conditions in which EU visa policy is implemented and brings insights that nuance the claims about the externalization of migration control via EU visa policy mainly because the Ministry of the Interior is active in various visa processes. Taking account of the humans and non-humans involved in visa-examining processes is a first necessary step toward the comparative analysis of day-to-day implementation practice. The different uses of non-humans (Schengen and national technological toolboxes) are particularly effective at showing the different understandings of decision-making as a more or less objectivized process. There exist also different understandings of the aims ascribed to the same Schengen technological tool (the Schengen Information System, the Visa Information System, the emails sent within the frame of local Schengen cooperation). The Chapter “Policy Work in Visa Sections” focuses on how visa sections actually work. The chapter focuses on the workplace, the trajectories and the social construction of the reputation of workers, the allocation of tasks, the knowledge required to perform the job, and the conditions underlining the making of routines. I use the notion of local and practical knowledge because it is the kind of knowledge that allows for carrying out day-to-day EU visa policy implementation. The chapter highlights the modes of organizational action—routines—and focuses on the organizational conditions and the nature of the work in visa sections that account for the making of routines most notably staff turnover, knowledge required, uncertainty, supervisory authority, and social limits to the uses of discretion. Similarities can be found in the skills required to perform the job and skills-learning processes. In the three visa sections, hierarchies, responsibilities, and tasks do not necessarily overlap. Differences emerge in the ways in which the problem of making decisions is framed within the three national organizations. Understanding how visa sections work is preparatory to tackle the content of that endeavor that shapes the visa policy outcomes namely decision-making on Schengen visa applications, which is the topic I turn on in next chapter.

INTRODUCTION 

25

The Chapter “The Making of Decisions” addresses the key task of bordering policy namely decision-making on Schengen visa applications. The chapter highlights decision-making as an organizational process of categorization with shifting empirical appropriateness and examines the decision-making process and its outcomes for Belgium, France, and Italy. I show the negative categories and the features that fall in categories country-by-country. State-bound concerns and purposes underline divergences in decision-making. Notions that pre-exist the communitarized legal framework namely the ‘risk of procedure circumventing’ and the ‘risk of circumventing the purpose of the visa’ inform organizational action for Belgium and France whereas those notions are absent in the Italian case. Although national paths of organizational action, the analysis reveals that the operational meaning of the migratory risk as the risk of lawful settlements and its specifications converge such as the risk of applying for residence permits, the risk of marriage, and the risk for the welfare state. The targets of EU visa policy’s filtering work become more and more similar most notably because the Italian organization adopts understandings and know-how that are out-of-context and more familiar to Belgium and France. Given that a same legal framework cannot explain similarities in practice, one element remains to be questioned: The process whereby such policy change from below occurs. That is the topic of the next chapter. The Chapter “Transnational Policy-Making from Below” discusses the contribution of this study on policy transfer and policy change at the street-level of the implementation. It highlights practical and local knowledge sharing within the local ‘community of practice’ (Wenger 1998) as an overlooked element that shapes policy-making on the ground and triggers change in policy practice. The chapter analyzes the birth of a local community of practice by shedding light on the reasons for seeking for colleagues from other national consulates to address concerns related to the day-to-day implementation namely concerns related to the management of the visa application process and border control. I show that the community of practice is also activated in a domain of national regulations such as the control of ‘fake’ marriages. The chapter continues by addressing the ways in which implementers engage in interactions to learn ‘how the others do’ and the preference toward informal rather than formal settings. The chapter concludes with the discussion of the notion of “Transnational Policy-Making from Below” that

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is intended to describe the nexus that exists between learning of implementers and transfer of policy practice. The “Conclusions” trace the lessons from the ‘black box’ of EU visa policy implementation about the ways in which decision-making is carried out, its outcomes as well as the transnational influences on organizational action. I also discuss the contribution of the comprehensive implementation approach to the analysis of consular/local policy-making. Then, the conclusions address the perspectives for future research on EU visa policy in other contexts than Morocco, the archeology of the migratory ‘risk’ and, most importantly, the relation between knowledge of implementing personnel, communities of practice that extend across the boundaries of national organizations, and policy-making on the ground in the domain of migration and border control and beyond.

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28  F. INFANTINO Duina, F., & Blithe, F. (1999). Nations-States and Common Markets: The Institutional Conditions for Acceptance. Review of International Political Economy, 6(4), 494–530. Dworkin, R. (1977). Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Edelman, L. B. (1990). Legal Environments and Organizational Governance: The Expansion of Due Process in American Workplace. American Journal of Sociology, 95(6), 1401–1440. Ellerman, A. (2009). States Against Migrants: Deportation in Germany and the US. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Emerson, R. (1983). Holistic Effects in Social Control Decision-Making. Law and Society Review, 17, 425–455. Emerson, R., & Paley, B. (1992). Organizational Horizons and ComplaintFiling. In K. Hawkins (Ed.), The Uses of Discretion (pp. 231–247). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eule, T. G., Loher, D., & Wyss, A. (2017). Contested Control at the Margins of the State. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(16), 2717–2729. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2017.1401511. Evans, P. B., Rueschemeyer, D., & Skocpol, T. (Eds.). (1985). Bringing the State Back In. New York: Cambridge University Press. Falkner, G., & Treib, O. (2008). Three Worlds of Compliance or Four? The EU-15 Compared to New Member States. Journal of Common Market Studies, 46(2), 293–313. Falkner, G., Treib, O., & Holzleithner, E. (Eds.). (2008). Compliance in the Enlarged Europe: A World of Dead Letters? Aldershot: Ashgate. Favell, A., & Guiraudon, V. (2011). Sociology of European Union. London: Palgrave. Feldman, M. S. (1992). Social Limits to Discretion: An Organizational Perspective. In K. Hawkins (Ed.), The Uses of Discretion (pp. 163–183). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Galligan, D. J. (1986). Discretionary Powers: A Legal Study of Official Discretion. Oxford: Clarendon. Grattet, R., & Jenness, V. (2005). The Reconstitution of Law in Local Settings: Agency Discretion, Ambiguity, and a Surplus of Law in the Policing of Hate Crime. Law & Society Review, 39(4), 893–942. Graziano, P., & Vink, M. (Eds.). (2007). Europeanization: New Research Agendas. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Guild, E. (2001). Moving the Borders of Europe. Inaugural Lecture, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. https://cmr.jur.ru.nl/cmr/docs/oratie.eg.pdf. Accessed 15 February 2018.

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Guiraudon, V. (2000), European Integration and Migration Policy: Vertical Policy‐making as Venue Shopping. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 38, 251–271. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5965.00219. Guiraudon, V. (2003). Before the EU Border: Remote Control of the “Huddled Masses”. In K. Groenendijk, E. Guild, & P. Minderhoud (Eds.), In Search of Europe’s Borders (pp. 191–214). The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Guiraudon, V. (2007). Anti-discrimination Policy. In P. Graziano & M. Vink (Eds.), Europeanization: A Handbook for a New Research Agenda (pp. 295–308). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Guiraudon, V., & Joppke, C. (Eds.). (2001). Controlling a New Migration World. New York: Routledge. Guiraudon, V., & Lahav, G. (2000). A Reappraisal of the State Sovereignty Debate Revisited: The Case of Migration Control. Comparative Political Studies, 33(2), 163–195. Hassenteufel, P. (2005). De la comparaison internationale à la comparaison transnationale. Les déplacements de la construction d’objets comparatifs en matière de politiques publiques. Revue française de science politique, 55(1), 113–132. Hassenteufel, P., & Surel, Y. (2000). Des politiques comme les autres? Construction de l’objet et outils d’analyse des politiques européennes. Politiques européennes, 1, 8–24. Hawkins, K. (1992). The Use of the Legal Discretion: Perspectives from Law and Social Science. In K. Hawkins (Ed.), The Uses of Discretion (pp. 11–46). New York: Oxford University Press. Hawkins, K. (2002). Law as a Last Resort: Prosecution Decision-Making in a Regulatory Agency. New York: Oxford University Press. Héritier, A., Kerwer, D., Knill, C., Lehmkuhl, D., & Teutsch, M. (2001). Differential Europe: The European Union Impact on National Policymaking. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Herzfeld, M. (1992). The Social Production of Indifference: Exploring the Symbolic Roots of Western Bureaucracies. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Jileva, E. (2003). La mise en œuvre de Schengen: la délivrance des visas en Bulgarie. In D. Bigo & E. Guild (Eds.), La mise à l’écart des étrangers: les effets du visa Schengen (pp. 42–59). Paris: L’Harmattan. Jordan, B., Stråth, B., & Triandafyllidou, A. (2003). Contextualising Immigration Policy Implementation in Europe. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 29(2), 195–224. Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (1982). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. New York: Cambridge University Press. Knill, C., & Lenschow, A. (1998). Change as Appropriate Adaptation: Administrative Adjustment to European Environmental Policy in Britain and Germany. European Integration Online Papers (EIoP), 2(1). https://kops.

30  F. INFANTINO uni-konstanz.de/bitstream/handle/123456789/26717/Knill_267176. pdf?sequence=2. Accessed 15 February 2018. Knill, C., & Lenschow, A. (Eds.). (2000). Implementing EU Environmental Policy: New Directions and Old Problems. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Lasswell, H. D. (1936). Politics: Who Gets What, When, How. New York: Whittlesey House. Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-Level Bureaucracy. Dilemmas of Individuals in Public Services. New York: Russel Sage Foundation. Manning, P. K., & Hawkins, K. (1990). Legal Decision: A Frame Analytic Perspective. In M. Weatheritt (Ed.), Policy Research: Where Now? (pp. 139–156). Farnborough: Gower. Nisbett, R. E., & Ross, L. (1980). Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Palumbo, D. J., & Calista, D. J. (1990). Opening Up the Black Box: Implementation and the Policy Process. In D. J. Palumbo & D. J. Calista (Eds.), Implementation and the Policy Process: Opening Up the Black Box (pp. 3–18). New York: Greenwood Press. Pierson, P. (2000). Increasing Returns, Path Dependence, and Study of Politics. American Political Science Review, 94(2), 251–267. Pratt, A. C. (1999). Dunking the Doughnut: Discretionary Power, Law and the Administration of the Canadian Immigration Act. Social & Legal Studies, 8(2), 199–226. Pressman, J. L., & Wildavsky, A. (1984). Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland: Or, Why It’s Amazing That Federal Programs Work at All, This Being a Saga of the Economic Development Administration as Told by Two Sympathetic Observers Who Seek to Build Morals on a Foundation of Ruined Hopes. Oakland: University of California Press. Radaelli, C. (2002). The Domestic Impact of European Union Public Policy: Notes on Concepts, Methods, and Challenge of Empirical Research. Politique européenne, 1(5), 107–142. Rea, A. (2009). Laisser circuler, laisser enfermer: les orientations paradoxales d’une politique migratoire débridée en Europe. In C. Kobelinsky & S. Makaremi (Eds.), Enfermés dehors: Enquête sur le confinement des étrangers (pp. 265–280). Paris: Editions du Croquant. Satzewich, V. (2015). Points of Entry: How Canada’s Immigration Officers Decide Who Gets In. Toronto: UBC Press. Schain, M. (2008). The Politics of Immigration in France, Britain, and the United States: A Comparative Study. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Scheel, S. (2017). Real Fake? Appropriating Mobility Via Schengen Visa in the Context of Biometric Border Controls. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183x.2017.1401513.

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Simon, H. A. (1947). Administrative Behavior: A Study of Decision-Making Processes in Administrative Organization. New York: Free Press. Spire, A. (2008). Accueillir ou reconduire. Enquête sur les guichets de l’immigration. Paris: Raisons d’Agir, Seuil. Sverdrup, U. (2007). Policy Implementation. In P. Graziano & M. Vink (Eds.), Europeanization: A Handbook for a New Research Agenda (pp. 197–211). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Torpey, J. (2000). The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wedel, J. R., Shore, C., Feldman, G., & Lathrop, S. (2005). Toward an Anthropology of Public Policy. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 600(1), 30–51. Weller, J. M. (1999). L’État au guichet: sociologie cognitive du travail et modernisation administrative des services publics. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zampagni, F. (2013). Who Moves? Schengen Visa Policies and Implementation in Consulates. A Fieldwork Study from the Embassy of Italy in Senegal (PhD dissertation). Università di Pisa. Zolberg, A. (1999). Matters of State: Theorizing Immigration Policy. In C. Hirschman, P. Kasinitz, & J. DeWind (Eds.), The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience (pp. 71–93). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

PART I

Texts and Contexts

Schengen Visa Policy-Making: Shifting Competence While Authorizing Discretion

This chapter focuses on the most recent developments whereby all aspects of visa policy are adopted following Community decisionmaking rules. The first ‘communitarized’ elements are the list of countries whose nationals are submitted to visa requirements and those who are exempted, and a uniform visa format, and the procedures and conditions for issuing visas by Schengen signatory states regulated by the Community Code on Visas1 (later referred to as the Visa Code), an important document given this study’s focus on visa granting in consulates. EU visa policy is characterized by competing objectives: reducing and authorizing discretion. The ambiguous character of laws is often underlined, especially in the EU context which requires interstate and inter-institutional compromise. Visa policy policy-making serves a seemingly paradoxical purpose: trying to reduce national discretion while leaving Schengen States room to maneuver. Consequently, one cannot expect convergence through the definition of common rules given their ambiguity. Regulations are also broadly worded. In effect, the Visa Code defines what is the examination of applications but fails to specify its actual enforcement. How to assess the authenticity of documents? What are reasonable doubts? What is reliable information? Does each Schengen

1 Regulation (EC) No. 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (EC) No. 810/2009 of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code) (OJ L 243/1 of 15 September 2009).

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consulate utilize the same criteria? The plurality of the situations encountered on the ground and the need for discretion and adaptiveness are general conditions that impede to detail legislation in a comprehensive manner. But there exist other conditions inherent to the process of construction of EU visa policy that have contributed to the vagueness of the legislation. This chapter starts with the intergovernmental Schengen process and the ways in which this process overlapped with the achievement of the free movement of persons in the European Union and then continues with the communitarization of Schengen rules and all components of visa policy. EU visa policy regulations are not created from scratch but build on the original Schengen process although they are less precise. Those two sections highlight the emergence of visa policy as a security measure that should compensate the lifting of internal frontiers and identify restrictiveness and discretion as visa policy’s essential characteristics. The communitarization of all components of visa policy paves the way for the elaboration of new regulations that tackle the procedures and conditions for issuing visas by Schengen States. The remaining of the chapter focuses on the new legislative tools regulating the day-to-day implementation of common visa policy, a mix of hard law— the Visa Code—and soft law—operational instructions included in the Handbook for the processing of visa applications and the modification of issued visas and the Handbook for the organization of visa sections and local Schengen cooperation.2 The analysis of the process that has led to the adoption of the Visa Code sheds light on the novelties it includes notably the fact that visa policy implementation in national consulates is transformed into an issue where the images of unified Europe and friendly European border are at stake. The Visa Code’s provisions that regulate the examining and the decision-making on applications show instead the continuity with the original Schengen process. The analysis builds mainly on the texts of legislative documents (the Visa Code, the Handbook, and the Common Consular Instructions) and the minutes of parliamentary debates. However, interviews are crucial to show some of the underlying choices and concerns that, on the one hand, have contributed to the ambiguity and vagueness of the EU law, and on the other

2 Handbook for the processing of visa applications and the modification of issued visas. Commission Decision, 19 March 2010, C (2010) 1620 final.

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hand, have affected the understandings of public policy issues most notably the understanding of the migratory ‘risk.’ The analysis builds on interviews with Birgitte, a key policy officer3 of the Visa Unit of the Directorate General Home Affairs and the Belgian and French civil servants who participate to the European Commission and the European Council working groups (the visa committee and the visa working group). Birgitte is a key informant. She is considered to be an expert of EU visa policy. The director of the Visa Unit suggested I talk to her and the Deputy Director of the European Delegation to the Kingdom of Morocco based in Rabat describes her as a fundamental resource using these terms: ‘if the Commission loses her, it’s fifteen years of experience that we lose.’ I have interviewed the Belgian civil servant twice and met this civil servant during the journée diplomatique agents visa, one-day training for visa agents, held in Brussels.

EU Visa Policy: A Compensatory Measure to Free Movement The establishment of the Schengen area is the process by which the European Union has achieved the free movement of persons and has strengthened its external borders to enhance security and to control migration. Whereas the free movement of persons is one of the fundamental liberties stated in the 1957 Treaty of Rome, both migration control and internal security were not domains of the competence of the European Economic Community. Neo-functionalist theories of the European Union interpret the widening of supranational policy competence as functional spillover (Haas 1964). According to these theories, Schengen rules including visa policy would be interpreted as a functional spillover of the Single Market Project. The Single European Act4 signed in 1986 provided for the transformation of the common market into a single market on January 1, 1993. The Single Market Project and the consequent abolishment of the interstate borders do not automatically 3 A policy officer is a highly ranking permanent official of the European Commission. A policy officer is an administrator playing a key role in the EU’s legislative and budgetary processes. 4 The Single European Act is the first major amendment of the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC). It entered into force on 1 July 1987 (OJ L 169 of 29 June 1987).

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imply the strengthening of external borders to foster security. As we will see below, the Benelux Economic Union is an example where lifting internal borders did not imply restrictive measures and pooling sovereignty did not imply pooling fears about third countries. In fact, a number of scholars have indeed challenged the neo-functionalist hypothesis according to which Schengen is a consequence of the single market. Widening the competences of the European Union has been analyzed as the outcome of a contamination of migration policy with the fight against terrorism and the international crime (Duez 2008; Guiraudon 2011; Rea 1999; Bigo 1992). The liberty/security dialectic has been articulated in a complementary manner: The free movement of persons needs some compensatory measures to be exercised. Two parallel intergovernmental processes are key to understand the securitization of free movement: the Schengen process and the groups cooperating in response to the Single Market Project. The Schengen Agreement is the first step toward the debordering (Albert and Brock 1996) and re-bordering of the European Union and the achievement of the free movement of persons: in 1985, in the city of Schengen, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, the French Republic, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands signed an agreement on free movement. The Schengen Agreement is concluded as a political response to the 1984 strike of customs and a mobilization of road transport workers who blocked border-crossing points to protest against the burdensomeness of checks at the internal borders of the European Community that slowed down the circulation of merchandise. The 1985 Schengen Agreement represented a statement of general intent for the long-term objective of achieving the free movement of goods, persons, and services. In parallel, the 1986 Single European Act which amends the 1957 Treaty of Rome states the commitment to create a single market in the Community by December 1992 which ‘shall comprise an area without internal frontiers in which the free movement of goods, persons, services, and capital is ensured’ (Article 8a). Under the umbrella of Trevi (Terrorisme, Radicalisme et Violence Internationale), an intergovernmental mechanism established in 1976 at the instigation of the Prime Minister of the UK to convene home affairs ministers for regular public order and internal security discussions, the working groups Trevi 92 and

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the Ad Hoc Group on Immigration (AHGI) are set up. Trevi broadened its mandate in the view of the creation of the single market. Trevi 92 was tasked with examining the consequences of the removal of internal frontiers controls. As a result, Trevi 92 works on police and security issues involved in free movement of people, compensatory measures to combat relaxing of internal border checks, and supervises the AHGI, set up in 1986, that specializes in visas, asylum, refugees, external borders, and expulsions. The objective of the intergovernmental Schengen process and the intergovernmental groups cooperating in response to the Single Market Project overlaps: working on compensatory measures. The AHGI is tasked with preparing a report on the necessary measures for creating an area without internal frontiers—the so-called Palma document adopted by the European Council in 1989—that included a common visa policy among the measures deemed necessary. Trevi 92 designed a computer-based system for the exchange of information that is very similar to the Schengen Information System. After five years of secret negotiations, in 1990 the original Schengen States signed the Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement that defines its stated objective as coincident with the objective of the Single European Act, i.e., the creation of a single border-free European market. Unlike the Schengen Agreement, the Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement focuses mainly on the compensatory measures necessary for the abolishment of interstate border checks and the achievement of free movement. Thus, the Schengen process became the laboratory for strengthening the external borders of Europe. The achievement of the free movement became a topic addressed by institutional actors relating to Internal Affairs Ministries who link insecurity, terrorism, foreigners, irregular migration, and asylum seekers and tackle these issues from the perspective of policing (Bigo 1992, 1996). Bigo (1992) demonstrated the emergence of a ‘security continuum’ which interconnects the fight against drug trafficking with the fight against terrorism, illegal migration, and asylum. Inspired by the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of fields, Bigo (1996) highlighted the emergence of a field of internal security dominated by those national security professionals who might play a relatively autonomous role in regard to national centers of power. The Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement provides for:

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– The conditions that nationals of third countries have to fulfill to enter the Schengen territory; – The harmonization of visa policies and the introduction of carrier sanctions; – The creation of the Schengen Information System (SIS), a joint database containing information on objects and persons used for the maintenance of public order and security. The Convention certainly laid the foundation for what Guiraudon (2003, 191) has eloquently defined as ‘the policy toolbox that has displaced control away from the border.’ Between 1990 and 1997, all Member States other than the UK and Ireland signed the Accession Protocols and Agreements to the 1985 Agreement and the 1990 Implementation Convention. On March 26, 1995, the Schengen Agreement took effect in seven countries—Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Under the Schengen Implementation Agreement, the harmonization of visa policy rested on three components: first, the harmonization of Contracting Parties’ visa requirements; second, the introduction of a uniform format for visas; third, common instructions for the Contracting Parties’ diplomatic and consular posts and consular cooperation at a local level. The harmonization of Contracting Parties’ visa requirements is exemplary of the restrictiveness of EU visa policy. Because the visa requirements of the Contracting Parties diverged significantly, a so-called gray list of countries on which agreement could not be reached existed until 2001—the date of the adoption of the Council Regulation listing the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement.5 The list was very restrictive. It included 134 countries (in 2018, it includes 125 countries). Contracting Parties simply cumulated their national visa restrictions without defining any common criteria for establishing visa introduction. The restrictiveness of EU visa policy is a result of the direct correlation between a border-free region and the need to strengthen the external border.

5 Council Regulation (EC) No. 539/2001 of 15 March 2001 (OJ L 81/1 of 21 March 2001).

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The comparison with other examples of border-free regions allows putting forward that the connection between a border-free single market and the need for enhancing security is specific to the Schengen process. Historical examples of border-free regions, like the Benelux Economic Union established in 1962, show that free movement did not result in the strengthening of external borders as a necessary counterpart. A common visa policy and the definition of common entry conditions are part of the displacement of control toward the external borders of regions that have abolished their internal border checks. The Benelux Convention provides for such displacement. What differentiates the Benelux process from the Schengen process is the restrictiveness of its visa policy. While Contracting Parties to the Schengen Implementing Agreement cumulated restrictions, the Contracting Parties to the Benelux Convention developed the so-called blacklist of countries whose nationals are submitted to visa requirements by subtracting countries rather than accumulating them. Between 1962 and 1977, the Benelux countries signed Agreements relative to the abolition of visa requirements with 20 foreign countries. Table 1 shows the countries for which Benelux removed visa requirements, the countries for which visa has been reintroduced later, and whether those countries were included in 2001 in the Council Regulation. Table 1 shows 20 foreign countries to which visa requirements have been removed between 1962 and 1977, in the wake of the creation of the Benelux Economic Community. The Benelux process avoided the negative impacts of a restrictive visa policy on the Contracting Parties. Free movement and the strengthening of external borders by restricting visa policy were not a natural or automatic correlation during that period. The imposition of visa requirements has an extremely negative impact on bilateral relations. The restrictive visa policy resulting from the Schengen process had a negative impact on countries like Spain and Italy (Meloni 2006). Tourism and foreign affairs interests in the Mediterranean meant that Italy kept a large number of countries visa free before the participation to the Schengen Agreement (Sciortino 1999). Table 1 also shows that countries included in the EU list because deemed ‘risky’ were not considered as such in the 1960s and the 1970s. This is the case for: Ivory Coast, Niger, Burkina Faso, Malawi, Togo, Jamaica, and Chad, all African countries except for Jamaica. Until 2001, visa restrictions were not introduced to Malawi, Togo, Jamaica,

42  F. INFANTINO Table 1  Visa removal under the Benelux Convention and visa introductions under the Benelux Convention and the communitarization of visa policy Foreign country

Visa removal Benelux

Ivory Coast Cyprus Iran

14 March 1962 16 December 1962 1 January 1965

Niger Gambia Israel Upper Volta (Burkina Faso since 1984) Yugoslavia Malawi Mauritius South Korea Swaziland Togo Jamaica Philippines Barbados Lesotho Botswana Surinam Chad

1 August 1966 1 May 1968 8 December 1964 1 January 1969 3 July 1969 1 January 1970 12 Mars 1970 1 June 1970 1 September 1970 1 October 1970 1 October 1970 1 April 1971 1 July 1971 9 January 1972 1 June 1974 25 November 1975 1 December 1977

Visa introduction Benelux

Common EU list (2001) Yes

27 April 1980 in the Yes wake of the kidnapping of American citizens Yes 1 July 1987 Yes Yes 1 July 1992 1 July 1976 19 January 1990

24 January 1981 1 February 1988 19 January 1990 19 January 1990 1 September 1980

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Source Bouras et al. (1995), Council Regulation No. 539/2001 of 15 March 2001

and Chad. Only Israel and South Korea remain visa free also in the EU process. The Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement provides for common instructions for the Contracting Parties’ diplomatic and consular posts and consular cooperation at a local level: the Common Consular Instructions.6 This instrument aims at ensuring uniform implementation

6 Common Consular Instructions on visas for the diplomatic missions and consular posts (2005/C 326/01) (OJ 2002 C 313/1).

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of the visa policy to avoid so-called visa shopping, which is understood as the opportunity to choose one consulate to apply for a visa because of differences in national consulates’ implementation practices. The Common Consular Instructions laid down an obligation for consular authorities to consult the Schengen Information System before a uniform visa was issued and specified criteria in relation to the examination of visa applications. Consular cooperation at local level was also an instrument designed to prevent visa shopping. Cooperation focuses on the exchange of information regarding false documents, illegal immigration routes, bona fide applicants, and exchange of statistical information on visas issued and refused. Moreover, to prevent and monitor multiple applications, the Common Consular Instructions included the practice of stamping the passport of visa applicants when the visa applicant lodges the application.

From 1993 Onwards: Communitarizing Schengen Rules Article 100 C of the Treaty of Maastricht7 that came into effect in 1993 placed two aspects of visa policy under the competence of the Community: the uniform visa format and the list of third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders. It took eight years to adopt the common list.8 As we have seen, the common regime resulted in an extremely restrictive visa policy as national visa restrictions had been cumulated.9 In 1995, a Council decision laid down a uniform format for visas.10 As Meloni (2006, 83) noted: This made it possible to communitarize the most indispensable compensatory measures for the removal of internal frontier controls. At the same time, it implied minimum intrusion in the sovereign right to control entry into the State and in the ability of the Member States to continue to use visas as a national policy instrument.

7 Treaty on European Union (Treaty on Maastricht) signed in Maastricht, 7 February 1992, entered into force on 1 November 1993 (OJ C 191 of 29 July 1992). 8 Council Regulation (EC) No. 539/2001 of 15 March 2001 (OJ L 81/1 of 21 March 2001). 9 For a detailed analysis of the process, see Meloni (2006) and Guild (2001). 10 Council Regulation (EC) No. 1683/95 of 29 May 1995 laying down a uniform format for visas (OJ L 164, 14 July 1995).

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The essential characteristic of the visa policy is not only restrictiveness but also flexibility in the right to decide upon entry, despite the communitarization. A step closer to communitarization was taken under the Treaty of Amsterdam.11 In May 1999, and by virtue of the Protocol ‘integrating the Schengen acquis into the framework of the European Union’ attached to the Treaty of Amsterdam, other aspects of the visa policy were incorporated into the Community framework and Schengen rules became part of the acquis that new candidates must comply with. The Common Consular Instructions were published in the Official Journal after the Schengen acquis was incorporated into the European Union legal framework. Article 76j(2)(b) of the Treaty of Amsterdam prescribes the establishment of rules on visas for intended stays of no more than three months, including ‘(i) the list of third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement; (ii) the procedures and conditions for issuing visas by Member States; (iii) a uniform format for visas; (iv) rules on a uniform visa.’ However, the Common Consular Instructions remained the sole legal act listing procedures and conditions for issuing visas and rules on a uniform visa. The Common Consular Instructions regulating the implementation of the Schengen visa policy were ‘soft law,’ meaning non-directly binding acts such as Council communications. As Bigoand Guild (2003) noted, because they are not directly binding the Common Consular Instructions consisted more of a set of recipes or a ‘how-to’ book, a list of suggestions and guidelines rather than binding rules. The binding and directly applicable regulation on the conditions to cross the borders of the Schengen area was the Schengen Borders Code12 (in particular Article 5). The Schengen Borders Code communitarizes the conditions that nationals of third countries have to fulfill in order to enter the Schengen territory provided in the Schengen Implementation Agreement:

11 The Treaty of Amsterdam amending the Treaty on European Union, the Treaties establishing the European Communities and certain related acts, signed on 2 October 1997 and entered into force on 1 May 1999 (OJ 1997 C 340/29). 12 Regulation (EC) No. 562/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code, OJ L 105 of 13 April 2006).

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Possession of a valid travel document; Possession of a valid visa where applicable; Production of documents justifying the purpose and conditions of their visit and proof of means of support; They are not reported in the Schengen Information System; They are not considered as a threat to the public policy, national security, or the international relations of any of the Contracting Parties. Despite the fact that nationals of third countries must fulfill those conditions to cross the borders of the Schengen area, different conditions and criteria for issuing visas exist. They are regulated for the first time by the entry into force of the Community Code on Visas13 (henceforth Visa Code) on April 5, 2010. The Visa Code is a self-executing legally binding regulation that amends the former Common Consular Instructions. The Visa Code is the first legally binding act that tackles the uses of discretion for examining applications. However, the novelty of the Visa Code consists in its intention to also reduce discretion in other aspects of visa policy not related to the assessment of migratory and security risks, an issue which I turn to in the next section.

Foreign Affairs Concerns for New EU Institutional Players: The ‘Friendly and Unified Europe’ Frame The Visa Code is a surprising read. It is exhaustive in covering all aspects of the visa policy implementation. Compared to the Common Consular Instructions, the Visa Code aims at reducing discretion in aspects of visa policy implementation in which the image of unified Europe and the image of a friendly European border is at stake. The Visa Code results from the shifting of a ‘frame’ understood here as the structures of belief, perception, and appreciation which underline policy positions (Schön and Rein 1994). The communitarization of all components of visa policy, meaning that the adoption of the Visa Code follows Community decision-making rules, implies that visa policy becomes a concern of sectors of the European Union institutions whose policy positions are distinct

13 Regulation (EC) No. 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code). OJ L 243, 15 September 2009.

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from those of the actors involved in the intergovernmental Schengen process. The design of EU visa policy is driven not just by internal affairs concerns of Schengen States but also by the foreign affairs concerns of the European Union. The Visa Code is a Regulation adopted through the ordinary legislative procedure (formally known as the codecision procedure).14 Box 1 shows the steps of the procedure:

Box 1 Steps of the legislative procedure to adopt the Visa Code

19 July 2006 Legislative proposal published 24 July 2006 Debate in Council 26 September 2006 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading 08 April 2008 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading 18 April 2008 Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/ single reading 01 April 2009 Debate in Parliament 02 April 2009 Results of vote in Parliament 02 April 2009 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading 25 June 2009 Act adopted by Council after Parliament’s 1st reading 09 July 2009 End of procedure in Parliament 13 July 2009 Final act signed 15 September 2009 Final act published in Official Journal Source The European Parliament Legislative Observatory, http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure. do?lang=en&reference=2006/0142(COD)#tab-0

The Commission submitted the legislative proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Community Code on Visas. After the debate in Council, the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs amended the 14 The codecision procedure was introduced by the Maastricht Treaty on European Union (1992), and extended and made more effective by the Amsterdam Treaty (1999). With the Lisbon Treaty that took effect on 1 December 2009, the renamed ordinary legislative procedure became the main legislative procedure of the EU decision-making system.

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proposal. After two years of provisional and compromise amendments, on April 18, 2008, the Committee adopted the report drawn up by Finnish MEP Henrik Lax,15 member of the Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, under the first reading of the codecision procedure. The Visa Code reveals the policy position of the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs since it is tasked with amending the Commission’s proposal. The Commission’s proposal, the amendments, and the minutes of the debate in Parliament16 reveal a renovated vision of the common visa policy, one that clearly sees in this policy a means to enhance the image of a unified Europe. Although the Schengen visa might be a symbol of the European Union abroad, just like the euro, national consulates still issue the visa. European consulates do not exist, implementation practices are not uniform, and nation-state consulates do not convey the image of Europe. The Visa Code regulates the actual implementation in national consulates with a view to enhancing the image also of a friendly European border. The restrictiveness that has characterized the Europeanization of border control made the Schengen visa a symbol of ‘Fortress Europe.’ Consulates abroad often provide a powerful image of the fortress. According to the terms used by Birgitte, the Policy Officer of the Visa Unit, Directorate General Migration and Home Affairs, lines outside the consular premises ‘make Schengen consulates resemble to refugee camps.’ Masses of people waiting in lines, even for weeks, to cross the threshold of a European consulate provide a strong representation of an impenetrable fortress. The connection between the visa policy and the image of a unified, positive, and friendly Europe abroad is clearly stated in the declarations of MEPs and in the Committee’s amendments, although the Commission’s proposal already included provisions concerning these aspects. During the debate in Parliament, MEP Marian-Jean Marinescu

15 Report on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a Community Code on Visas (COM (2006) 0403—C6-0254/2006— 2006/0142(COD)) Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Rapporteur: Henrik Lax (A6-0161/2008). 16 Debates Wednesday, 1 April 2009—Brussels. Available at: http://www.europarl. europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+CRE+20090401+ITEM018+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN. Accessed 18 March 2018.

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(Group of the European People’s Party) stated that: ‘the purpose of the Schengen Visa Code is for the European Union to present a united external front.’ The rapporteur also argued: ‘a great deal remains to be done in order to provide the Schengen area with a common external image.’ MEP Sylvia-Yvonne Kaufmann, on behalf of the Confederal Group of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left, suggested that the Visa Code ‘improves visa-issuing service and thus the perception of the European Union in third countries’.17 The amendments tabled by Henrik Lax, rapporteur for the Parliament Committee Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs cover five major sets of issues among which are a common external image, a positive impression and customer service, and direct communication. Two amendments were specifically meant to convey a positive and friendly image of Europe: the reduction of the visa fee and the Schengen visa Web site. The Parliament Committee amended Article 16(1) regulating the visa fee, reducing it in half, from €60 to €35. Member States demanded and obtained the increase of the visa fee as a response to the requirement of collecting fingerprints in view of the launch of the Visa Information System.18 The justification provided for modifying Article 16(1) of the Visa Code reads as follows: The new visa fee of €60 hurts the image of the European Union since this is perceived as contradictory to the frequently voiced declarations of friendly relations with third countries. Furthermore real visa costs are higher than the visa fee, costs of travel medical insurances, as well as costs of all necessary activities to get a visa.

In order to justify the amount of the fee, the Commission and Member States used a comparison with the US tourism visa fee, approximately $160. The Committee stated: The European Union can also not in this context be compared to the United States, which is geographically distant. The European Union has common borders to the countries from which the European Union is

17 Ibid. 18 Proposal for regulation of the European Commission and of the Council amending the Common Consular Instructions on visas for diplomatic missions and consular posts in relation to the introduction of biometrics including provisions on the organization of the reception and processing of visa applications. COM (2006) 269 final.

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receiving most of its tourists and visitors. For the EU it is thus of importance to have a relatively low and proportionate fee on visas.

However, the visa fee was not amended. Visa facilitating agreements with neighboring countries, which contain clauses for reducing the visa fee, and gratuities for special categories of applicants (children under the age of six and persons under the age of 25 representing organizations in seminars, sports activities, or cultural events), emerged as measures to assuage disappointment over the lack of compromise between the Parliament and the Commission on this issue.19 The common Schengen visa Internet site, which will ‘improve the visibility and a uniform image of the common visa policy’ (Recital 23) is adopted but never implemented. The rapporteur stated: ‘a common website is to be set up to provide a unified picture of the Schengen area and to provide information regarding the rules applying to the granting of visas.’20 Nevertheless, a common Schengen visa Web site has not yet been created. The Commission’s proposal, the Amendments, and the resulting Visa Code include some principles and practices that pertain to the domain of rights (non-discrimination, respect of human dignity) and others that can be characterized as pertaining to New Public Management. New Public Management is a label attached to a series of reforms from the 1980s onwards aimed at improving the efficiency and performance of public sector organizations (Pollitt and Talbot 2004). Philippe Bezes (2009) defines it as a ‘doctrinal puzzle’: a combination of practical and theoretical knowledge derived from economics and descriptions of best practices that nourish the beliefs in market mechanisms to solve a specific ‘problem,’ which is public administration. Prescriptions that innovatively characterize the process of administrative reform launched with the Visa Code aim at improving efficiency and performance in delivering public goods. Those prescriptions can be associated with New Public Management and are therefore more acceptable than other kinds of claims for both right and left-wing parties in the European Parliament.

19 Debates Wednesday, 1 April 2009—Brussels. Available at: http://www.europarl. europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+CRE+20090401+ITEM-018+ DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN. Accessed 18 March 2018. 20 Ibid.

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First of all, it should be noted that the aim of the legislative reform is not just tackling illegal immigration but also facilitating travel. Attracting desirable travelers and delivering visas emerge as a key objective of EU visa policy that exemplifies the filtering work of the day-to-day implementation. The Commission’s legislative proposal defines visa policy as follows: (…) Part of a multi-layer system aimed at facilitating legitimate travel and tackling illegal immigration through further harmonization of national legislation and handling practices at local consular missions (…). (Recital 3)

To facilitate travel and spur the mobility of ‘legitimate’ travelers, the Visa Code suggests specific practical solutions such as multiple-entry visas. Recital 8 reads as follows: (…) Multiple-entry visas should be issued in order to lessen the administrative burden of Member States’ consulates and to facilitate smooth travel for frequent or regular travellers (…). (Recital 8)

A great number of provisions are specifically concentrated on good administrative behavior and practice. The Visa Code prescribes that ‘Member States should ensure that the quality of the service offered to the public is of a high standard and follows good administrative practices’ (Recital 7). The Committee unsuccessfully proposed to amend this Recital by adding the term ‘applicant-oriented,’ as the service provided should be ‘the most customer-friendly as possible.’21 The Visa Code dictates that: The reception arrangements for applicants should be made with due respect for human dignity. Processing of visa applications should be conducted in a professional and respectful manner and be proportionate to the objectives pursued. (Recital 6)

Pursuing Article 39, the ‘conduct of staff’ shall be characterized by courtesy, respect of human dignity, and non-discrimination. The Amendment 70 by MEP Michael Cashman introduces the notion of non-discrimination for the conduct of staff. During the debate, the introduction of that 21 Ibid.

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principle is justified as follows: ‘The amendment introduces the notion of non-discrimination as an essential principle in the European Union and one which should be respected when it comes to the European Union’s community code on visas.’22 The proposal amended Article 39 by adding the following lines: ‘While processing an application, staff at diplomatic missions or consular posts shall not discriminate against persons on grounds of sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation.’ Provisions to combat discrimination have existed in Community law since the Treaty of Rome most notably in regard to combating discrimination against women or Community nationals using their right of free movement to work in another Member State (Guiraudon 2007). The 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam added new provisions to combat discrimination on grounds of race, ethnicity, religion, handicap, age, and sexual orientation (Article 13). The amendment introducing the notion of non-discrimination in applicants’ treatment follows the lines of other domains of EU law. However, this notion of non-discrimination does not include discrimination on grounds of wealth (included in Article 26 of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).23 The Visa Code grants the right of appeal to refused applicants and obliges Schengen States to provide motivations for the refusals. This is one of the measures that have had the greatest impact on the implementation of the visa policy for Schengen States. Article 32(2) provides for the obligation to notify and motivate refusals through a common standard form that lists eleven motivations for refusing visas (see Appendix B “Standard form for notifying and motivating refusal, annulment or revocation of a visa”), which shall include, according to Article 32(3), information about the procedure to be followed to file a legal appeal against the decision. During the Parliament debate, this aspect of the Visa Code was one of the main points under discussion. Jacques Barrot, VicePresident of the Commission, stated: The Commission is pleased that the obligation to give reasons for decisions to refuse visas and grant the right of appeal to refused applicants has remained practically unchanged from the text of the initial proposal, thanks to the support of the European Parliament. These 22 Ibid. 23 On

non-discrimination, see also Guiraudon (2007).

52  F. INFANTINO procedural guarantees will prevent decisions to refuse visas from being seen as arbitrary.24

Human rights activists see in this obligation the respect of a human right. This is what Tatjana Ždanoka, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group, referred to: ‘The right to appeal against a negative decision is also a big step forward. Now, in many Member States, such a right does not exist. As a human rights activist in my previous life, I especially thank Mr Lax for this provision.’25 A typical New Public Management strategy is subcontracting to private service providers. The Commission’s proposal introduced a new component of the common visa policy: the cooperation with ‘external service providers.’ The Common Consular Instructions covered the ‘visa applications processed by private administrative agencies, travel agencies and tour operators’ (Article 5), which act as intermediaries for applicants only to lodge documents. The forms of cooperation covered by the Visa Code include the cooperation with ‘external service providers’ that sign contracts with the consular missions and carry out several administrative tasks that were under the responsibility of the consulate beforehand. The Committee considered that the ‘Forms of cooperation in relation to the reception of visa applications,’ ‘co-operation with external service providers,’ and ‘the organizational aspects’ are provisions that ‘shall be laid down in a legislative act adopted in accordance with Article 251 of the Treaty’ (qualified majority voting and codecision). However, the cooperation with private service providers is included in the final text adopted by the Council.26 The Visa Code introduces another typical principle of New Public Management, the ‘one-stop principle’ (Recital 7). During the visa application process, applicants should not be required to appear personally to more than one location. The last element of novelty that deserves mention is the strict regulation of time frames. The Visa Code stipulates that: ‘applications shall

24 Debates Wednesday, 1 April 2009—Brussels. Available at: http://www.europarl. europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+CRE+20090401+ITEM-018+ DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN. Accessed 18 March 2018. 25 Ibid. 26 On the reasons that have led to the outsourcing of visa services, see Infantino (2016).

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be lodged no more than three months before the start of the intended visit’ (Article 9(1)); in case an appointment is required to lodge the application, ‘the appointment shall, as a rule, take place within a period of two weeks from the date when the appointment was requested’ (Article 9(2)); applications shall be decided on within 15 calendar days (Article 23(1)), within 30 calendar days in individual cases requiring further scrutiny or in case a Schengen State representing another one needs to consult the authorities of this latter (Article 23(2)), within 60 calendar days ‘exceptionally, when further documentation is needed’ (Article 23(3)). Tedious administrative routines even in remote locations are discussed in the very heart of Europe. The visa application process becomes an element pertaining to the foreign affairs concerns of the Commission thereby entering the domain of high politics. The civil servant of the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs who attends the visa working group (European Council working group)27 and the visa committee (European Commission working group)28 puts forward the negative perception that differentiated application procedures have on third countries: Since the integration of the Schengen acquis into the framework of the European Union, the Commission aims at conveying the image of uniform visa application processing because third countries used to complain a lot. They used to say, “yes it’s the European Union but in regard to visas, if we apply to the consulate of Italy or Spain the application will be processed differently. All conditions to obtain visas are national. The Commission tries to give to EU visa policy a positive external image, give the friendliest image of visa policy as possible”.

The Belgian civil servant clearly connects the communitarization of visa policy to its renovated role: providing a friendly and positive image

27 The visa working group is chaired by the European Commission. Since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the Schengen visa policy falls under the ‘Community regime.’ The visa working group is a so-called technical group with an aim at debating the ­‘technical’ aspects of the implementation of the Schengen visa policy. 28 Article 5 of the Decision of 28 June 1999 laying down the procedures for the exercise of implementing powers conferred on the Commission (1999/468/EC) (OJ L 184 of 17 July 1999).

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of unified Europe. One specific reason underlines the Commission’s interest in the harmonization of visa application processes and their compliance with rules. The differences between national consulates most notably regarding the documentation required and the delays for taking decisions on applications are an argument third countries use in negotiations. For instance, Georgia, that complained about Schengen signatory States’ lack of compliance with the time frames concerning appointments and decision-making while it was conducting negotiations with the European Union to sign a facilitation agreement. The French civil servant participating to the visa committee and to the visa working group states: There were many criticisms from third countries that complained of wait times for their citizens. At the European level, complaints were expressed within the frame of the negotiations of facilitation agreements. The third countries “take advantage” (I put quotation marks around that word) of those occasions to complain at the EU level. For example, the EU negotiated a facilitation agreement with Georgia and the Georgian authorities complained of long time frames to schedule appointments. So, the Commission managed to raise the problem at its level.

I discuss the case of Georgia also with the Belgian civil servant who says that ‘It happens very often.’ Compared to its Schengen version, EU visa policy implementation partakes to the external relations of the European Union as a means to convey the image of unified and friendly Europe as well as an element that can arise in negotiations with third countries. A regulated visa application process that respects principles of good administration, during which uniform documentation is required, and the treatment of applicants respecting human dignity, promotes the perception of a unified and friendly Europe abroad, and diminishes the opportunity for third countries to blame the European Union. It is interesting to note that the Parliament Committee’s Amendments do not cover the decision on the applications, which is the bureaucratic activity at the core of Schengen States sovereignty. The Visa Code covers those aspects as well. The uniform application of the Visa Code’s provisions regulating the decision on applications and the assessment of security and migratory risks should ensure that visa policy functions as a homogenous filter. However, as we will see hereafter, policy on paper is a source of discretion.

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The Regulation of Decision-Making: A Source for National Discretion The new legislative toolbox is composed of a mix of hard law—the Visa Code—and soft law—the Handbook for the processing of visa applications and the modification of issued visas and the Handbook for the organization of visa sections and local Schengen cooperation.29 Several provisions contained in those documents derive from the Common Consular Instructions. The entry conditions stem from the Schengen Implementing Agreement. Both the instructions and the Agreement were drafted during the original Schengen process by the five original Schengen States (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and Germany). Thus, although the Visa Code and the Handbooks stem from the European supranational level, their content builds on the know-how of Member States most notably the original Schengen countries. The European model derives from some Member States. However, some differences exist: While the non-legally binding Common Consular Instructions are precise, criteria and objectives of the assessment of visa applications included in the Visa Code are broadly worded. The non-legally binding Handbooks are again more precise. I coupled the reading of legal acts with the interview of Birgitte, the Policy Officer of the Visa Unit who has followed the process of adoption of the Visa Code, to understand the conditions inherent to Schengen visa legislative policy-making that underline the drafting of broadly worded criteria and objective. Let us start with the analysis of the continuity between the Visa Code and the original Schengen framework that Table 2 illustrates. The Visa Code builds on the original Schengen process in regard to examining procedures and objectives of decision-making. The Common Consular Instructions were tasked with reducing cross-national differences to avoid ‘visa shopping’ with an aim at strengthening the security of Contracting Parties. Concerns about good administrative practice, facilitation of the application process, rights of applicants and due administrative process are absent. The Visa Code provisions underlined by the ‘friendly and unified Europe’ frame are novel compared to the Common Consular Instructions. 29 Handbook for the organization of visa sections and local Schengen cooperation. Commission Decision 11 June 2010 C (2010) 3667 final.

56  F. INFANTINO Table 2  Continuity between Visa Code provisions and the Common Consular Instructions Visa Code provisions

Origin

Verification of entry conditions (Article 21) Schengen Borders Code Article 5(1)(a) (c) (d) and (e) = Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement referred to in the Common Consular Instructions (Article 1) Risk assessment: security risk, risk of illegal Common Consular Instructions: security, migration, applicant intention to leave the fight against illegal immigration, assessing territory (Article 21) whether there is an immigration risk. Part V Consulting the SIS (Article 21) Common Consular Instructions Part V Personal interview (Article 21) Common Consular Instructions Part III Stamp in the passport indicating that an Common Consular Instructions Part VIII application is admissible (Article 20) Local Schengen cooperation to exchange Common Consular Instructions Part VIII information (Article 48)

Broad discretionary power itself originates in the vague formulation of national consulates’ tasks. The articles providing for the verification of the entry conditions—verification that the travel document presented is not false, counterfeit or forged; verification of the applicant’s justification for the purpose and conditions of the intended stay, and that he/she has sufficient means of subsistence; verification of the authenticity and reliability of the documents submitted and on the veracity and reliability of the statements made by the applicant—fail to specify the ways in which verification should be enforced and allow discretionary power to national officers on the ground in terms of the specification of these regulations and their translation into operational terms. The same vagueness pertains to the notion of ‘assessment of security risk,’ ‘risk of illegal immigration,’ and to the much-unspecified notion of ‘assessment of the applicant’s intention of returning.’ The assessment of the applicant’s intention of returning is such a vague and almost magic formulation since it involves foretelling the future. It leaves great room to discretion since it is a broad criterion for examining applications and a broad reason to issue a refusal (see Appendix B, motivation no. 9). I thought that notion was novel compared to the former Common Consular Instructions. Birgitte contests the novelty. She is pretty certain that the Common Consular Instructions

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contained that criterion. Some days after our interview, she gives me a precise answer by e-mail, which reads as follows: It is true that the CCI [Common Consular Instructions] did not contain such an explicit formulation as the one included in Article 32(1)(b) of the Code! However, Part V, 3rd paragraph comes close.

Article 32 of the Visa Code provides for a visa refusal and mentions the reasonable doubts on the applicant’s intention to leave the territory before the expiry of the visa applied for as a reason to refuse a visa (Article 32(1)(b)).30 Birgitte points to the Part V of the Common Consular Instructions as the very close formulation, which is: The diplomatic mission or consular post shall assume full responsibility in assessing whether there is an immigration risk. The purpose of examining applications is to detect those applicants who are seeking to immigrate to the Member States and set themselves up there, using grounds such as tourism, business, study, work or family visits as a pretext. Therefore, it is necessary to be particularly vigilant when dealing with ‘risk categories’, unemployed persons, those with no regular income, etc.

Thus, Birgitte reveals that the verification of the applicant’s intention to return to his/her home country is comparable to the idea of detecting those applicants who are ‘seeking to immigrate to the Member States and set themselves up there, using grounds such as tourism, business, study, work or family visits as a pretext.’ Such an understanding of the objective of consular action suggests that the risk to be managed is the risk of non-return rather than merely the risk of undocumented migration. The formulation of criteria for decision-making is much more precise in the Common Consular Instructions than the Visa Code. It refers to exemplary situations to be alert of—those who use legitimate travel purposes as pretexts to obtain a visa while their intention is settling in the country. It lists precise categories of risk (unemployed persons,

30 Article

32(1)(b): ‘If there are reasonable doubts as to the authenticity of the supporting documents submitted by the applicant or the veracity of their contents, the reliability of the statements made by the applicant or his intention to leave the territory of the Member States before the expiry of the visa applied for.’

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those with no regular income, etc.) that are directly usable in day-to-day implementation. Hence, Birgitte discloses that although Schengen signatory states asked for the specification of risk categories, in other words, for profiling, to be included in the Visa Code, the Commission ‘did not dare’ to include them for Parliament’s amendments: Sorts of profiles exist. We tried to put something in the Handbook, but we did not dare to [in the Visa Code]. Member States would have liked to, but we did not dare to. The Parliament has the right of monitoring. Finally, we did not put anything like profiling [in] and I am surprised that nobody has ever written to complain about that because in the CCI [Common Consular Instructions] we used to say, “no job? No visa!”

Birgitte reveals the first condition inherent to the Schengen visa legislative policy-making that accounts for the vagueness of law. Profiling raises issues with respect to the due administrative process: Each application should be assessed on its own merits. Specifying in the law that a person without employment cannot be issued a visa could also raise numerous critiques. Thus, avoiding specification in the hard law legislative act that is submitted to parliamentary scrutiny is a strategic choice. The law is necessarily ambiguous as a result. The Visa Code is the result of complex negotiations between the Commission and several nation-states that were parties to the Schengen Agreement from 2006 to 2009, the Commission and the Parliament. Broadly worded purposes and criteria are the outcome of compromise. Moreover, they should be applied to a large number of Schengen signatory states having distinct conceptions of the visa policy and divergent patterns of bureaucratic action. The setting of objectives and criteria in a broad manner leaves room for exercising discretion, therefore guaranteeing the exercise of nation-state sovereignty. The second condition for unspecified regulations is inherent to the visa policy domain. Regulations are designed to apply to a wide array of foreign countries and the practical meanings of risk vary from country to country. Implementation must be tailored to a specific context, and the legislative tools designed to foster uniform implementation promote local specification. The Visa Code promises a renovated role for the local Schengen cooperation: It is the privileged venue to foster the uniform implementation and assessment of security/migratory risks precisely because of the differences in local circumstances. Recital 18 reads as follows:

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Local Schengen cooperation is crucial for the harmonized application of the common visa policy and for proper assessment of migratory and/or security risks. Given the differences in local circumstances, the operational application of particular legislative provisions should be assessed among Member States’ diplomatic missions and consular posts in individual locations in order to ensure a harmonized application of the legislative provisions to prevent visa shopping and different treatment of visa applicants.

The provisions regulating the local Schengen cooperation acknowledge the relevance of local circumstances. Local Schengen cooperation meetings are chaired by the designated representatives of EU Delegations in third countries appointed to monitor the implementation of the Visa Code. In doing so, the Commission infiltrates the distant locations where national consulates actually operate. These meetings are also the venues for drawing up common lists of supporting documents.31 Publicized as the concrete examples of the extent to which visa policy is harmonized, common lists of supporting documents are not exhaustive

31 Common lists of supporting documents have been drawn up for the following third countries: Commission Implementing Decision C(2017) 5853 of 30 August 2017 establishing the list of supporting documents to be submitted by applicants for short-stay visas in Australia, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, South Africa, Thailand, and Zambia; Commission Implementing Decision C(2016) 3347 of 6 June 2016 establishing the list of supporting documents to be presented by visa applicants in Iran, Iraq, and the Russian Federation; Commission Implementing Decision of 16 October 2015 establishing the list of supporting documents to be submitted by visa applicants in Afghanistan, India, Morocco, Singapore and Trinidad and Tobago; Commission implementing Decision no. (C(2016) 5947) of 23 September 2015 regarding the harmonized list of supporting documents to be submitted by visa applicants in Argentina, Brazil, Hong Kong and Macao and Tanzania; Commission Implementing C(2016) 5927 of 23 September 2016 amending Implementing Decision C(2014) 6141 final, as regards the list of supporting documents to be presented by visa applicants in Algeria; Commission Implementing Decision C(2015) 1585 of 16 March 2015 establishing the list of supporting documents to be presented by visa applicants in Angola, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cuba, and Palestine; Commission Implementing Decision C(2014) 7594 of 22 October 2014 amending Implementing Decision C(2011) 5500 final, as regards the title and the list of supporting documents to be presented by visa applicants in China; Commission Implementing Decision C(2014) 6141 of 4 September 2014 establishing the list of supporting documents to be presented by visa applicants in Algeria, Costa Rica, Mozambique, and Uzbekistan; Commission Implementing Decision C(2014) 6146 of 3 September 2014 establishing the list of supporting documents to be presented by visa applicants in Cape Verde, Kenya, and the Philippines; Commission

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and they always allow the possibility for national consulates to require supplementary documents. As a result, the documents listed do not always correspond to the documents required according to the Web sites of the national consulates. Common lists of supporting documents refer to specific travel purposes that are not exhaustive. Some Schengen shortterm visas are not covered by the common lists of supporting documents because they are delivered for travel purposes other than those taken into account in these lists.32 More specific instructions on the appropriate way of performing decision-making are included in the Handbook for the processing of visa applications and the modification of issued visas. The Handbook is a non-binding legislative act and it is not submitted to the monitoring of other European institutions. Pursuant to Article 52 of the Visa Code, the Commission is assisted by the Visa Committee to draw up the operational instructions on the practical application of the Visa Code (the Handbooks) as provided by Article 51 of the Visa Code. Committees allow for the exercise of the implementing power of the Commission: They are composed of the representatives of the Member States and chaired by the representative of the Commission. The Handbook builds on existing knowledge. Point 7.12 in particular does not establish specific risky categories of applicants but draws up a series of guidelines for the assessment of the risk of illegal immigration and the applicant’s intention of returning that I replicate hereafter: Consulates shall assess: – The risk of illegal immigration by the applicant to the territory of Member States (i.e., the applicant using travel purposes such as

Implementing Decision C(2014) 5338 of 31 July 2014 establishing the list of supporting documents to be presented by visa applicants in Ireland; Commission Decision C(2012) 5310—UK (Edinburgh, London, and Manchester); Commission Decision C(2012) 4726—Egypt (Alexandria and Cairo) Commission Decision C(2011) 1152—BosniaHerzegovina, Sri Lanka, and Turkey (Ankara, Istanbul, Edirne, and Izmir) Commission Decision C(2011) 7192—China (in Beijing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Shanghai, and Wuhan), Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Vietnam (in Hanoi and Ho-Chi Minh City) Commission Decision C(2011) 5500. 32 See chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third-Country’ but Three National Contexts” for the discussion of the aspects of visa policy implementation that are unregulated, such as the travel purposes for which a Schengen visa is applied for.

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tourism, business, study, or family visits as a pretext for permanent illegal settlements in the territory of the Member States) and – Whether the applicant intends to leave the territory of the Member States before the expiry of the visa applied for. Within local Schengen cooperation, consulates should define ‘profiles’ of applicants presenting a specific risk, according to local conditions and circumstances which also takes account of the general situation in the country of residence (e.g., politically unstable areas, high level of unemployment, and widespread poverty). Profiles could be based on the stability of the applicant’s socioeconomic situation, but each individual application shall be assessed on its own merits irrespective of possible ‘profiles’ having been drawn up. The individual level of stability depends on a number of factors: – Family links or other personal ties in the country of residence; – Family links or other personal ties in the Member States; – Marital status; – The employment situation (salary level, if employed); – Regularity of income (employment, self-employment, pension, revenue from investment, etc.) of the applicant or of his/her spouse, children, or dependents; – The level of income; – The social status in the country of residence (e.g., elected to public office, NGO representative; profession with a high social status: lawyer, medical doctor, university professor); – The possession of a house/real estate. Three elements deserve mention: the definition of the migratory risk that the Handbook provides; the determinants of profiles; the importance attached to the local level for drawing up profiles. First, the Handbook splits the notion of migratory risk into two components: the risk of illegal immigration using the pretext of tourism, business, study, or family visit and the risk that the applicant will not return. Translated into operational action, these two risks imply that consulates shall ascertain the purpose of the journey and applicants shall provide guarantees regarding return. The migratory risk is not only the risk of illegal settlements but also a more general risk of non-return. This meaning of the migratory risk follows the lines of the Common Consular

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Instructions according to which ‘the purpose of examining applications is to detect those applicants who are seeking to immigrate to the Member States’ regardless if this is on a lawful or irregular status. Second, the risk of non-return is assessed through the establishment of profiles whose determinants are the applicants’ socioeconomic situations: ties in the country of origin and the country of destination, professional and social status, and their economic situation. The Handbook’s guidelines outline national consulates’ decision-making on Schengen visa applications in terms of profiling whereas the word ‘profile’ is absent in the Visa Code. This soft law act tackles the details that judicial concerns impede to include in the Visa Code. Finally, the Handbook acknowledges the importance of local circumstances and cooperation at a local level to draw up profiles that are specific to the foreign country in which the visa policy is implemented. Specific characteristics of risky profiles might stem from local circumstances and might draw on contextual profiles of risk. The Handbook draws up the typical features of risky profiles. The recognition of the need to adapt the risks assessment to local circumstances and specific local contexts encourages the delegation of discretion to the bureaucracies that implement policy on the ground. In the view of the Commission, local adaptation should be achieved by using the local Schengen cooperation. However, the need of adapting provisions to local circumstances is a factor that accounts for the ambiguity of the legislation. Precisely because Handbooks are soft law, they ‘can allow for regulation where no regulation would otherwise be possible’ (Cini 2001, 194). Compared to the legally binding Visa Code, the non-legally binding Handbook’s provisions detail the policy application and, in so doing, penetrate the core of national domains such as the organization of visa sections and the examination and decision on applications. The Handbook for the organization of visa sections and local Schengen cooperation tackles one of the most sensitive issues in the negotiations with Schengen signatory states: the organization of visa sections. All civil servants posted to the central ministries describe the attempts at regulating the organization of visa sections as the deepest interference of the Commission in domains that are considered as pertaining to national competence. Birgitte states indeed:

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There is a second handbook (…) that focuses on the organization of visa sections, the information to applicants, the local Schengen cooperation…. In that area our legal power is weak because we can’t decide the ways in which they should arrange their consulates.

The Handbooks’ guidelines while not legally binding contain details that ‘harder’ forms of regulation cannot tackle and thus remain beyond the purview of the Commission and other EU actors.

Conclusion The historical account of the making of EU visa policy started with the original Schengen process shows that EU visa policy’s essential characteristics are restrictiveness, discretion, and the association with security measures and mechanism of immigration control. The strengthening of the external borders via a restrictive visa policy is specific to the Schengen process. The novel characteristic of EU visa policy is the association with foreign affairs concerns that stem from the shifting of competence toward EU institutional players—the communitarization of all components of visa policy—and prescribe the reduction of national discretion not just in the assessment of migratory risks but also in the visa application and examining processes. The analysis of the legal texts tackling the conditions and procedures for issuing visas reveal that EU visa policy is modeled on the original Schengen process. The Visa Code provisions regulating the examining and decision-making on visa applications are copied from the Common Consular Instructions drafted during the negotiations of the Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement. The understanding of the objective of consular action as the assessment of the risk of non-return, whether lawful or irregular, derives from the original Schengen process. That is a very important finding for this comparative case study because, unlike Italy, Belgium and France are two out of the five original Schengen Contracting Parties that have contributed to the drafting of the Common Consular Instructions. Such an understanding of bureaucratic action is more familiar to Belgium and France as a result. The process of legislative policy-making and the designing of EU visa policy is a source of uncertainty for the actors on the ground.

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Regulations emerge as one of the sources of cross-national variation in day-to-day visa policy implementation. This chapter has revealed that EU law is a source of discretion and that such discretion is somehow authorized. Broad discretionary powers originate in: the ambiguity of a policy that aims at reducing discretion while leaving the sovereign right to nation-states of regulating access, the vagueness of rules that cannot cover all the situations encountered on the ground also because situations vary according to the foreign country, judicial and institutional concerns that impede the specification of risky categories of applicants. Specifications about the meaning of the migratory risk as the risk of immigration (both lawful and irregular), profiles, and instructions about the appropriate way of performing the task of consulate officers are left to the guidelines of the soft law act, the Handbook. The soft law act emerges as the act that allows for regulation in the sovereign right of nation-states precisely because its provisions are not legally binding. The recognition of the need to adapt implementation practices and decision-making to local circumstances and specific local contexts represent another condition for reinforcing the salience of consular discretion. However, implementing visa policy in a same third country does not need to imply that Schengen States share the same context. Therefore, cross-national variations are due also to history that differentiates the context to which organizational action adjusts. In the next chapter, I thus turn to the historical relations between Morocco and France, Belgium, Italy to highlight how they differentiate the context in which visa policy is implemented.

References Albert, M., & Brock, L. (1996). Debordering the World of States: New Spaces in International Relations. New Political Science, 35, 69–106. Bezes, P. (2009). Réinventer l’Etat. Les réformes de l’administration française. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Bigo, D. (Ed.). (1992). L’Europe des polices et de la sécurité intérieure. Bruxelles: Ed. Complexe. Bigo, D. (1996). Polices en réseaux: l’expérience européenne. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Bigo, D., & Guild, E. (2003). La mise à l’écart des étrangers: la logique du visa Schengen. Paris: L’Harmattan.

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Bouras, F., Nayer, A., Nys, M., Maesschalck, A., & Nolasco, P. (1995). Libre Circulation des Personnes. La protection des droits fondamentaux des citoyens au regard de la libre circulation des personnes dans le processus de construction des nouveaux espaces européens. ULB/CeRP, Final Report of the program Protection Juridique du Citoyen (1992–1995), Services fédéraux des Affaires Scientifiques, Techniques, et Culturelles. Cini, M. (2001). The Soft Law Approach: Commission Rule-Making in the EU’s State Aid Regim. Journal of European Public Policy, 8(2), 192–207. Duez, D. (2008). L’Union européenne et l’immigration clandestine. Bruxelles: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles. Guild, E. (2001). Moving the Borders of Europe. Inaugural Lecture, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. https://cmr.jur.ru.nl/cmr/docs/oratie.eg.pdf. Accessed 15 February 2018. Guiraudon, V. (2003). Before the EU Border: Remote Control of the ‘Huddled Masses’. In K. Groenendijk, E. Guild, & P. Minderhoud (Eds.), In Search of Europe’s Borders (pp. 191–214). The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Guiraudon, V. (2007). Anti-discrimination Policy. In P. Graziano & M. Vink (Eds.), Europeanization: A Handbook for a New Research Agenda (pp. 295– 308). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Guiraudon, V. (2011). Schengen: une crise en trompe l’œil. Politique étrangère, 4, 773–784. Haas, E. B. (1964). Beyond the Nation-State: Functionalism and International Organization. Standford: Stanford University Press. Infantino, F. (2016). Outsourcing Border Control: Politics and Practice of Contracted Visa Policy in Morocco. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Meloni, A. (2006). Visa Policy Within the European Union Structure. New York: Springer. Pollitt, C., & Talbot, C. (Eds.). (2004). Unbundled Government: A Critical Analysis of the Global Trend to Agencies, Quangos and Contractualisation. New York: Routledge. Rea, A. (1999). Immigration, Etat et citoyenneté. La formation de la politique d’intégration des immigrés de la Belgique (PhD dissertation). Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles. Schön, D., & Rein, M. (1994). Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of Intractable Policies Controversies. New York: Basic Book. Sciortino, G. (1999). Planning in the Dark: The Evolution of Italian Immigration Control. In G. Brochmann & H. Hammar (Eds.), Mechanisms of Immigration Control (pp. 233–260). Oxford: Berg.

Morocco: One ‘Third Country’ but Three National Contexts

Visa policy street-level implementation adjusts to local contexts. One may expect that Schengen States implementing visa policy in a same third country share a similar organizational background; therefore, they share similar concerns, attitudes, understandings, and goals, which underline bureaucratic action. This study’s comparative perspective highlights the shifting contexts in which visa policy is implemented. The chapter emphasizes the historical roots of differentiation, as contexts shift because they are inscribed in different historical backgrounds, and argues that Schengen signatory States do not implement visa policy in the same context despite the fact that they are located in the same third country. To sustain that argument, I will focus on the history of migratory movements between Morocco and Belgium, France, and Italy, respectively. The history of migratory movements illuminates the origin of migratory systems linking Morocco to each of those countries. Thus, the volume and the characteristics of contemporary mobility/migration flow of applicants shift because they originate in those different histories of migratory movements. Belgium, France, and Italy visa policy implementation practices are tailored to different contexts, therefore, one may not expect that practices converge simply because visa policy is implemented in Morocco. Taking history into account allows for unraveling the differentiation of contexts and consequently of visa policy street-level implementation.

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To understand the contemporary implementation context of each of these countries, it is important to retrace the history of visa introduction in Morocco. By retracing the history of bureaucratic means to control cross-border flows, the historical foundations of the current understandings of ‘problems’ and concerns represented by Moroccan migratory movements emerge as well as the understandings about the bilateral relation and the issues at stake in visa policies. The introduction of visa requirements is connected to migratory movements from Morocco to France and Belgium, whereas that is not the case for Italy. France introduces visa requirements to former colonies as a strategy to preempt migratory movements. Before visa introduction, there have been other attempts at controlling migration by different bureaucratic means. Introducing visas—notably to Maghreb countries—had high political and symbolic costs, which justify the reluctance of French governments from making such a decision. Given France’s colonial past, visa introduction is a sensitive issue for the diplomatic relations of France. From the history of bureaucratic attempts at controlling migration, it is possible to observe that the problem of family visits from former colonies of France is not novel. Belgium introduced visa requirements for Morocco to control migration from this country. Propositions for this solution arrived in a period in which Belgium was stopping immigration. Belgium and France introduced visas in Morocco as an external mechanism of immigration control (Brochmann and Hammar 1999) whereas visa introduction for Italy was induced by the European norms. Italy introduced visa requirements to Morocco to conform its visa policy in the view of Italy’s participation to the Schengen Agreement, despite migratory movements from Morocco to Italy in the 1990s existed. A close look to the bureaucratic categories of foreign travelers that are legitimized to cross the borders of the receiving state, which are the travel purposes for which a Schengen visa may be applied for, reveal the persistency of national visa policies on the ground, as travel purposes shift too. National travel purposes persist because the bureaucratic management of cross-border flows remains national. EU laws do not oblige Schengen States to establish uniform travel purposes. EU visa policy does not put an end to preexisting national visa policy, and the dependency of EU visa policy on institutional structures, and procedures of national visa policies are key factors of cross-national variations.

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The chapter begins with the three histories of migratory movements and visa introduction, a very difficult information to acquire given the sensitivity of the issue and the lack of transparency characterizing those decisions, which are not always discussed in parliaments. Typically, the decisions to introduce visas are established through the exchange of letters between the two countries’ Ministries of Foreign Affairs. For the case of France, I build on the Archives Patrick Weil (Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po), in which I found not only the official documents concerning the visa introduction but also exchange of letters concerning the administrative instruments aimed at controlling migration without introducing visas—the disembarkation card and the certificate of lodging. The end of the chapter focuses on the statistical information that reveals the distinctness of flows in terms of volumes, types of visas, and refusal rates and discusses the persistency of distinct national travel purposes for which a Schengen visa can be applied for as well as the challenges of the available statistical information.

Old and Interdependent: Migratory Movements Between France and Morocco The Moroccan presence in France has roots both in the turbulent relationship between France and Morocco and in Moroccan migration to France since the beginning of the nineteenth century. Colonization and migration have woven historical ties between these two countries (Belbah and Veglia 2003) as have the major events of the past century such as the two world wars, the French Protectorate and Moroccan independence. Moroccan emigration to France began in 1908, even before the signing of the Treaty of Fez in 1912 which established the French Protectorate, giving Morocco the status of ‘Protected State.’ This migration was made up largely of seasonal workers from Morocco working in agriculture in French Algeria (Basfao and Taarji 1994), mostly men from southern Morocco. Between 1914 and 1918, the number of Moroccans in France underwent unprecedented growth, rising from 700 to 20,000. The Moroccan protectorate, following the example of the French colonies, was obliged to participate in the French war effort. This emigration became more marked during the 1920s. During the First World War, Moroccan workers occupied posts left vacant by French workers who had gone to the front. After the end of the war, these workers returned to Morocco. French economic recovery during the 1920s led

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to a new recruitment of Moroccan workers who now also found work in the mining and metal industries. National labor protection during the 1930s brought about the repatriation of foreign workers. Nevertheless, France called on this reserve labor force again during the Second World War. Once again France drew on its colonies and on Morocco to face the demands of war. Between 1939 and 1940, three contingents of 5000 workers were recruited in Morocco to work in agriculture, armaments factories and mines. During the Second World War, some 70,000 Moroccans came to France. At the end of the war, once again the great majority of them returned to Morocco. The Algerian war of independence, from 1954 to 1962, saw a reduction in the number of Moroccan seasonal workers in the French colony. The emigration adopted new, essentially European, routes. These Moroccan migrants headed mostly to France, especially to work in the mining and agricultural sectors. The Nation Immigration Office mainly organized the arrival of seasonal workers while companies such as French Collieries (les Charbonnages de France) reactivated their recruiters in Morocco. With Moroccan independence in 1956, migration became a matter of state. In 1957, the regulations for the movement of people between France and Morocco stipulated that ‘Moroccan citizens enter and leave the territory of the Republic of France under a valid Moroccan passport’ (Belbah and Veglia 2003). A bilateral agreement between France and Morocco was signed on June 1, 1963 and defined the legal framework for migration between the two countries. However, this agreement chiefly established procedures for the recruitment, selection, and deployment of Moroccan workers in France. The agreement also laid down certain rights such as equality of treatment for national and foreign workers and family reunification. If Moroccan immigration was useful for the French economy, it was also beneficial for the economic and political life of Morocco, which was confronted with many crises. Morocco did not hesitate to use emigration as a means to manage the economic crises of the 1950s and 1960s (Atouf 2009) and also deployed it to manage resistance to the power of the Sharifians. From 1963 onward, however, migratory destinations multiplied and these increased and diversified. Germany (1963), Belgium, and the Netherlands (1964) also signed bilateral agreements with Morocco. These countries thus became destinations for Moroccan workers during the period 1962–1973, receiving about 103,000 arrivals out of 311,100 Moroccan departures registered during this period (Charef 2014). It was

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in this context that the Moroccan ‘migration boom’ emerged between 1960 and 1973, with an average official figure of 23,930 migrants per year during this period. It was accompanied by a very wide geographical diffusion, thereby putting an end to the privileged relationship between France and Morocco. According to the official data from the Moroccan Labor Ministry, the annual number of departures of workers (both permanent and seasonal) rose from 8000 in 1960 to 34,000 in 1973, with very large fluctuations according to economic and political conditions (Charef 2014). There was an almost constant growth in the number of officially registered departures until the beginning of the 1970s, without including unofficial emigration. However, it should be remembered that during the years of rapid economic growth in France, between 1962 and 1968, many immigrants came to France and regularized their status after they had arrived. This is also the case for Moroccan migrants. With the cessation of immigration to France in 1974, the flow of Moroccan workers came to a halt. The links between France and Morocco are not only a matter of labor recruitment agreements. Thus, between 1956 and 1974, France signed many agreements with Morocco concerning administrative, military, industrial, cultural, judicial matters, etc. (Belbah and Veglia 2003). The end of labor immigration did not result in a complete halt to the arrival of Moroccans in France. According to French Ministry of the Interior data, from December 31, 1974, to December 31, 1986, the number of Moroccans in France rose from 302,302 to 575,448, a 90% increase in the Moroccan population in France over a period of twelve years. The percentage of Moroccans in relation to all foreigners in France rose from 7.7% in 1974 to 12.6% ten years later. The closure of the borders brought about the arrival of many women and children within the framework of family reunification. After the immigration of male workers and its cessation came family immigration. Women represented almost 40% of Moroccan immigrants at the start of the 1980s, whereas twenty years earlier this proportion was only 20%. The family reunification policy, bringing many more women and children from Morocco to France, thus reduced the importance of small groups of single men living in hostels, café hotels, and lodging houses, which was the dominant feature of Moroccan immigrants and military pensioners until 1975. The return policy introduced during the 1980s had only a very limited effect on the return of Moroccan immigrants, as was the case for other immigrants. From that time onward, Moroccan immigrants have been permanently settled in France. There are currently

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around 600,000 Moroccans in France, the great majority of whom also have French citizenship. This population suffers discrimination in housing and employment, as do other ethnic minorities (Beauchemin et al. 2010). Since the introduction of a visa to enter French territory in 1986 and the creation of the Schengen area, the arrival of people from Morocco has been disrupted. Even so, Moroccan immigration to France has also undergone change. Many Moroccans currently enter France with a student visa, a public policy strongly supported by Campus France, and there is also an important exchange of businessmen, artists, and scientists between France and Morocco. These new migrants also include more women compared to earlier waves of migration (Charef 2014). In addition, there is a constant voluntary and irregular migration (Cchattou 1998) which has come to replace organized labor migration, albeit on a smaller scale. That being said, the seasonal immigration of Moroccan agricultural workers has continued (Morice 2006). Nevertheless, some of these new Moroccan migrants who arrived in France as agricultural workers have become entrepreneurs in the international underground economy, as was the case in the Belsunce district of Marseille during the 1990s (Tarrius 1996), or they have started up international businesses (Lacroix 2005). The lifeblood of Moroccan migration can be found in its functional structure based on the mobilization of social networks which allows it to adapt and persist under the new, more restrictive, conditions of mobility. However, the stabilization of Moroccans and their descendants in France have also allowed the formation of international practices and the construction of a circulation space between France and Morocco. This migratory circulation also involves the many retired Moroccans who divide their lives between here and there and who, through their many return journeys, have truly developed a circular migration expertise (‘savoir circuler’) (Schaeffer 2001). The relationship between France and Morocco is characterized by a specific feature which is not found to the same extent in the other two countries discussed in this comparative study: The importance of French immigration to Morocco. Although during the Protectorate there were many European foreigners in Morocco, the number fell considerably after independence. The recovery of agricultural land which had been farmed by the colonists and the law regarding the compulsory Moroccanization of businesses at 50% capital levels precipitated the departure of many Europeans, in particular the French (the French presence in Morocco fell from 350,000 in 1955 to 92,000 in 1967 and then

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stabilized at around 27,000 in the 1990s). In recent years, the number of French people in Morocco has increased, with 44,000 registered at the French Embassy to Morocco in 2011 and an estimated 30,000 non-registered French residents (Charef 2014). The French are the largest foreign community in Morocco. While these French residents include many retired people who are not necessarily wealthy, there are also many workers in French businesses established in Morocco or Moroccan companies with French capital investment. The number of authorizations granted to foreigners to work as salaried employees in Morocco has grown significantly, from 6236 in 2004 to 8972 in 2011, and France is the most heavily represented country of origin in terms of foreign employees. The importance of this French population in Morocco has created many strong bonds of interdependence between these two countries which do not exist to the same extent in the cases of Belgium and Italy.

Seeking the Opportunity: Visa Requirements to Go to France On September 16, 1986, France introduced visa requirements to every national from a foreign country in the wake of terrorist attacks that took place from 1985 onward.1 The introduction of visa requirements is often described as a response to these attacks (Lee 1991; Meloni 2006), as this decision was justified on security grounds by French authorities (Rodier and Ferré 1997). However, terrorist attacks represented an opportunity to justify visa introduction for security reasons while visa policy was intended to control migration. Historian and political scientist Patrick Weil, a former chef de cabinet of the Secretary of State for Immigration, has argued that visa policy emerged as a political tool to control irregular stays and irregular workers, notably from the Maghreb countries (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia). Weil (1991) highlighted the terrorist attacks as a ‘policy window’ (Kingdon and Thurber 1984), the occasion to enact a decision that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been advocating for more than twenty years. Considerations about the political costs of visa introduction contributed to the reluctance in making this decision earlier, although the problem of irregular stay was already 1 Terrorist attack on 23 February 1985 (on a Marks & Spencer shop), 9 March (the Rivoli Beaubourg cinema), and a double attack at the Galeries Lafayette and Printemps Haussmann department stores, 7 December (see Bigo 1991).

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evident. Terrorist attacks and the consequent need to improve security provided a justification for visa introduction that was easier to defend. Furthermore, the introduction of visa covered nationals of each foreign country, except for nationals of the European Community and Swiss citizens. As Weil (1991) noted, the introduction of visa requirements for every foreign country, including the USA, made the decision acceptable for Maghreb countries. Visa requirements have been progressively removed for the nationals of OECD countries. Visas are maintained only for those countries that were the original target of visa policy: African countries, north and south of the Sahara. The French authorities have attempted to control the entry of nationals from the Maghreb countries before having recourse to the imposition of visas. The decree adopted on May 27, 1982, imposes the obligation to produce a certificat d’hébergement (certificate of lodging), for nationals of Maghreb countries whose travel purposes are family or private visits.2 The city mayor must stamp the certificate of lodging, and in doing so, the city mayor exercises control on the movement of relatives traveling to France ex ante. The purpose of the certificate is clearly stated in a note of the Ministry of Interior: (…) create an obstacle to the arrival of persons who actually seek settlements and jobs but use tourism or family visit as reasons to arrive in the national territory outside of the regular procedures.3

The certificate is aimed at controlling the entry of foreigners who may settle in France. Checking certificates is another instrument in the hands of border guards whereby they can refuse entry. In absence of visa requirements, the control of entries takes place at France’s external borders. This control has been strengthened since 1978: Border guards refused entry mostly on the basis of the ethnic profiling of travelers of Maghreb origin and, after 1981, a ground to refuse entry is the absence of the city mayor’s stamp on the certificate of lodging (Weil 1991). The certificate is a tool of migration control as it provides for supplementary grounds to refuse entry and gives the city mayor and local administrations in France an opportunity to exercise control by using administrative 2 Décret n° 82-442 du 27 mai 1982 pris pour l’application des articles 5, 5-1 et 5-3 de l’ordonnance n° 45-2658 du 2 novembre 1945 modifiée relative aux conditions d’entrée et de séjour des étrangers en France, en ce qui concerne l’admission sur le territoire français. 3 See: Note ‘Attestation d’accueil du Ministère de l’Intérieur,’ 1982, Archives Weil, Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po, WE21.

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procedures. As entry refusals at the border had extremely high political and symbolic costs, at the beginning of 1983 French authorities invented the carte de débarquement (disembarkation card), also called ‘the diptych’ because of its shape, which is the ancestor of the electronic entry–exit system. To cross the border of France, travelers from Maghreb countries were required to produce a valid passport, a disembarkation card, and a certificate of lodging for those traveling for family or private visits. The disembarkation card is a system to monitor travelers’ entry and exit. It is composed of two sides, one recording the date of entry, the other one the date of the exit. Both should be collected at border-crossing points. The effectiveness of this system to record entry and exit has been criticized, as checks are not enacted at all border-crossing points, notably land border-crossing points, and the French government does not allocate any budget for centralizing the travelers’ data collected (Weil 1991). The ineffectiveness of this entry–exit system seems to be intentional, because the aimed solution for effective control was the introduction of visas. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs was looking for an occasion that arrived with the terrorist attacks. The introduction of visa requirements put an end to the use of the disembarkation card whereas the certificate of lodging for family visit visas remains in place. The certificate of lodging ensures the exercise of control of the Ministry of the Interior: This latter is represented by the city mayors who used to stamp the certificate less and less frequently (Weil 1991), therefore providing grounds for refusing entry to the second corps of the Ministry that is border guards. Lack of sufficient means of subsistence and guarantees for repatriation in the case of disease or death constitute other grounds to refuse entry. Given the proximity to the local context, during the first years of visa introduction, the Ministry of the Interior has suspected the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of being lax in regard to visa issuance, in particular regarding nationals of African countries traveling for family visits. As a result, much control still occurs at the border and in local administration in France, despite the introduction of visas. In 1988, border guards refused entry to a third of the Maghreb countries’ travelers to whom a visa had been issued (Weil 1991). In 1989, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs accepted the requirement of the certificate of lodging stamped by the city mayor as part of the documentation necessary to apply for a family visit visa. As a result, the lack of this document grounded the refusal of a visa. In a letter sent by the Sous-Direction des Étrangers en France to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Sous-Direction acknowledges that requiring the stamped

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certificate of lodging ‘place[d] in the hands of mayor’s the [granting of the] right to the family visit of foreigners submitted to visa requirements (my translation).’4 City mayors exercised migration remote control. The harmonization of examining practices between the two ministries allowed for displacing control away from the border and diminished the rejections of travelers at the border. Consulates abroad were invested with a renovated role: controlling potential migration. In doing so, migration control is externalized in countries of departure. Consular posts were required to filter out travelers who might settle in France. In an exchange of letters between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Social Affairs tackling the criteria for the issuance of visas, suggestions were made regarding such criteria. Examining applications would entail: (…) the examining of factual circumstances (…): – Stable ties in the sending country (housing, job, children at school) – Duration of the visit (three-month visits must be examined carefully) – Volume of luggage… In any case, the guarantee regarding the repatriation must be systematically requested. It is extremely important that information about the impossibility of any regularization once in the French territory.5 4 ‘Pouvoir faire obstacle à la venue de personnes qui, tout en recherchant en réalité un établissement et un emploi se prévalent indûment d’un motif de tourisme ou de visite pour pouvoir s’introduire sur le territoire national hors de la procédure régulière.’ Source: ‘Attestation d’accueil du Ministère de l’Intérieur,’ 1982, Archives Weil, Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po, WE21. 5 Examen des circonstances de fait (…): – maintien d’attaches permanentes dans le pays de départ (logement, emploi, scolarité des enfants) – durée de la visite (les visites de 3 mois complets devant être examinées avec la plus grande circonspection). – volume des bagages… En tout état de cause, la garantie de rapatriement doit être systématiquement exigée. Il paraît, en dernier lieu, très important que l’information la plus large soit diffusée dans les postes sur l’impossibilité d’obtenir une régularisation à partir du territoire français. Source: ‘Note du Cabinet du Ministre des Affaires Sociales et de la Solidarité Nationale au Cabinet du Ministre des Affaires Etrangères au sujet des critères de délivrance des visas de court séjours pour les visites familiales,’ Mars 1985, Archives Weil, Centre d’histoire de Sciences Po, WE21.

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Beyond the fact that the operational value for officers on the ground of those general criteria is dubious as well as their applicability, the criteria to examine applications suggest that the problem consists in travelers who might not return to their home country. The checking of the applicant’s ties to his home country, the duration of the visa applied for, or even the volume of luggage (although this is an inapplicable criterion) is aimed at assessing the possibility of non-return. The possibility of non-return is considered in particular for nationals of ancient colonies of France who travel for family visits. Populations of ancient colonies are settled in France and social networks sustain migratory movements. The introduction of visas and the use of the certificate of lodging and disembarkation card for travelers from Maghreb countries were aimed at controlling migratory movements from former colonies of France, in particular from the Maghreb.

The Need of Workforce: Moroccan Migration to Belgium The links between Belgium and Morocco stem from the major flow of immigrants from Morocco since the 1960s. The arrival of large numbers of Moroccan workers in Belgium was linked to the implementation of the bilateral agreement between Belgium and Morocco on February 17, 1964. This bilateral agreement provided for the recruitment of Moroccan workers destined for employment in the coal industry and in the construction industry in Wallonia and in Limburg. Economic growth led business to demand a labor migration policy for other economic sectors experiencing a labor shortage, particularly in the metal, transport, chemical, and textile industries. Moroccan immigration was concentrated in certain areas of the two largest cities in Belgium: Brussels and Antwerp. Meanwhile, the newly independent Morocco had a policy of voluntary emigration. Although labor immigration at the time was predominantly male, Moroccan migration to Belgium differed from the migration to France in that larger numbers of women and children arrived in Belgium under the framework of family reunification, and this was the case from the beginning of the process. At the time general immigration law did not provide for family reunification. Instead, it was governed by the terms of bilateral agreements, and therefore, there were differences in the policy according to workers’ country of origin. Family reunification was possible three months after the arrival of the worker if he had ‘suitable’ accommodation. For Turkish workers, the period was reduced to one month, which reflected the geopolitical relationships of the time.

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Belgium acted quickly to encourage family reunification in order to compensate for lower salary levels when compared to France and Germany for this type of migrant. Moreover, family reunification policy in Belgium was a response to another objective of Belgian immigration policy: that of counterbalancing the aging population, especially in Wallonia. Finally, family reunification policy aimed to encourage workers to settle, in response to the demands of employers at the time. It is also relevant in any understanding of policy development in this area to recall that in Belgium there was a royal judgment on May 20, 1965, which provided that the Minister for Employment and Labor would reimburse half the travel expenses of the spouse and accompanying children who came to join a Moroccan worker in Belgium. This measure was applicable if the family had at least three children. This importance accorded to the family dimension was expressed both in law and in the information given out by Belgium regarding its migration policy. To encourage family immigration, the Minister for Employment and Labor produced a brochure titled ‘Living and Working in Belgium’ (Vivre et travailler en Belgique) which was specifically aimed at North Africa. This brochure was made available in the various Belgian consulates in Morocco. The brochure outlines the welcome offered by Belgium to families of immigrant workers in glowing terms, detailing in particular the child benefit and social security systems, and specifying that Belgium guarantees freedom of religion. The Oriental region of Morocco,6 located in the northeast of the country, is the main source of Moroccan emigration to Belgium. Frennet-De Keyser (2003) underlines that Moroccan authorities actively encouraged recruitment of workers living in the province of Nador in particular, as this province was suffering widespread unemployment although Belgian diplomats preferred to recruit Moroccan workers from other regions, notably the Souss (southwest of Morocco). Belgian diplomats in Casablanca described the populations of the Oriental region—and the province of Nador and the prefecture of Oujda-Angad in particular—as uneducated and illiterate. In a letter dated December 6, 1963, to the then Minister of Foreign Affairs, P. H. Spaak, the consul general of Casablanca directs the Minister’s

6 The region is made up of the following prefectures and provinces: the provinces of Berkane, Eddriwesh, Figuig, Jerada, Nador, and Taourirt and the prefecture of Oujda-Angad.

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attention to these supposed characteristics of the Nador and Oujda ­population (Frennet-De Keyser 2003, 20). At the beginning of the 1960s, the demand for labor was so high that the Minister of Justice no longer applied the letter of the law in respect of immigration. Therefore, work permits were no longer required as a precondition for residence permits, and this contributed to the growth of an accepted illegal immigration. In fact, many immigrant workers arrived in Belgium as tourists, then looked for work and only afterward regularized their presence in the country. The employers themselves often encouraged this illegal immigration, asking their Moroccan employees if they had relatives in Morocco who might agree to come and work in their company. This practice was tolerated implicitly by the public authorities administrating the entry and residence of foreigners on Belgian territory. In 1967, the government wanted to put a stop to this illegal immigration and decided on a strict application of the law, especially because of declining economic conditions and rising unemployment. Given rising unemployment and the economic difficulties confronting some industrial sectors which employed large numbers of immigrants, the government hardened its immigration policy by taking two new measures: the official cessation of labor immigration and growing penalties against employers who recruited new immigrant workers. One simple decision made by the Council of Ministers on August 1, 1974, strictly limited new arrivals to single migrants with key qualifications regarded as nationally essential. This government decision, which implemented the official cessation of immigration, was accompanied by a policy of regularization of foreigners staying illegally in Belgium: 9000 foreigners benefitted from this policy and received a residence permit in 1975. Moroccan immigration grew significantly between the 1961 and 1971 censuses, increasing from 461 people to 39,294 (24,325 men and 14,969 women). The increase continued at a considerable pace during the 1970s, especially after the closing of the borders which accelerated the rate of family reunification. Moreover, a high birth rate also increased the size of the Moroccan population in Belgium. The highest number of people with the Moroccan nationality was reached on January 1, 1992, with 145,600 people. However, the number of Moroccans has declined over the years following various reforms of Belgian Nationality Code, which has led to many Moroccans becoming Belgian during the 2000s. The population of Moroccan origin is estimated to 429,583 in 2012. Among this population, 86,233 (20%) people have only the Moroccan

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nationality, 210,561 individuals (49%) were born with the Moroccan nationality and have acquired the Belgian citizenship (or another citizenship), and 132,789 (31%) were born with another nationality than the Moroccan one. People with Moroccan origin represent 3.9% of the overall population of Belgium (Schoonvaere 2014). The Moroccan population is principally concentrated in two urban areas: Brussels (47.9%) and Antwerp (18.7%). In Brussels, people of Maghreb origin, regardless of current nationality, make up 17% of the population. The population of Moroccan origin considerably increased during the last years. From January 1, 1991, to January 1, 2012, Schoonvaere (2014) estimated that the population of Moroccan origin was multiplied by 2.6. Unlike earlier migrations to Belgium, the flow of migrants from Morocco to Belgium has never completely dried up. Therefore, during the regularization of 2000, Moroccans were the nationality to benefit most. Family reunification represented 41% of new residence permits granted to foreigners in 2011 and the main beneficiaries of this right were also Moroccans. Although there have been fewer international marriages since 2008, it continues to be an important component of the total volume of migration. Finally, the Moroccans are also the primary beneficiaries of student visas, although the total volume of students coming to Belgium is relatively low. All these elements contribute to the conclusion that the migration of Moroccans to Belgium still continues, although it currently takes very diverse forms. Moroccan immigrants are highly differentiated, even though they are still frequent victims of discrimination, especially in the labor market, particularly the younger generations (Adam and Rea 2017; Ringelheim et al. 2015; Rea 2001). However, the development of an economic, cultural, and political elite has also increased their legitimacy in Belgium, although they are often suspected of not being ‘adequately integrated’ because of their Muslim religion. As is the case of Morocco and France, there are still many international links between Morocco and Belgium. These international activities are not limited to the frequent coming and going of retired people between here and there, and many commercial activities have developed between the two countries through the mediation of the descendants of immigrants. Moroccan immigrants in Belgium are characterized by a unique feature in Europe: They are very strongly represented politically (Jacobs et al. 2002, 2010; Martiniello 1998). In fact, since the middle of the 1990s, the numbers of elected representatives at municipal, regional, and

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federal levels have grown steadily. This feature is due to various factors such as strong local residential concentrations, election laws (compulsory voting and multiple preference voting), and the high rate of naturalization. This translates, particularly in the Brussels Capital Region, into a proportionate representation of this population in political arenas and also a very strong capacity to influence public institutions.

The End of Immigration Policy: Visa Requirements to Go to Belgium In 1958, in the Dutch city of The Hague, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and the Kingdom of Belgium signed the Treaty establishing the Benelux Economic Union, which came into effect in 1960.7 The Benelux Union functioned through intergovernmental cooperation. The aim of the Treaty was to establish a free market area in which persons, goods, services, and capital circulated without barriers (Ganshof Van der Meersch 1969). As the free market area abolished internal frontiers, the control of the movement of persons was displaced at the external borders of the territory of the Benelux. The Benelux Convention of May 11, 1960, provided for such displacement,8 and established uniform conditions governing the entry of non-nationals to the Benelux countries (Article 5) and a visa that authorized entry to the territory of the Benelux (Article 4(1)). For stays not exceeding three months, non-Benelux nationals were necessitated to: possess the documentation required, possess sufficient means of subsistence and return, not be reported in the list of undesirable foreigners, and not to be considered a threat to public order or national security. Visas authorized entry to the Benelux territory but the implementation of visa policy remained national, as national bureaucracies were held accountable for this policy: Appeals against the refusal of a visa were filed 7 The Treaty has been transposed in Belgium by the law passed on June 20, 1960 (MB 27 October 1960). 8 The Law passed on June 30, 1960, approved the Benelux Convention on the transfer of the control of persons at the external borders of the Benelux territory. Loi du 30 juin 1960 portant approbation de la Convention entre le Royaume de Belgique, le Grand-Duché de Luxembourg et le Royaume des Pays-Bas concernant le transfert du contrôle des personnes vers les frontières extérieures du territoire du Benelux, signée à Bruxelles le 11 avril 1960 (MB du 1 July 1960).

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to national courts. In regard to visa policy, the common list of countries whose nationals were required to obtain a visa to cross the external borders of Benelux was achieved by removing such a requirement for several countries. At the beginning of the 1980s, Benelux visa policy became more restrictive. Benelux countries decided to terminate several of the agreements on visas removal and the Commission spéciale pour la circulation des personnes was charged with taking decisions on the introduction of visas (Bouras et al. 1995). Beauthier (1982) has reported the decision to introduce visa requirements for Turkey in 1980, the Philippines in 1981 and the debates in 1982 about the introduction of visa requirements to Moroccan nationals, a decision practically implemented only in 1984.9 The introduction of visa requirements for Moroccan nationals emerged as a strategy to control migration from Morocco. In these years, political debates began to focus on the ‘problem’ of immigration, which set the political agenda. In effect, on August 1, 1974, the Council of Ministers put an end to work immigration and decided on an amnesty for irregular migrants (Martiniello and Rea 1997). However, measures to reduce the number of work permits began to be implemented from 1969 onward (Martiniello and Rea 2012). Rea (1999) has highlighted the shift from an immigration policy, lasting until the end of the 1970s, to an integration policy. The 1976 electoral campaign of Brussels city mayors10 focused on the ‘problem’ of immigration (Rea 1999). The city mayors of Ixelles and Koekelberg overtly supported the closing of border crossings; socialist candidates in St. Gilles proposed the introduction of visa requirements for Moroccan nationals. Political groups reinforced anti-immigrant positions for the legislative elections of 1978. After the elections, the Minister of Justice proposed to the government a project aimed at reforming immigration policy. The project focused on limiting the number of immigrants and the integration of those that were already in the country. The content of the project followed the lines of action that were discussed in the months preceding the proposal: The introduction of visa requirements to nationals of north African countries was to be implemented from March 9 DEMIG VISA database, which is part of the DEMIG project and has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013)/ERC Grant Agreement 240940 awarded to Hein de Haas. For more information, see http://www.migrationdeterminants.eu. 10 Brussels is composed of several administrative units, and each of them has its own mayor.

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1, 1983, and also included the removal of offenders, the reduction of social benefits, and the limitation of the enrollment of foreigners in city halls (Rea 1999). The introduction of visa obligation to Moroccan nationals was intended to blocking the arrival of new immigrants in Belgium. Visas promised to stop chain migration, as social links sustained the arrival of new immigrants from Morocco. Until 1969, the arrival of Moroccan ‘tourists’ had profited those sectors of the Belgian economy that sought an additional labor force, although official recruitment from Morocco was ending. In 1965, 4471 work permits were delivered to Moroccan ‘tourists’ and were intended to fill gaps in the steel industry, metallurgy, constructions, and service labor force (Frennet-De Keyser 2003). Diplomats of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs labeled these movements as ‘spontaneous immigration’ or ‘individual immigration’ and warned about the unintended effects of the regularization of Moroccan ‘tourists’: In a letter from the consul general in Casablanca to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the consul general claims that regularization is an incentive for candidates to emigrate (Frennet-De Keyser 2003, 25).

The Reversed Tendencies: Italians in Morocco, Moroccans in Italy Having been very marginal and lacking in confidence until the 1980s, the Moroccan immigrant community in Italy grew significantly during the 1990s, becoming the most numerous foreign communities in the country, until they were matched and then slightly overtaken by Albanians and Romanians in more recent years. Since the 1980s, the Moroccan community resident in Italy has grown consistently. In 1980, Italy had only 2768 Moroccan residents. Twenty-one years later, this community numbered some 180,103 people (2001), then the number more than doubled in the following six years and was estimated at around 365,908 individuals (2007) or 10.7% of the foreign population. From 2009 to 2017, Moroccans are thus the third largest foreign community in Italy after Romanians and Albanians.11

11 International Migration Outlook 2018. https://doi.org/10.1787/migr_outlook-2018-en, available at https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/ international-migration-outlook-2018_migr_outlook-2018-en#page361.

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The employment statistics reveal the predominance of paid employment, which accounts for 96.1% of Moroccan workers.12 It is revealing that there has also been a notable development of enterprise and independent professional activity on the part of these migrants, 3.9% of whom are self-employed or are themselves employers. In 2006, the 152,507 workers born in Morocco and enrolled in the social security system were distributed as follows: 4905 craft workers (5% female), 25 farmers (58% female), 1615 shopkeepers and traders (28% female), 1685 partners in private professional practice (32% female), 134,707 salaried private sector employees (17% female), 6630 domestic workers (86% female), 3750 agricultural workers, of whom 3653 had permanent contracts (18% female), and 97 with temporary contracts (6% female). The female component contributes to the reduced employment rate of Moroccans. In other communities (Romanian, Ukrainian, Filipino, i.e., those nationalities which are most often employed as domestic workers), women attain high employment rates as soon as they arrive. Moroccans take the lead with 27,952 business owners (16.9% of the total), ahead of Romanians (23,554) whose resident population in Italy is more than twice as large. Moroccans are mainly active in the commercial sector, two-thirds of their businesses being found in this sector (18,873, or 67.5% compared to an average of 35% for the total immigrant population). This is followed by 5373 businesses in the construction sector (19.2% compared to an average of 39.1%), 1401 businesses in the transport sector (5% compared to an average of 1.5%), and 1143 in manufacturing (1.1% compared to an average of 11.5%). Other important sectors for the Moroccans are professional services businesses (664), engineering (642), and the food industry (222). Agricultural businesses owned by Moroccan citizens number only 81, from a national total of 2547 foreign-owned agricultural businesses, which shows the difficulty for immigrants in getting access to agricultural property. The distribution by region of origin reveals a progressive diversification. Traditionally, the Chaouia-Ouardigha region and more precisely the province of Khouribga in the center of Morocco was the main source of Moroccan migration to Italy. But from the 1990s 12 The source of the data of this section on Italy is the Organization for International Migration 2010 Report: Carthographie des flux migratoires des marocains en Italie. See http://www.iom.int/jahia/webdav/shared/shared/mainsite/activities/countries/docs/ Cartographie_des_flux_migratoires_des_Marocains_en_Italie.pdf.

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onward, new sources appeared, including the two regions of TadlaAzilal, especially the locality of Fkih Ben Saleh in the province of Beni Mellal and the province of Settat. However, more and more regions, such as Grand Casablanca, Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer, or MarrakeshTensift-El Haouz, are also involved in this migratory flow to Italy. Thus, according to the consular information for 2008, an analysis of the distribution of Moroccans resident in Italy by their region of origin in Morocco shows a definite pre-eminence of the ChaouiaOuardigha region (25.3% of the total community), closely followed by the Grand Casablanca region (22%), then Tadla-Azilal (16.1%), and far behind, the regions of Rabat-Salé-Zemmour-Zaer (10.1%), MarrakeshTensift-El Haouz (8%), and Souss-Massa-Draa (4.6%). An analysis by the province of origin puts Casablanca ahead with 21% of Moroccans resident in Italy, followed in second place by the province of Beni Mellal with 15.6%, then Khouribga (12.6%), and Settat (12.1%). The province of Rabat follows next with 6.6%, ahead of the provinces of Kelaa Des Sraghna (4.9%), Agadir Ida Outanane (2.7%), Marrakesh (2.7%), and Fès (2.4%). While the presence of Moroccans in Italy has been increasing since the 1990s, the presence of Italians in Morocco has been diminishing since the end of the French Protectorate. The number of Italians decreased as a consequence of Moroccan independence from France, in particular in the wake of the issuing of several decrees in March and May 1973 (Vermeren 2002) intended to decolonize the Moroccan economy. Decrees established that the majority ownership of companies or firms working in Morocco must be held by Moroccan natural or legal persons. Italian migration to the Maghreb region, notably Tunisia, is long established. Its origins go back to the end of the nineteenth century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Italians living in Tunisia started to migrate to Morocco. In 1952, 539,000 Europeans, mainly coming from Spain, Tunisia, and Algeria, were settled in Morocco (Vermeren 2002). The establishment of the French Protectorate encouraged such movements, as France was looking for workers in Morocco. Italians were concentrated in Tangier and Casablanca in particular. The Dante Alighieri association, in charge of running schools for Italian emigrants abroad, opened the first Italian school in Tangier in 1914 and another in Casablanca in 1920. In Casablanca, the capital of the French Protectorate, Italian immigrants were concentrated in two boroughs in particular: the Maârif and Mers

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Sultan. The Italian schools were located not far from the Mâarif, and in 1930, the Italian architect Aldo Manassi developed a project to incorporate the consulate general and the schools in the same building. Currently, there are very few Italians in Morocco whose historical origins date back to this period or earlier. The students of the Dante Alighieri Italian school are mainly returned migrants—Moroccan children who have attended school in Italy and whose families have returned to Morocco.

Joining the European Club: Visa Requirements to Go to Italy Italian visa policy became more restrictive at the beginning of the 1990s. In 1990, Italy introduced visa requirements for Moroccan nationals. Normal procedure is for this kind of decision to be communicated through an exchange of letters (Scambio di Note), which constitutes the sole official document that states the decision to introduce or remove visas. The exchange of letters from November 24/25, 1960, removed visa requirements for both Italians and Moroccans.13 On September 3, 1990, the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs communicated to Moroccan authorities the introduction of visa requirements for their nationals to cross the Italian border. These letters are unpublished in the Official Journal, and, according to my respondents from the Centro Visti of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, these kinds of letters are stored in the historical archive of the Ministry. Italy introduced visa requirements not only vis-à-vis Morocco. In the same year, letters from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs communicated the introduction of visa requirements for citizens of Senegal, Gambia, Tunisia, and Algeria.14

13 Scambio

di Note tra l’Italia ed il Marocco per l’abolizione dei visti. See http://www. esteri.it/MAE/IT/Ministero/Servizi/Archivi_Biblioteca/Storico_Diplom/, accessed 7 January 2012. 14 This information is reported in a document of the Lower House presenting the proposal for a new Immigration Act in Italy. Progetto di Legge n° 153 – XIII Legislatura. See http://www.camera.it/_dati/leg13/lavori/stampati/sk0500/relazion/0153.htm, accessed 6 July 2018.

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Until 1985, Italy pursued a relaxed visa policy. Before the Act 1990:39, better known as Legge Martelli,15 Italy kept 78 countries visa free.16 Interests in facilitating tourism were one of the reasons to practice a more relaxed visa policy (Meloni 2006). In addition, Sciortino (1999) contended that Italy’s interests in tourism and in pursuing an unobtrusive Mediterranean foreign policy led to the avoidance of strong controls over temporary entries. However, a relaxed visa policy resulted mainly from the fact that Italy has never adopted mechanisms of external control. As Sciortino (1999, 236) noted: ‘[until the mid-1980s] the problem of external control was still on the whole unrecognized, except by a few police officials.’ The problem of external control emerged alongside that of migration control. Italy started to accept the idea of becoming a country of immigration in the mid-1980s, which is the period when the first immigration laws started to be constructed. The first immigration law, Act 1986:943 better known as Legge Foschi,17 was intended to regulate the recruitment of extracomunitari—workers who were nationals of countries not members of the European Community—and established rules for the family reunification of workers. A significant shift in the policy emphasis, from internal to external control, from labor market to public order, occurred after the 1986–1988 amnesties (Sciortino 1999). The Legge Martelli reformed external control. It also introduced the obligation to stamp the passports of non-EEC nationals entering the territory of Italy and to collect and store data of individuals crossing the borders; it strictly regulated new entries with yearly quotas; it introduced a restrictive visa regime. Regarding the latter, the Legge Martelli established two new criteria for the introduction of visas: The countries from which the majority of migratory flows came from and the country of ­origin of those immigrants who were sentenced for drug dealing in the

15 Legge 28 febbraio 1990, n. 39 (Legge Martelli) Conversione in legge, con modificazioni, del decreto-legge 30 dicembre 1989, n. 416, recante norme urgenti in materia di asilo politico, di ingresso e soggiorno dei cittadini extracomunitari e di regolarizzazione dei cittadini extracomunitari ed apolidi già presenti nel territorio dello Stato. Disposizioni in materia di asilo (Gu 28 February 2090). 16 See Circolare del Ministero dell’Interno, 19 August 1985, n. 559/443/225388/2/4/6 reproduced in Nascimbene (1988), 221. Quoted in: Meloni (2006, 40). 17 Legge 30 dicembre 1986, n. 943, Norme in materia di collocamento e di trattamento dei lavoratori extracomunitari immigrati e contro le immigrazioni clandestine (Gu, 21 January 1987).

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preceding three years. The final text of the Legge Martelli resulted from a series of amendments tabled by the Republican Party, which deeply modified the initial proposal by emphasizing the need for mechanisms of control concerning prospective migratory flows, which included the introduction of visas.18 The shift toward policy positions that emphasize external control is induced by the Schengen process or more exactly by the fact that Italy was kept aside from this process. Conformity to external control is the condition sine qua non for being part of the European club. Among the six original countries of the EEC, Italy was the only one that did not participate in the Schengen Agreement and the original Schengen process. The Italian application to join Schengen in 1987 was delayed and Italy signed the Agreement in 1990. According to Sciortino (1999, 247), this delay had ‘a fairly open intention of defining in detail the content of the agreement before letting Italy (and other southern European countries) have a say on the matter.’ Full integration into the Schengen system was achieved only in 1997. As this section has briefly recalled, the policy positions of Italy before the mid-1980s contrasted with those of other EEC countries, notably in regard to external control, whereas the original Schengen States had a stronger tradition of migration control and— at least Benelux and France—had already shifted toward the use of visa policy as an ‘external mechanism of immigration control’ (Brochmann and Hammar 1999). Italy’s exclusion from the Schengen process and its delayed participation played a role in domestic politics. Anti-immigration groups used the failure of Italy to join Schengen as evidence of the fact that Italian immigration policy was too liberal, therefore, un-European (Sciortino 1999). During the debates on the Legge Martelli in the Lower House, left-wing parties like the Communist Party questioned Martelli about the position that Italy would take concerning the Schengen process that many considered as excessively restrictive and overly focused on strengthening external borders (Einaudi 2007, 143–150). Debates referring to Schengen pursued in the press, animated in particular by Italian sociologists: The exclusion of Italy from the Schengen process was an argument used to criticize the Italian approach to immigration. The then

18 The list of amendments of the Republican Party was published on the newspaper ‘Voce Repubblicana’ (n° 77, 19–20 April 1990), see Einaudi (2007, 150–151).

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European Member States were indicated as the model for Italy’s immigration policy. The Schengen process was considered to be as the model to following in order to be part of Europe (Einaudi 2007). As Sciortino (1999, 257) noted: ‘an exclusionary and restrictive policy has been increasingly identified as a condition for membership of the European club.’ In sum, for the case of Italy, policy positions emphasizing external control resulted from a process of adjustment to European positions as expressed in the Schengen process but also in the ad hoc intergovernmental groups of cooperation covering immigration, asylum, policing, and law, which existed since 1975.19 The introduction of visa requirements follows a new criterion namely the countries from which the highest numbers of immigrants come from. Visa introduction aimed at controlling migration at a distance. This position was novel for Italy whereas this stance was clearly expressed in the Schengen process. The choice of Morocco as one of the first countries to which visas were introduced had a specific audience: the original Schengen States. The deputy-head of the Centro Visti asks to a senior colleague considered an expert on visas about the date and the reasons for introducing visa requirements for Moroccan nationals. He emails the reply to me: The introduction of visa requirements for Morocco, along with the other Maghreb countries and Turkey, dates back to the pre-Schengen phase, as the introduction of visa requirements was considered as a conditio sine qua non for our participation in the Agreement.

Between 1991 and 1997, Italy delivered a visa that grants authorization to enter Italian territory exclusively. Only in 1997 did the Schengen Agreement take effect for Italy and uniform Schengen visas have been delivered since that date.

19 The Trevi group was set up in 1976; the Ad Hoc Group on Europol was set up in June 1992; the Ad Hoc Group on Organised Crime was set up in September 1992; Police Working Group on Terrorism (PWGOT) is operational by 1988 (See Bunyan [1993]).

90  F. INFANTINO

The Measures of Distinct Flows and the Challenges of Statistics The distinct history of migratory movements linking Morocco to Belgium, France, and Italy affects the characteristics of contemporary flows. Flows are very different in terms of the percentages of mobility visas and migration visas (short stay and long stay), volume, and refusal rates. Also the travel purposes for which the Schengen visa might be issued shift considerably, an element that reveals the persistence of national visa policies on the ground. The first aspect that deserves mention is the percentage of short-stay visa applications in terms of the total number of visa applications: in 2009, 82% for France, 68% for Belgium, and 23% for Italy; in 2010, 83% for France, 70% for Belgium, and 29% for Italy; in 2011, 84% for France, 76% for Belgium, and 30% for Italy.20 The figure for France is even higher if one takes into account the fact that France has six visa issuing posts for short-stay visas but the consulate in Casablanca processes long-stay visa applications from the entire Moroccan territory. The French consulate in Casablanca handles short-stay visa applications only for residents of the Casablanca region. For Belgium, the figure is complete since the jurisdiction of the consulate general of Belgium covers the entire country. The jurisdiction of the consulate general of Italy includes all the regions of Morocco, except for that of Rabat-Salé, which is under the competence of the embassy consular post in Rabat. Italy shows the lowest percentage of short-stay visas that are due to more recent migration from Morocco. Settlement is stronger than for France and Belgium.21 France’s and Belgium’s high percentage of short-stay visas among all visa types is explained by the long history of migratory movements with Morocco. The most striking differences emerge from the comparison of the volume of visas applied for and the overall refusal rates that Table 1 illustrates. Table 1 shows that the volume of applications for France is substantially higher. The total number of visas applied to travel to France is even larger since France has six short-stay visa-issuing posts in Morocco. Mobility movements between France and Morocco are the most developed. France is also the country displaying a significantly low refusal rate 20 Source:

The Consulate-General of Belgium, France, and Italy in Casablanca. is interesting to note that the number of family reunification visas applied for in Italy are significantly higher than Belgium and France (see Infantino 2014). 21 It

MOROCCO: ONE ‘THIRD COUNTRY’ BUT THREE NATIONAL CONTEXTS 

Table 1  Number of short-stay visas applied for, issued, and refusal rates. Consulates of Belgium, France, and Italy in Casablanca (2009–2017)

91

Belgium

France

Italy

2009 Visas applied for Visas issued Refusal rate (%)

12,386 7820 36.8

55,965 50,980 8.9

7737 5658 26.5

2010 Visas applied for Visas issued Refusal rate (%)

12,252 7384 39.7

57,404 53,350 7.06

8022 5743 28.4

2011 Visas applied for Visas issued Refusal rate (%)

13,254 7662 42.1

51,802 47,613 8

5501 4216 23

2012 Visas applied for Visas issued Refusal rate (%)

11,129 6340 43

66,579 60,411 9.2

9076 6828 24.7

2013 Visas applied for Visas issued Refusal rate (%)

9722 5069 42.9

70,806 65,189 7.9

11,127 8765 21.2

2014 Visas applied for Visas issued Refusal rate (%)

10,894 6595 39.5

76,090 71,377 6.2

14,939 12,154 18.6

2015 Visas applied for Visas issued Refusal rate (%)

9786 5593 42.8

78,946 74,249 5.9

15,880 12,427 21.7

2016 Visas applied for Visas issued Refusal rate (%)

9174 5186 43.5

91,767 87,155 5

16,872 13,644 19.1

2017 Visas applied for Visas issued Refusal rate (%)

10,046 5872 41.5

101,716 96,054 5.6

17,396 12,267 29.5

Source Complete statistics on short-stay visas issued by the Schengen States. https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/ borders-and-visas/visa-policy_en

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(from 5% to approximately 9%). That figure requires an explanation. The consulate of France uses the so-called complément de dossier, a form whereby the consulate requires additional documentation. An officer can decide to attach to an applicant’s passport a form that indicates the supplementary documents the applicant must provide to examine the application. If the applicant does not lodge the supplementary documentation, the application will remain in standby and will not be counted as rejected. It seems appropriate to have a higher refusal rate. Thus, the high-ranking staff is extremely attentive at explaining to me that statistical nuance. The consul general of France states: If we reject the applications for which we required supplementary documentation, the refusal rate will probably be 30%.

Also the Deputy Director of the French Office for Immigration and Integration (OFII) mission in Casablanca clarifies the low refusal rate. Our conversation is reported below: I: ‘You have a very low refusal rate.’ OFII Deputy Director: ‘That’s because of the complements de dossier. Those are not recorded refusals.’

The country that receives the smallest number of applications, Belgium, displays the highest refusal rate (from 36% up to 43%). Italy receives a larger number of visas applied for whereas its refusal rate stays around 20%. However, those figures are extremely general and difficult to compare. Behind the statistical category of short-stay visa very different types of applications conceal, according to the travel purposes. The uniform Schengen visa is an authorization issued by a Schengen State for a stay within the Schengen territory not exceeding three months.22 As we will see below, it is an umbrella term that covers very different types of visa according to travel purposes. The uniformity of the Schengen visa lies in its duration. Statistics that illustrate the number of short-stay visas applied for and denied according to the travel purpose are more accurate in describing the targets of the filtering action of consulates and 22 The definition is included in the Regulation 539/2001 establishing the list of third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing external borders and Visa Code.

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are more suitable for comparison. Unfortunately, not every Schengen State compiles statistics in that manner. Tables 2 and 3 concern Belgium and France, respectively, and show the number of short-stay and longstay visas applied for and denied according to travel purposes. Table 4 focuses on Italy and does not show the number of visas denied according to travel purposes because Italy is not concerned with the monitoring of those kinds of data. Let us start with Belgium. At the consulate of Belgium, the top five travel purposes are family visit, tourism, business, and private invitation, training, and study. Family visits represent more than 50% of short-stay visa applications and the vast majority of the non-issued visas (81.5, 74.1, and 75.2%). Business and tourism applications represent a small portion of visas applied for (approximately 8 and 13%, respectively, over the three years). Denied business visa applications represent 0.8 and 1.7% of all denied visas, whereas denied tourism applications represent 10 and 18% of all denied visas. The consulate of France presents a different situation. At the consulate of France, the top five travel purposes are family visit, private visit, tourism, business, training, and study. The highest numbers of visas applied for are tourist visas. They also represent the 33.9, 42, and 40.1% of all applications. After tourism, there are private visits. Family visits and business visas applied for are very close in terms of numbers. Like Belgium, the family visits represent the vast majority of visas non-issued (more than 50% over the three years) whereas tourism visa applications represent approximately the 28% of non-issued visas over the three years. The percentage of business visas non-issued out of business visas applied for is lower in the case of France than Belgium. Visas applied for health reasons also receive a high percentage of refusals. Table 4 illustrates the available data for Italy. At the consulate of Italy, the top five travel purposes are tourism, business, work, invitation, and transport. Tourism visas represent more than 50% out of visas applied for. It should be noted that the travel purpose ‘family visit’ does not exist. Thus, Moroccans visiting their relatives are statistically counted as tourists. Business represents the second top travel purpose in both percentage and volume. The third travel purpose is work. In effect, work visas that are delivered for contracts lasting up to three months are short-stay and therefore Schengen visas. However, unlike Belgium and France, it is not possible to measure the travel

1.8

12.8 0.6 6.1 59.0 1.0

15.7 3.0 100.0

138

998 44 475 4617 81

1231 236 7820

457 105 4566

37 25 108 3737 84

13

Source Consulate general of Belgium in Casablanca

C Visa Training and study Business Health Private visit Family visit View to marriage Tourism Others Total of C Visa 27,1 30,8 36,9

3,6 36,2 18,5 44,7 50,9

8,6

Share of non-issued

1217 178 7384

992 18 454 4360 42

123

Issued

Nonissued

Issued

%

2010

2009

82 12 131 3610 61

19

42,0 28,8 39,7

7,6 40,0 22,4 45,3 56,5

13,4

Non- share of issued non-issued

16.5 881 2.4 158 100.0 4868

13.4 0.2 6.1 59.0 0.6

1.7

%

1552 190 7662

1224 21 569 3983 33

90

Issued

2011

74 28 246 4208 52

17

Nonissued

20.3 919 2.5 48 100.0 5592

16.0 0.3 7.4 52.0 0.4

1.2

%

37,2 20,2 42,2

5,7 57,1 30,2 51,4 61,2

15,9

Share of non-issued

Table 2  Short-stay (C) visas issued and non-issued by category of travel purpose. Consulate of Belgium in Casablanca (2009–2011)

94  F. INFANTINO

772 7382 107 7653 16,335 17,600 145 50,980

986

1.5 14.5 0.2 15.0 32.0 34.5 0.3 100.0

1.9 46 170 33 2663 554 1418 35 4985

66

Source The consulate general of France in Casablanca

C Visas Training and study Work Business Health Family visit Private visit Tourism Others Total of C Visas

%

5.6 2.3 23.6 25.8 3.3 7.5 17.2 8.9

6.3 772 7637 91 8160 13,172 22,406 11 53,350

1101

Issued

Nonissued

Issued

%

2010

2009

2.1 1.4 14.3 0.2 15.3 24.7 42.0 0.0 100.0

%

30 116 25 2143 494 1187 1 4054

57

Nonissued

%

3.7 1.5 21.6 20.8 3.6 5.0 8.3 7.1

4.9

680 5781 82 8032 12,188 19,636 23 47,613

1191

Issued

2011

2.5

53

Nonissued

1.4 31 12.1 109 0.2 21 16.9 2221 25.6 574 41.2 1180 0.0 0 100.00 4189

%

4.4 1.9 20.4 21.7 4.5 5.7 0.0 8.1

4.3

Share of non-issued

Table 3  Short-stay (C) visas issued and non-issued by categories of travel purpose. Consulate of France in Casablanca (2009–2011)

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96  F. INFANTINO Table 4  Short-stay (C) visas issued by travel purpose and total of non-issued. Consulate of Italy in Casablanca (2008–2011) 2008 C Visa Business Health Sport Invitation Work Training and study Transport Tourism Others Total of C Visa issued Total of C Visa non-issued Total of C Visa applied for

900 32 9 250 975 65 119 3177 12 5539 1041 6580

% 16.2 0.6 0.2 4.5 17.6 1.2 2.1 57.4 0.2 100.0 15.8

2009 1120 39 6 291 743 38 151 3259 11 5658 2052 7710

% 19.8 0.7 0.1 5.1 13.1 0.7 2.7 57.6 0.2 100.0 26.6

2010 1234 38 3 426 785 58 167 3024 8 5743 2279 8022

% 21.5 0.7 0.1 7.4 13.7 1.0 2.9 52.7 0.1 100.0 28.4

2011

%

1224 29.0 24 0.6 26 0.6 278 6.6 419 9.9 35 0.8 132 3.1 2072 49.1 6 0.1 4216 100.0 1285 23.4 5501

Source Consulate general of Italy in Casablanca (for 2011: up to 30 November 2011)

purpose that receives the highest number of refusals. The volume of applications for each travel purpose indicates highly differentiated flows of travelers. From these statistics, it results that the volume of applications for tourism, business, family, and private visit visas to France is considerably higher than in the other countries. The volume of tourism applications for Belgium is very low, and the top travel purpose is family visit. In the case of Italy, tourism is the major reason to travel but the data cannot be compared to the tourism visas of the other consulates because of the lack of the family or private visits travel purpose. Tables 2, 3, and 4 also illustrate the distinct categories of shortstay visas that are aggregated in the category of Schengen visas. Travel purposes for which a visa can be applied for represent the translation, in bureaucratic terms, of the categories of foreign travelers that are legitimized to cross the borders of the receiving state. Travel purposes speak of the state-bound management of cross-border flows. In effect, travel purposes change over time, following the developments in the state management of entries. For instance, a travel purpose that does not exist anymore in the Italian system is ‘family reasons.’

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Cross-national variations of travel purposes reveal variations of visa policy in the specific context of the foreign country. Standardized travel purposes, such as those that one can read on the Web sites of Ministries of Foreign Affairs, including business, tourism, study, and so on, are not exhaustive. Local travel purposes exist which respond to local circumstances. Cross-national variations of travel purposes in local contexts reveal the perpetuation of national visa policies. There are motivations to travel to one Schengen State that diverge from the motivation to travel to another Schengen State. The communitarized legal framework does not modify this situation. In effect, an aspect of visa policy that has been left unregulated is a definition of the travel purposes that the Schengen visa should cover. Given the shifting travel purposes, the length of stay as the basis of the legal definition of the Schengen visa appears as the sole criterion that encompasses all Schengen States’ travel purposes. Discretionary powers to define the legitimate reasons to travel are authorized, as this aspect of common visa policy is unregulated. Distinct Schengen visas in terms of travel purposes underline distinct processing practices, distinct procedures, and distinct supporting documents. In light of this, the attempts to make the visa policy implementation more uniform by drawing up common lists of supporting documents for instance cannot be other than ineffective. In terms of travel purposes, supporting documents and processing practices, there is no uniformity justifying the single term of ‘Schengen visa.’ However, questioning the uniformity of the Schengen visa from the viewpoint of the multiplicity of travel purposes allows for putting forward the permanency of state-bound visa policies: state-bound reasons to travel to a specific Schengen State rather than another one and the state-bound definition of legitimate reasons to travel. The plurality of travel purposes obscured by a three-month visa is not taken into account in its name. Schengen visas represent the term reflecting such plurality. That is an element to take into account when comparing the policy outcomes and the implementation practices. The comparison of overall refusal rates is misleading since it implies comparing different types of visas. Also, it is not sufficient for unraveling the targets of the filtering action of consulates.

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Conclusion This chapter has highlighted the existence of three national contexts in which Schengen visa policy is implemented although consulates are located in the same third country. The differentiation of the context has historical roots. Moroccan migration in Belgium originated in the 1960s due to workforce recruitment. Visa requirements were introduced to Moroccan nationals in the wake of the end of the recruitment policies and as a strategy to control migration to Belgium. Moroccan migration to Belgium has a specific feature in Europe: Belgian-Moroccans occupy the political arena in Belgium. Contemporary flows to Belgium are the most reduced compared to the other two Schengen States and consist mainly of family visits. Moroccan migration to France is old and originates in the years preceding the protectorate. The history of French– Moroccan relations shows interdependence, as French immigration in Morocco is still very relevant. The history of the attempts at controlling migration without the introduction of visa requirements reveals the sensitivity of the visa issue in the former French colonies, notably the Maghreb region. The objective of controlling migration has conflicted and, as we will see, still struggles with the objective of maintaining stable diplomatic relations. For France, the ‘problem’ of family visits from former colonies notably Maghreb countries emerged at that time. The objective of visa policy began to be understood as the management of the risk of non-return. The history of Moroccan migration to France and Belgium and the history of visa introduction allow for sustaining the argument that visas have represented a mechanism of immigration control since the beginning. In the case of Italy, visa requirements were introduced to conform to European norms in the view of the participation to the Schengen Agreement. Moroccan migration to Italy is relatively new and characterized today by a significant flow of migration rather than mobility visas. The historical relations between Morocco and Italy are characterized by the Italian government’s interest in those Italian emigrants settled in Morocco. History informs the ways in which institutions understood as norms, symbols and cognitive schemes (Hall and Taylor 1996) take shape and constitute shared models of thinking guiding action (March and Olsen 1989). In the next chapter, we will see the ways in which history is reflected in the institutional narratives which convey national senses to EU visa policy.

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100  F. INFANTINO Infantino, F. (2014). Bordering ‘Fake’ Marriages? The Everyday Practices of Control at the Consulates of Belgium, France and Italy in Casablanca. Etnografia e ricerca qualitativa, 7(1), 27–48. Jacobs, D., Teney, C., Rea, A., & Delwit, P. (2010). Voting Patterns Among Ethnic Minorities in Brussels (Belgium) During the 2006 Local Elections. Acta Politica, 45, 273–297. Jacobs, J., M. Martiniello, & Rea, A. (2002). Changing Patterns of Political Participation of Immigrants in the Brussels Capital Region. The October 2000 Elections. Journal of International Migration and Integration, 3(2), 201–221. Kingdon, J. W., & Thurber, J. A. (1984). Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies. Boston: Little, Brown. Lacroix, T. (2005). Les réseaux marocains du développement: Géographie du transnational et politiques du territorial. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Lee, L. T. (1991). Consular Law and Practice. Oxford: Clarendon Press. March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1989). Rediscovering Institutions: The Organizational Basis of Politics. New York: Free Press. Martiniello, M. (1998). Les élus d’origine étrangère à Bruxelles: une nouvelle étape de la participation politique des populations d’origine immigrée. Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 14(2), 123–149. Martiniello, M., & Rea, A. (1997). Les effets de la construction européenne sur la politique d’intégration. In M. T. Coenen & R. Lewin (Eds.), La Belgique et ses étrangers. Vingt ans d’incohérence politique. (pp. 121–143). Bruxelles: De Boeck/Pol-His. Martiniello, M., & Rea, A. (2012). Et si on racontait une histoire de l’immigration en Belgique. Bruxelles, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles. Meloni, A. (2006). Visa Policy Within the European Union Structure. New York: Springer. Morice, A. (2006). Pas de séjour sans travail, ou les pièges du contrat saisonnier. L’exemple des Marocains dans l’agriculture provençale. Migrations Société, 107, 211–231. Rea, A. (1999). Immigration, Etat et citoyenneté. La formation de la politique d’intégration des immigrés de la Belgique (PhD dissertation). Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles. Rea, A. (2001). Jeunes immigrés dans la cité. Citoyenneté et politique publique. Bruxelles: Labor. Ringelheim, J., Herman, G., & Rea, A. (Eds.). (2015). Politiques Antidiscriminatoires. Bruxelles: Editions De Boeck. Rodier, C., & Ferré, N. (1997). Visa: le verrou de la honte. Plein droit, 35. https://www.gisti.org/spip.php?article3759. Accessed 11 February 2018.

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Schaeffer, F. (2001). Mythe du retour et réalité de l’entre-deux. La retraite en France ou au Maroc. Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales, 17(1), 165–176. Sciortino, G. (1999). Planning in the Dark: The Evolution of Italian Immigration Control. In G. Brochmann & H. Hammar (Eds.), Mechanisms of Immigration Control (pp. 233–260). Oxford: Berg. Schoonvaere, Q. (2014). Belgique-Maroc: 50 années de migration. Etude démographique de la population d’origine marocaine en Belgique. Bruxelles: Centre fédéral Migration. Tarrius, A. (1996). La réussite des clandestins. Marocains et réseaux souterrains de travail: de l’agriculture au commerce international. Espaces et Sociétés, 87, 13–35. Vermeren, P. (2002). Histoire du Maroc depuis l’indépendance. Paris: La découverte & Syros. Weil, P. (1991). La France et ses étrangers: L’aventure d’une politique d’immigration 1938–1991. Paris: Éditions Calman-Lévy.

The National Sense Making of EU Visa Policy

Before one’s arrival in a diplomatic or consular post abroad, not only the high-ranking staff but also low-level employees are interested in learning the national policy in that country, the interests and the problems at stake. That is essential knowledge to work in consular posts. The narratives that civil servants share convey sense to visa policy on the ground. A vast literature focusing on policy narratives in political science (Roe 1994; Banerjee 1998; Czarniawska 1997) has revealed the nexus between narratives and action and pointed out that narratives impart sense and suggest action. Narratives consist of instruments for practitioners because they are modes of knowing. This chapter tackles the Belgian, French, and Italian narratives that represent the visa policy and the consular posts in Morocco. It aims at investigating the national and local authorities’ assessment of the bilateral relations as well as their attitude toward Moroccan travelers, given past immigration history and other factors that may account for diverging priorities with respect to the EU visa policy implementation. Narratives nourish the ‘organizational setting’ that, understood broadly, makes sense of officers’ work by suggesting the purposes to which daily action is bent (Lin 2000). Narratives do not explain decision-making but constitute the background understanding in which bureaucratic action unfolds, a macro-context that conveys sense to organizational action. Narratives nourish the organizational concerns and problems. Because narratives place the present within a series of coherent events that originate in the past and will end in the future, narratives © The Author(s) 2019 F. Infantino, Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8_4

103

104  F. INFANTINO

convey sense to the present and suggest future action (Roe 1994). The very different historical events (discussed in the chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third-Country’ but Three National Contexts”) produce shifting narratives and national senses. History matters as it is the factor that differentiates the senses attributed to visa policy on the ground. Narratives are performative since they convey the sense that certain kinds of action are more appropriate than others (Banerjee 1998). From these narratives, the representation of what visa policy should do in Morocco and of the issues at stake for implementing visa policy in that country emerge. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first section tackles the understandings of visa policy in Morocco according to Belgium, France, and Italy. It builds on the interviews with the heads of the offices in national ministries in charge of visa policy who describe the specificities of the Casablanca consular post within their respective consular networks. Those interviews are effective in revealing the narratives about visa policy in Morocco, as these civil servants maintain an overall view of the national consular networks. In addition, I take into account the narratives of high-ranking civil servants in local consulates, directly concerned with national interests in Morocco. Organizational action needs to understand Moroccan applicants too. The second section focuses on the representations of applicants, a subjective dimension of these flows’ distinctness beyond the objective, statistical dimensions (see chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third-Country’ but Three National Contexts”). Narratives tend to represent the recipients of organizational action as homogenous groups: applicants are narrated in terms of flows. Representations of flows emerge in the accepted narratives—the narratives that are explicitly and publicly stated in the visa sections. They have been gathered through daily observations in visa sections and informal discussions. Thus, such narratives are homogenous because they are the accepted ones.

The Understandings of Visa Policy in Morocco What does characterize the Belgian, French, and Italian consular posts in Casablanca? What is their role and reputation within each Schengen State’s consular network? The section will show that narratives depict visa policy in Morocco in distinct ways. In the case of Belgium, migratory ‘risks’ create the specificity of the consular post in Casablanca.

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Therefore, it is considered to be one of the most important posts. The largest number of human resources is invested there. Migratory risks and the so-called Moroccan community characterize Belgian visa ­policy in Morocco as ‘sensitive migration control.’ The consulate of Italy presents the opposite situation. Its reputation is poor because the consulate is considered to be a post of migration control. Unlike Belgium, migration control is scorned and this specificity makes the consulate in Casablanca an unimportant post for the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Consequently, the investment in human resources is low. The voices of civil servants characterize Italian visa policy in Morocco as ‘scorned migration control.’ The consulates of France in Morocco most notably the consulate in Casablanca enjoy a very good reputation. It is considered to be a very prestigious consulate because of the relations between France and Morocco and because each task in this consulate is consistent with diplomatic concerns. The consulate of France’s specificity lies in the diplomatic concerns. Thus, in regard to visa policy, the specificity lies in the twofold objectives of controlling migration while ensuring a smooth bilateral relation. Visa policy in Morocco is understood as ‘migration control and diplomacy.’ Visa Policy as Sensitive Migration Control In the case of Belgium, the consulate in Casablanca is the most important because visa policy in Morocco should manage migratory risks. Casablanca is critical since migration control in Morocco is a sensitive issue in Belgium. Both the service visa court séjour, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the service visa court séjour, Aliens Office, Ministry of the Interior are in charge of the visa policy implementation. The heads of both offices assert that the two most important visa-issuing posts within the Belgian consular network are Casablanca and Kinshasa. However, the justifications of such importance are very different from one another. In the Aliens Office, the narrative is less elaborated. The importance is explained by the ‘high numbers of applications.’ The personnel in charge of the consulate in Casablanca, from the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ service visa court séjour in Brussels to the consuls general and the heads of the visa section, contradict that. The consulate is critical not just because of the number of applications but also and especially for the types of applications and the scrutiny that the consulate receives from

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Belgium. The head of the service visa court séjour, Brussels, reveals the features of a relevant consulate: For instance, Mumbai is the consular post with the highest number of applications. However, to me Casablanca is more important than Mumbai for several reasons: the Moroccan community, the high number of applications, the migratory risk, and the fact that one application out of three is a long-stay visa application, family reunification or students. Processing a visa application in Casablanca requires more time than in Mumbai. So, the personnel in Casablanca is more than in Mumbai.

The volume of applications per se does not represent the reasons for being the most critical consular post. London receives the same number of applications as Casablanca. However, Casablanca is the consular post in which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs appoints the largest number of officers tasked with the examination of visa applications (four or five officers in Casablanca and one officer in London). The head of the service visa court séjour explains: Visa applications in London and Casablanca are incomparable. I would say that in London visa applications do not cause any problem because the foreigner is already settled in the United Kingdom, has a residence permit. The person wants to travel to Belgium, visit or do some business. It’s completely different.

Migratory risks make not just the specificity but also the importance of the consular post of Belgium in Casablanca. Suspicion results in intense labor and extends the time dedicated to each application. The ‘Moroccan community’ in Belgium is the other element that makes the specificity and the relevance of Casablanca. In central ministries as well as in the consular post, everybody evokes the ‘Moroccan community’ (la communauté marocaine) to point to the scrutiny that the consulate receives from Belgium rather than to explain the mobility movements between Morocco and Belgium, exemplified by the high number of family visit visas applied for. Because the Aliens Office in Brussels is held accountable for visa policy and makes the final decisions, relatives of Moroccan applicants settled in Belgium address questions, complaints and file appeals in case of delays or visa refusals. The head of the service visa court séjour points to that dynamic:

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This Moroccan community lives in Belgium. They are the guarantors, those who invite the applicant. They know very well whom to address. So, if the application takes time, the guarantor rather than the applicant will address the Aliens Office.

At the consular level, the first consul general I met refers to the diplomatic labor that such attention involves: Not just the applicant but also the people close to the applicant make us plenty of requests: information about the examining process, why does it take so long, whether it is possible to omit one piece of documentation. Interventions are numerous just like the many questions to which one should try to reply, let’s say, adequately.

It emerges that visa policy implementation practices and the management of the visa application process are a sensitive issue because of social networks in Belgium that exert pressure. The second consul general I met is more explicit in explaining that elected representatives scrutinize the consulate: In Belgium everybody knows whatever we do here. (…) Given the size of the Moroccan community and the elected representatives, I am absolutely not against that, we receive some criticisms on the functioning of the visa section.

Since the middle of the 1990s, the number of elected representatives of Moroccan origins at municipal, regional, and federal levels has grown steadily. This population is particularly represented in political arenas in the Brussels Capital Region and has a very strong capacity to influence public institutions. The second consul general has just started his appointment in Casablanca. He is not responsible for the delays and any other criticism to the management of the consulate. Such a position allows him to be even more explicit on the main causes of scrutiny. The large number of emails and telephone calls to the Aliens Office info desk is partly due to a considerable delay that the second consul general acknowledges: Pressure is huge and it is justified. When I arrived, the delay was of 3,750 applications. So, I think that pressure is justified to make us change our direction towards the resolution of this problem.

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‘Pressure’ exists and it is more or less justified according to the actor who speaks. It is important to note that the second consul general engages with the day-to-day management of visa policy and, together with the new head of the visa section, successfully work on the reduction of the delay. The issue at stake in visa policy in Morocco is the controlling of migration in a manner that is sensitive to the scrutiny that exists in Belgium. Visa Policy as Scorned Migration Control For the case of Italy, the consulate in Casablanca is one of the less relevant because it is a visa-issuing post. Visa policy is understood as migration control. And migration control is scorned. The narratives of Italian civil servants, both at the Ministry and consular levels, are very clear in describing Casablanca as a consular post in decline. When the Ministry of Foreign Affairs personnel describe the history of the consulate, they make reference to the Italian immigrants in Morocco. The transformation of the consulate into a visa-issuing post represents the decline of the consulate. The conversation with the head of the Centro Visti, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bureau in charge of visa policy, Rome, is the most telling in that respect. For a consul general, it is more difficult to admit that he has been appointed to one of the less reputed consulates: I have the impression that with time Casablanca, which was an important site, has become, a place for us, for our system, not so important. Have you noticed? The consulate building is beautiful. Probably during the years of the Italian grandeur, not necessarily during fascism, but even after, Casablanca was a prestigious consular post. I: ‘So many Italians…’ Exactly. Once, as far as I know, not one but two diplomats were assigned there, it was a first line consulate, a very important consulate. In more recent years, the consular post has changed its nature, so it has become a less prestigious place, less a post for developing business or for political prestige and more a place of immigration control.

The magnificent building bespeaks of the initial prestige of the consular post in Casablanca. Nowadays, such a prestigious building is redundant,

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given the services that the consulates provide: issuing visas to Moroccans and providing services to ‘new’ Italians (Italians of Moroccan origin). Alessandro, the administrative commissioner also connects the in-decline reputation of Casablanca with the imposition of visa requirements and the transformation of this post into one of migration control: This is a consulate to provide services, the most important consular activity is visas. Only 2000 Italians live in Morocco, so the State does not invest much. The reputation of the consulate is only negative, since Italy has introduced visa requirements on Moroccan nationals.

In effect, this consulate is not a top destination for Italian diplomats. The head of the Centro Visti explains: In our (diplomatic) career, competition exists to get into the embassies more than the consulates and among these the most prestigious and larger consulates are New York, London, Paris, but not Casablanca.

Migration control does not require great investment in human resources, both in regard of managers and officers. The number of officers assigned to the consular post of Belgium and Italy in Casablanca is almost equal (four or five expatriate officers) whereas the number of long-stay and short-stay visas applied for is larger in the case of Italy than in the case of Belgium (see chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third-Country’ but Three National Contexts”). Migration control characterizes the consulate of Italy in Casablanca and makes it a less important consulate. The head of the Centro Visti suggests that although Casablanca is a visa-issuing post, it could be relevant provided that the visas applied for would be for business or tourism: Casablanca is a special consular post, because contrary to the great majority of other consular posts, the number of long-stay national visas is larger than the number of Schengen visas, whereas normally it is the opposite and this means that national visas are for family reunification, dependent work, etc., etc.

It is interesting to note that the task of migration control is not considered to be labor intense. Unlike Belgium and France, the consulate

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does not carry out in-depth interviews or ad hoc research to issue family reunification visas most notably of spouses. It might be surprising to see that dependent work visa applications are not seen as an interest for the Italian economy. It is common sense to consider dependent work visa applications as strategies to migrate lawfully rather than offers that satisfy a labor demand. Often officers deem hiring commitments as traded (Infantino 2010). According to statistical categories, the majority of short-stay visas applied for are tourist visas (see chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third-Country’ but Three National Contexts”, Table 4). That does not need to imply movements of tourists. The travel purposes for short-stay visas at the consulate of Italy do not include the ‘family visit.’ Therefore, Moroccans traveling to visit their relatives apply for tourism visas. Moroccan tourists are very often relatives, mostly parents, visiting their children. During an interview, an Italian consular officer has stated: Federica, these people are not tourists like you or me. These people are visiting their family.

The lack of the travel purpose ‘family visit’ makes these applicants ‘fake’ tourists. Visa policy in Morocco is scorned, as it is about migration control rather than promotion of mobility of wanted wealthy tourists or businessmen. Visa Policy as Migration Control and Diplomacy In the case of France, the consulate in Casablanca is one of the most reputed and praised because it should not only control migration but also take care of the bilateral relation. First of all, the consulate in Casablanca is part of a larger network of French institutions. Morocco is one of the foreign countries where France makes significant institutional investments: one embassy and six consulates general (Casablanca, Agadir, Fez, Marrakesh, Rabat, and Tangier); eleven French Institutes (Instituts Français) (Agadir, Casablanca, El Jadida, Fez, Kenitra, Marrakech, Meknes, Oujda, Rabat, Tangier, and Tetouan); and two Alliances Franco-Marocaines (Essaouira, Safi), all of which are dependent on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and whose mission is the promotion of the French language and culture; one research center for social sciences Centre Jacques Berque (CNRS/MAE) is based in Rabat;

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one OFII1 mission in Casablanca; Campus France2 in Rabat. The consul general describes Morocco using these words: It’s the first diplomatic system in France, it is more important than the United States.

The French consular post in Casablanca enjoys a very good reputation. The head of the Mission pour la politique des visas, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Paris, describes the excellent reputation of the consular post in Casablanca and the prestige associated with the role of the consul general in such a post: It’s one of our best consulates general. Casablanca is a wonderful post to be a consul general. In our consular network (I don’t take into account the consulates general in the capital cities that are less appreciated because embassies are there) Istanbul, New York, Casablanca, Jerusalem (but Jerusalem is special) do matter. For a consul general Casablanca is a very important post. Business is relevant because Casablanca is the economic capital of Morocco, the consul has a real role that goes beyond consular matters, a huge French community live there, so a consul can do real work from political, economic and consular points of view. Moreover, it is also a huge post for visas so…

Trade relations between France and Morocco give an important role to the consulate-general and to the French Chamber of Commerce. The consulate general has a commercial and political role. The management of trade relations or French properties in Casablanca requires diplomatic leverage and labor. The interests that France promotes in its former protectorate explain such a positive reputation. Diplomatic considerations pervade the visa policy. In the context of Casablanca, visa policy gives both diplomatic leverage and migratory concerns to the consul general. Visas can be used as a bargaining chip. Migration control does the maintaining of a smooth bilateral relation more difficult. That is not novel. Migration

1 The OFII (Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration) is based in Casablanca. It is in charge of all aspects of work immigration and family immigration except for the issuance of visas. 2 Campus France is the French Agency for the promotion of higher education, international student services, and international mobility.

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control has always been an issue that could hurt the maintenance of good diplomatic relations. Introducing visa requirements to Morocco and the Maghreb countries in general have been difficult. Instead of visas, the hosting certificate and the disembarkation card were introduced to control undesirable migration notably of foreigners traveling for family visits, as visa introduction was politically and symbolically costly. Visas were introduced to all foreign countries in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, which provided a strong and more legitimate justification for such a measure. Visa policy emerges as a diplomatic task. The consul general of France highlights: Visas build our relationship with Moroccans. We should be very cautious. They don’t like visas because they think that with France they have special relationships.

Also the head of the visa section who has other work experiences in African countries is aware of the impact of diplomatic concerns on dayto-day management of visa policy, which is disturbing from her point of view: The visa issue is much more difficult in countries in which France has good relations and a sphere of influence.

The Consulate of France is the most scrutinized by the Moroccan media and authorities. Conscious of being under the spotlight, the consul general states: I have a friend who told me, “I have never seen any article about you”. That’s the best compliment I have ever received since I arrived in Casablanca. The press ignores me.

Also the head of the French citizen section fears the potential criticisms addressed to the consulate bureaucratic action most notably on the ways in which they treat applicants and enforce some rights such as the right to marry and to family reunion: They scrutinize us about humanitarian issues. The human rights league, the journalists…

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Preventing criticism, enhancing the consulate’s image, and achieving the twofold objectives of controlling migration and preserving smooth bilateral relations are the main issues at stake. Visa policy should manage migratory risks and defend diplomatic interest. Narratives do not just characterize the consular posts but they also nourish the collective representation of the flows of applicants, which I turn to in the next section.

The Narration of Flows The discourses in visa sections paint a portrait of Moroccans. To carry out the visa policy implementation, officers need to understand who are Moroccan applicants, what are their motivations to travel, what problems they might pose. In the three consulates, Moroccans are portrayed in very distinct ways. In the Belgian visa section, they are often represented as ‘networked applicants.’ In the French visa section, they are ‘demanding applicants.’ In the Italian visa section, they are ‘wrong applicants.’ Representations shift in accordance with the understandings of what visa policy should do in Morocco: controlling migration being attentive to the situation in the home country; controlling migration with diplomacy; controlling migration in an ‘underdeveloped’ and scorned context. Statistical data show that flows of applicants are distinct in terms of volume, motivations for traveling to each of these Schengen States, and regions of origin. Beside the objective characteristics of applicants, inside the visa sections, subjective characteristics emerge, which are much more meaningful to make sense of day-to-day organizational action. Officers seek that knowledge. At the consulate of France, the consul general appoints any newly arrived expatriate officer to the windows, because that is a way to have direct contact with the applicants and developing an idea of the human context in which the consulate operates (la clientele, in the words of the consul general). The Networked Applicants In the Belgian visa section, officers emphasize the fact that Moroccan visa applicants have family ties in Belgium and are capable of mobilizing networks there. Officers are not worried at naming these networks

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a ‘lobby’ rather than a ‘community.’ Instead of displaying a neutral attitude, they are careful at denouncing the ‘Moroccan lobby.’ Beyond the relatives of the applicants and the elected representatives, the ‘Moroccan lobby’ refers here to Belgians of Moroccan origin working in local administrations such as the town halls that are involved in several procedures. According to the head of the visa section, bureaucratic practices are biased by ethnic preferences, as the first head of the visa section I met states: Nowadays the Moroccan lobby is powerful in Belgium. Moroccans work in local administrations, and, as a matter of fact, they have preferences for the people who come from here.

The ‘Moroccan lobby’ would explain the fact that Moroccans obtain residence permits, Belgian citizenship or get married because Belgian– Moroccan officers in town halls would have a preferential treatment for Moroccans. Many members of the consular staff refer to the idea that there exists a network of supporters from the inside. They perceive the presence of Belgians–Moroccans in Belgian society and institutions as illegitimate, particularly because Morocco is not an ancient colony of Belgium unlike Congo. One consular officer states: In Congo we used to say that we are cousins. So what are Moroccans? Brothers?

Consular officers and managers entertain the idea that migratory movements from Morocco are redundant and useless whereas mobility (short-stay visas) is constantly under suspicion of being a strategy to migrate and/or ‘abuse’ the welfare state, notably regarding the healthcare system and unemployment benefits. Mobility of relatives is not desired unlike the mobility of tourists or businessmen, two kinds of applicants who are less represented in Casablanca. A discourse that I have heard so many times over the years tends to blame the Belgian recruiters of Moroccan workforce who were operating in the 1960s because of their choice of recruiting in the northeast region of Morocco that is considered to be culturally inferior than other regions. According to that view, current problems such as the fact that ‘it is impossible to assimilate those populations,’ to put it in the words of the consul (1), originate in the choice of recruiters. Discourses linking bureaucratic practices to the origins of bureaucratic actors caused tense relationships between, on one

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side, the high-ranking consular staff (the head of the visa service, the consul), most visa agents and, on the other side, locally employed workers, especially Moroccans and Belgian–Moroccans. Given the high refusal rate, negative narratives toward Moroccans and the tense workplace relationships, the atmosphere in the consulate of Belgium is particularly serious and disapproving, making it a ‘stern consulate.’ The Demanding Applicants and the Clientes From the perspective of French consular staff, the general characteristic of Moroccan applicants is the fact that they are demanding. Flows of applicants from Morocco are represented as applicants exerting migratory pressure who think they have a special relationship with France, given the colonial past, which justify their high level of expectations. Such a way of narrating flows relates more broadly to flows that originate from ex-colonies of France. The answer of the consul general in Cotonou (Benin) to Senator Gouteyron who was working on a report about consular posts abroad has described the recourse to appeals in the context of African countries as due to the special relationship the population of these countries think they have with France: Given our historical past, in African local contexts, the visa to France is still perceived as a universal moral right. Under those conditions, visa refusal is often perceived as the violation of a historical right and those who are concerned seek a superior authority capable of reversing the negative decision.3

The fear of appeals (formal and informal) was quite present in the visa section among officers that examine applications. The legal appeal must be filed first at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Commission for appeals (Commission de Recours contre les décisions de Refus de Visa d’entrée en France—CRRV) that was moved from Paris to Nantes in 2010. This commission was created in 2000 (Decree n° 2000–1093, 10 November 2000). It is intended at limiting the legal appeals to the Council of State 3 Dans le contexte africain local, le visa pour la France est encore perçu comme un droit moral dont chacun disposerait en raison de l’histoire. Dans ces conditions, les refus sont souvent ressentis comme la violation d’un droit historique et ceux qui en font l’objet recherchent tout naturellement une autorité supérieure susceptible d’inverser la décision de rejet. Source: https://www.senat.fr/rap/r06-353/r06-3539.html. Accessed 28 April 2018.

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(Conseil d’État). The commission analyzes the appeals and if the commission does not impose the issuance of the visa, the legal appeal can be filed to the Council of State. The fear of appeals was also due to the standard form to notify refusals imposed by the entry into force of the Visa Code in 2010. Before 2010, France did not notify motivations of refusals. Beyond motivations, the uniform document informs on the appeal procedure. According to consular staff, that form results in a great increase of the number of appeals. In 2010, the commission for appeal registers 5269 appeals. After the entry into force of the Visa Code, in 2011, the same commission registers 13,369. The number of appeals increased by 154% from 2010 onwards, after which France has been obliged to notify refusals. In 2011, the appeals filed by Moroccan applicants were 11.6% of all registered appeals. Appeals against refusals of short-stay visa applications represent 75% of all appeals. The top visa categories for which appeals are lodged are: tourism, private visits, family visits, and the relative in the ascendancy line of a French citizen.4 Because diplomatic concerns pervade the consulate of France, the voice of officers and civil servants is often silent in terms of direct comments on applicants. The high-ranking staff comments on applicants only during face-to-face interviews. The head of the visa section makes a very telling comment on that matter: You never know whether it’s somebody we can give a damn about or somebody who then calls this or that person.

Applicants are differentiated according to the social networks they are able to mobilize. Informal appeals can be extremely problematic. This is the case in particular for decisions about applications in which officers see a risk of contestation, like in the following situation. I’m in one of the offices when Didier, an expatriate officer, enters the room to consult with a colleague about one application he would refuse. I ask why he raises doubts and he says: ‘because he is a…’ and starts dancing a Jewish dance to mean that he has doubts not because the person is a Jew but because he anticipates that Jewish Moroccans in Casablanca are likely to

4 Source:

Sous Directions Des Visas, Nantes.

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mobilize networks to contest decisions. He tells me that consulting with colleagues is crucial in these cases. Within the large group of demanding applicants, differentiation exists according to the actual capability of mobilizing informal networks to contest decisions. The term clientelism perfectly describes the relationship between the French consulate and some Moroccan applicants who can be characterized as clientes just as in the Roman Empire. Certainly clientes are dependent of patrones. Nevertheless, the patrones’ existence depends on the support of clients that is ensured by the exchange of benefits and advantages, visas, or facilitated procedures in our case of analysis. The Wrong Applicants In the case of Italy, narratives on applicants are characterized by scorn. First of all, Moroccan visa applicants are viewed as immigrants. The consul general puts forward that very clearly. He says: Moroccan immigration to Italy is not a good immigration.

As we have seen in the previous section, the majority of visas applied for are long-stay immigration visas. Like in the case of Belgium, the representation of applicants is connected to their region of origin. The consular staff depicts all long-stay visa applicants as ‘wrong’ because they come from rural and disadvantaged regions of Morocco: the central regions of Chaouia-Ouardigha, notably the province of Khouribga, and the Tadla-Azilal region, notably the province of Beni-Mellal and Settat. However, the majority of Moroccan immigrants in Italy actually come from the region of Casablanca (see chapter “Morocco: One ‘ThirdCountry’ but Three National Contexts”). Regardless of the actual accuracy of that perception, such a representation of applicants circulates and become part of the knowledge required to implement visa policy. Not just decision-making but also the visa application process adjusts to applicants. The consular staff instructs Jacques, the vice-president of the private service providers that cooperates with the consulate, about the type of applicants. Thus, one of Jacques’s first remarks is: I have been told that here it’s not like the French [like applicants of the French consulate]. Here, they are very poor people, people who come from countryside villages, people who have goats. It’s really low level.

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Scorn is at the origin of the confrontational relationship with Moroccan visa applicants that I observe in some officers’ attitudes, some work routines, and a specific organization of the Italian citizens section. One example is Antonio, an expatriate officer, to whom the private security guard gives a form filled in by a lady standing outside the consulate. The lady asks to be scheduled an appointment to talk to somebody in the consulate. The form says, ‘Please, I want an appointment.’ Antonio throws the form on my desk and says, ‘I would like to, not I want.’ Alessandro, the administrative commissioner in charge of the citizenship ceremonies, develops a work routine concerning the criteria required for a Moroccan to be granted Italian citizenship. He says that he stops the ceremony when the person does not speak either Italian or French: Even if no law authorizes me, one must not speak Italian to become an Italian citizen, those who speak French I make them pass, but for example I refused a lady because after reading to her the oath, I asked if she had understood, she replied m’shuia [a little bit in Moroccan Arabic].

Scorn toward Moroccans persists even if they are Italian citizens. Some consular officers call them quelli con la cittadinanza (literally ‘those holding Italian citizenship’). An overtly racist manner of organizing the Italian citizens section existed before 2007. Roberta, the new head of the citizens section, reveals: Before my arrival, Italians [not the Moroccans with Italian citizenship] were allowed to come in the afternoon. When I arrived, the consul general wanted the same thing. I refused because I’m not racist, and also because according to a syndicate agreement I’m supposed to be at work until 1 pm. (…) The Italian community discriminates, they don’t want to be in the same room with Moroccans. Even Tony [the owner of an Italian restaurant] told me that I should arrange two separate rooms. I said that the apartheid is over. Italians living here would like to be the new colonizers.

Roberta claims that the previous head of the Italian citizen’s service was ‘a fascist.’ When she arrived, she found fifty applications for Italian citizenship abandoned in her office. Unlike the consulate of France’s visa section, in which the accepted discourse on flows is actually the avoidance of discourses, Moroccan flows of applicants are overtly commented through thoughtless and inappropriate jokes, including jokes on personal appearance notably of

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women (headscarves, face tattoos of Berber women) and sexist remarks (like ‘she’s going to be a prostitute to find the money for the application’). The consular staff makes jokes about visas delivered to old ladies, which are nicknamed ‘the transporting of the body’ (trasporto salma). Indifference and scorn toward Moroccan applicants have characterized the poor management of the consulate for years. The visa application process was so problematic that, in 2005, the Italian MP Enrico Buemi addresses a parliamentary question about the consulate in Casablanca that focused on the never-ending time frames and the illicit traffics that take place around the consulate. Applicants used to queue outside until midnight in order to be scheduled an appointment or to have documents legalized. While lining up, several economic activities flourished. Different kinds of actors were involved, including Moroccan policemen who used to block applicants on one side of the street, especially those coming to collect their passport, and let them reach the consulate after the payment of a sum of money. The Italian press covered the scandal (Polchi 2006). Private security guards and locally employed workers recall that period very well especially the sudden exposure to the public. Antonio says: Journalists and television crews used to spend the whole day outside.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs intervened by removing the high-ranking staff, appointing a reputed consul general to reorganize the consulate and investigating some officers and locally employed workers. The then consul general made the staff sign an internal agreement to force these workers to behave appropriately with applicants, including refraining from raising their voices or swearing while on duty. The reorganization promoted by this consul general also incorporated the launch of the cooperation with a private service provider, which officers understand as a way of getting rid of the contact with applicants, the only effective way for reducing conflict, as Alessandro points out: ‘before the relationship with applicants was more conflicting.’

Conclusion The sense attributed to visa policy in Morocco is distinct according to Belgium, France or Italy. The organizational understandings of what visa policy should do and of the issues at stake in issuing visas reveal highly

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differentiated backgrounds in which bureaucratic action unfolds. Each of these countries associates visa policy in Morocco to migration control. But, in the case of Belgium, it is ‘sensitive migration control’; in the case of Italy, it is ‘scorned migration control’; in the case of France, it is ‘migration control and diplomacy.’ The case of Belgium reveals that migration control is a valuated task and that its relevance shapes the specificity and the importance of the consular post in Morocco; the sensitivity of the visa issue for the consulate of Belgium is not due to diplomatic concerns in Morocco but to the ways in which the consulate is scrutinized from the home country. The case of Italy is the opposite than Belgium. It reveals that migration control is a devaluated task, which makes Morocco an irrelevant consular post. The case of France reveals that migration control merges with diplomacy. Understandings have historical roots. France and Belgium have used visa policy as an external mechanism of migration control. Given France’s colonial past, the objective of controlling migration from ancient colonies merges with post-colonial political and economic interests. Italy has used visa policy as an external mechanism of migration control to conform to European norms and understands migration control as a devaluated task. Belgium prioritizes and values migration control in Morocco. It is a sensitive task because of the peculiar organizational setting in which visa policy is implemented and the integration of Belgians–Moroccans in the Belgian society. Belgians, French, and Italians represent the flows of Moroccan applicants as ‘networked,’ ‘demanding and clientes,’ and ‘wrong.’ For Belgium, Moroccan visa applicants are particularly risky. For Italy, they are poor and redundant, scorned but not necessarily risky. France rather than Italy entertains clientelistic relations with some visa applicants. Thus, clientelism is connected to foreign affairs concerns. Distinct senses of visa policy in Morocco are rooted in history and persist, despite the communitarization of visa policy. The management of visa policy implementation also reflects the national senses of visa policy, the distinct assessment of bilateral relations and the distinct relationships with imagined visa applicants. All that is the topic of the next chapter.

References Banerjee, S. (1998). Narratives and Interaction: A Constitutive Theory of Interaction and the Case of the All-India Muslim League. European Journal of International Relations, 4(2), 178–203.

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Czarniawska, B. (1997). Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Infantino, F. (2010). La frontière au guichet. Politiques et pratiques des visas Schengen à l’Ambassade et au Consulat d’Italie au Maroc. Champ Pénal, 7, 2–19. Lin, A. E. (2000). Reform in the Making: The Implementation of Social Policy in Prison. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Polchi, V. (2006, November 12). Caccia al mercato nero dei visti. Repubblica Metropoli. Roe, E. (1994). Narrative Policy Analysis. Durham: Duke University Press.

PART II

Bordering in Practice

The Politics of Management

Although the harmonization of handling practices and application processes at local consular missions is one of the most important objectives of the Visa Code, underlined by the ‘friendly and unified Europe’ policy frame, consular architectural settings, visa application, and examining processes remain very different. They all shift according to the assessment of the bilateral relation and the representation of visa applicants. Historically rooted priorities that are specific to Belgium, France, and Italy, which are not modified by the communitarization of visa policy, differentiate handling practices and visa application processes. The comparative perspective of this study reveals that handling practices and visa application processes form part of the bureaucratic management of relations with the foreign country, which remains state-bound. To support that argument, three dimensions for analyzing the visa application process are prioritized: performance, efficiency, and the extent to which the visa application process is adjusted to different categories of applicants. In regard to the visa-examining processes, the comparison focuses in particular on the actors and the bureaucracies involved and the ‘Schengen and national technological toolboxes.’ EU visa policy displaces migration control in countries of departure, therefore giving a pivotal role to consulates abroad. However, it would be misleading to assume that migration control is totally externalized to national bureaucracies in foreign countries. The differences between the institutional structures in which visa policy is implemented concern the ways in © The Author(s) 2019 F. Infantino, Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8_5

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which local and externalized bureaucracies—consulates—are connected to national bureaucracies. The externalization of migration control is only partial in Belgium (as visa policy is also implemented in Brussels), in Italy (in the case of long-stay visas), and in France (for family visits, where hosting certificates are delivered by city halls). EU visa policy is a policy instrument that externalizes migration/border control away from the border before the actual arrival on the territory. Nevertheless, EU visa policy is dependent on national institutional structures that give more or less autonomy to consulates abroad. Remote control is also exercised in the home countries most notably through the intervention of the Ministry of the Interior. The chapter starts by describing the ways in which each of these Schengen States materializes their sovereignty in Morocco. Distinct historical relations and the ways in which these bureaucratic agencies structure the setting of the interactions with policy recipients are the factors that affect the materialization of sovereignty. The chapter continues, first, with a focus on the visa application processes by showing that differences can be understood in light of diplomatic concerns, and second, on the humans and non-humans involved in the visa-examining process most notably the managers and the frontline workers, the bureaucracies involved from the home country, and the Schengen and national technological toolboxes.

The Materialization of Sovereignty National consulates are symbolic buildings. They represent a nationstate in a foreign territory. Thus, their appearance matters and it is rarely random. Consulates that deliver in-demand visas, like the ones I am addressing, are the first border that would-be travellers face, since the Schengen visa displaces the European border in countries of departure (Guild 2001; Guiraudon 2003). Thus, I called consulates as well as visa application centers ‘borders on site’ (Infantino 2016). In Casablanca, foreign consulates are part of the landscape in the city center. The consulates of Belgium, France, and Italy are not far from each other. Each consular building represents a different history. The appearance of Belgium is timid. Located on the corner of a narrow street, the consulate general of Belgium in Casablanca occupies a low profile building. That is the result of the sale of the previous building that the permanent staff describes as a prestigious and beautiful

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palace. The new building is a business-type structure, functional rather than ancient, prestigious, or aesthetic. One can notice that it is a foreign government’s site because of the Belgian and European Union flags waving in front of it. Also, two Moroccan policemen patrol the street, therefore suggesting that a diplomatic presence is in the area. The consulate of Italy is not far from the consulate of Belgium whereas its appearance is distant. In 1930, Italian architect Aldo Manassi designed a magnificent Andalusian-style building to host the consulate general of Italy in Casablanca. That was a period of great interest toward Italian immigrants settled in Morocco and the Italian presence in the country, therefore justifying a prestigious building. Other Italian buildings and institutions were built in the same period: the Italian schools in Casablanca and Tangier and the Italian hospitals included in the Italian Institutions Palace (Palazzo delle Istituzioni Italiane), Tangier. The consulate general of France cannot be unnoticed in Casablanca’s landscape: It is located on a central square of the city center, close to important institutional buildings such as the Moroccan Court of Justice. The equestrian statue of Louis Hubert Gonzalve Lyautey, the French colonial administrator from 1912 to 1925—dubbed ‘the maker of Morocco’ in colonialist terms—stands in front of the façade. At the end of the French protectorate, the statue was moved from the public space to the front of the consulate building. The French flag is removed from the façade that gives on one of the main squares of the capital of the former colonizer. The consulate general of France is grand. The façade hides an articulated building that overlooks more than one street. Like at the consulate of Italy, the façade is just for the image: neither the consular staff nor visa applicants or French citizens use it to enter the consulate. Processing People into Visa Applicants The sovereignty also materializes in a peculiar rapport of bureaucratic domination, the rapport that is developed in the interactions between the bureaucracies of a foreign state and non-citizens. Within the frame of day-to-day interactions, the identity of a visa applicant is constructed. The process begins before crossing the threshold of consulates. Outside the consulates’ premises, in the areas surrounding the entrance to visa sections, space is structured and time is planned. Gates, fences, and crush barriers design the authorized movements by delimiting circuits, paths,

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and stops. Time slots define the pace of entering. The managers of space and time are Moroccan policemen and Moroccan private security guards. At the consulate of Belgium, Moroccan policemen organize the queue and indicate the appropriate positions. The part of the visa section designed to receive applicants is the only consular office located on the ground floor. Visa applicants enter through a path fenced with iron rods. At the gate opening onto the path, the private security guard scans applicants with a metal detector and checks their bags. Applicants wait for their turn in an artificially lit waiting room and go inside one by one. Applicants come mainly for interviews most notably long-stay visa interviews. The outsourcing of the visa application process displaces the duty of handling applicants to a private company (Infantino 2016). It is interesting to note that before the outsourcing, the consulate had to return passports with a visa or a notification for refusal. Such a tension-generating situation was handled in a specific manner: like in other consulates, applicants are not let inside. The window is external, like the one shown in Fig. 1, and applicants stay in an external space surrounded by gates and fences. At the consulate of Italy, the applicants’ entrance is located on one side of the building. The entrance and exit doors are higher than the ground level. They both stand on a platform that looks like a stage fenced by gray iron rods (Figs. 2 and 3). The platform is accessible only from one side through a footbridge that constitutes the path visitors must follow to enter the building. A grey iron roof covers the footbridge. The fenced platform is the work area of Moroccan private security guards (two or three guards at a time). From their higher position, on the platform, one can only address them from below, through the bars of the fence that surrounds the platform. The people addressing them are mostly information seekers. Information seekers are so numerous that, occasionally, crush barriers appear to impede applicants from asking for information by coming closer to the area where private security guards stand. At the entrance to the visa section, there is a shelter for the queue of applicants. Moroccan policemen manage and organize the queue. Under the shelter, safe-deposit boxes for leaving personal belongings before entering the consulate are at applicants’ disposal. As soon as applicants enter the footbridge, private security guards handle them and authorize entry only in small groups or one by one. The reception arrangements described here result from the reorganization promoted by the previous consul general. Officers who have experienced

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Fig. 1  Window to notify refusals (Photo by The Author)

this development consider it a significant improvement in the interaction with applicants. The spatial reorganization has improved the ability of street-level bureaucrats seeking control over applicants. Private security guards and the Carabinieri are not only fulfilling a security task but also ensuring the control over applicants and the implementation process. At the consulate of France, the applicants’ entrance is located on one side of the building, in a lateral street and far from the façade. The entire street is pedestrian and closed by crush barriers on both sides. Several Moroccan police cars patrol the area. Private security guards organize the crowd by delimiting the queues with crush barriers. Applicants leave electronic devices notably cell phones in a booth at the entrance and go

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Fig. 2  Entrance to the Italian visa section (Photo by The Author)

Fig. 3  The platform to the entrance (Photo by The Author)

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through a security gate. They are requested to wait in a restricted area in between the actual entrance of the visa section and the street. Once admitted in this area, applicants must pay the visa fees. Then, they are sorted into the waiting zone of the sector Grand Public or that of the sector Visas Spéciaux. There are benches, screens showing the applicants’ turn, photocopying machines, and drink machines that a subcontractor provides. The person who is showing me around stresses that machines are subcontracted to avoid criticism about the income that the consulate makes out of visa applicants. The setting results from renovations carried out in 2000. The sector Visas Spéciaux was built in the 2000s, thanks to the European External Borders Fund. Before, the entrances to the Grand Public and the Visas Spéciaux were located on two distinct streets. One by one, applicants enter the rooms in which windows are located. Common features characterize the handling of visa applicants in those distinct consular settings. They all amount to techniques by which these bureaucratic agencies seek to exert control over applicants and the processes they perform. Techniques materialize the rapport of bureaucratic domination (Dubois 1999). Bureaucracies dominate because they have monopoly over the services they provide. Clients are nonvoluntary (Lipsky 1980) and the organizations need to maximize cooperation from them (Edelman 1964). Bureaucracies enact a social order that depends on the general consent of its members and its recipients. Consent and control over the process are achieved first by constructing the social identity of a client within the frame of the interaction with the bureaucracy (Lipsky 1980). Consulates process people into visa applicants, first, through the creation of buffer zones by architectural means, i.e., a neutral area separating conflicting forces. Buffer zones arrange reception prior to entry and structure the context of the interaction. The seminal work of Lipsky (1980) on street-level bureaucracies discusses the ways in which agencies delivering public services process people into clients, i.e., a person utilizing the services of a social agency: ‘clients seek services and benefits; street-level bureaucrats seek control over the process of providing them’ (Lipsky 1980, 60). Lipsky argues that street-level bureaucracies exercise control over clients through four basic dimensions: distributing benefits and sanctions, structuring the context of interactions with clients, teaching clients how to behave as clients, and allocating psychological rewards and sanctions. With regard to the structuring of the context, Lipsky refers to some aspects such as when the interaction takes place, its frequency, the circumstances under which it takes place, and

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the resources used. Lipsky’s study overlooks physical and spatial arrangements, like those of the buffer zones, which structure the interactions and participate, therefore, in the processing of people into visa applicants rather than clients. Clients, the term used in the implementation of welfare policies, are in general citizens that utilize the services of a social agency. Consulates are not social agencies, and visas are not a service but an authorization to cross the borders of a foreign country that might be conceded to a non-citizen. Visas are not an entitlement. Structuring the interactions is an effective way of preparing people to become visa applicants because, as Lipsky has argued in regard to clients of welfare agencies, it discourages disruptive, antagonistic, or uncooperative behaviors before they surface. In the buffer zones, prior to entry, people are taught how to behave as visa applicants, and so they are prepared for entry. State agencies rely on natives—Moroccan private security guards and Moroccan policemen—to handle visa applicants prior to entry. Those who have the most direct contact with applicants, as windows do not mediate this contact, do not pertain to the national bureaucracy. Non-accountable co-nationals conduct a ritual that includes going through security gates, following delimited paths, and body searches. Control also relies on isolation; spatial arrangements are designed to handle applicants one by one. This is typical of welfare agencies as well, which isolate clients. As Vincent Dubois (1999) notes, the window is the architectural form that organizes the administrative relationship, by separating clients just as the polling booth separates voters. That diminishes the awareness of others in the same situation and reduces the opportunity of contestation. Isolation eases the achievement of consent. From my position, the inside of the window, I notice that the more the applicants are told what to do, the more they will wait for instructions. Applicants wait for the instructions of the security guards before doing anything. In the beginning of my traineeship, I am appointed to the returning of passports to long-stay visa applicants. Applicants sit in the window’s room while waiting for their turn, but they do not stand up to reach my window until the private security guards tell them to do it. Window-clerks complain and tend to see them as passive and clumsy. It looks unfair to me as the interaction with the bureaucracies construct a disciplined applicant who reaches the windows room after having experienced a disciplining path managed by security guards and policemen.

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Other applicants might display uncooperative, violent, and antagonist behaviors, either out of despair or, more often, because something makes them feel powerful: They feel entitled to the visa, because of their motivation, their social/economic status, or their personal connections.

Street-Level Diplomacy: The Visa Application Process The visa application process is not merely a neutral organization of a procedure. In the European institutions, very far from the local context of policy implementation, the visa application process is a main concern during the adoption of the Visa Code. It has the potential to represent the concrete manifestation of the unified Europe and friendly EU border. The visa application process is an act of diplomacy at the street-level. It materializes the Schengen States’ bilateral relation with the foreign country. Therefore, it results in highly differentiated settings and procedures. The most striking elements of differentiation between the consulates of Belgium, France, and Italy are the extent to which the application process is adjusted to the types of applicants and the logic underlining the importance attached to performance and efficiency. The consulate of France customizes the process. Very important applicants are received in the higher floors of the consulate, and the closest collaborators of the consul general take care of their applications. The visa section is split into two subsections, differentiated according to the categories of applicants and applications: the Visas Spéciaux and the Grand Public. Box 1 and Box 2 show the categories: Box 1 Categories of applicants and applications handled in the Visas Spéciaux subsection

– Family reunification visa applications of spouses of French nationals (conjoints de français according to the administrative language) and European nationals; – Visa applications of non-Moroccans residing in Morocco; – The visa applications of spouses, parents, grandparents, and ­children of a French national residing in Morocco; – The business visa applications of the staff of firms registered at the Chamber of Commerce;

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– The ‘coursiers,’ i.e., the registered people delegated by a very important company to lodge the applications of the company’s managers who go to the consulate only to give their fingerprints. – The ‘interventions,’ i.e., the visa applications of those applicants recommended by the consul general or the ambassador; – Study visa applicationsa; – Health visa applications; – Re-entry visa applicationsb; – War veterans’ visa applications. aThe

application process for student visas is managed by Campus France and requires less work for the consulate. bThe prefecture in France authorizes the delivery of the re-entry visa.

Box 2 Categories of applicants and applications handled in the Grand Public subsection

– Family visits – Private visits – Tourism – Business applications of those who are not registered at the Chamber of Commerce. – One specific category of visa applicants that is kept distinct for statistical reasons: ascendant non à charge (ANC), i.e., the non-dependent relative in the ascending line of a French citizen, and the ascendant à charge (AAC), i.e., the dependent relative in the ascending line of a French citizen.

The categories for the Visas Spéciaux are very specific, whereas for the Grand Public, they are very generalized. The head of the visa section defines the Visas Spéciaux as the VIPs’ visa section. It handles war veterans, that is, Moroccans who took part in the Second World War as soldiers of the French army, relatives of French nationals established in Morocco, officially recommended people, the business applications of the companies enrolled in the Chamber of Commerce, and the applications of managers that are not required to lodge their application in

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person. Examples of firms allowed to delegate a person to lodge applications are Air France, Attijariwafa Bank, the Moroccan Order of Doctors (ordre des médecins), and the Order of Attorneys (ordre des avocats). The Grand Public is the most crowded with applicants. The only distinction that is made concerns the category of the relatives in the ascending line that are kept statistically distinct to monitor them. The structure of the visa section and differentiated visa application processes filters out some applicants from the mass of ordinary applicants. Facilitation and fast-track procedures exist for certain kinds of applicants: separate appointment slots for business visa applications of the staff working for firms registered at the Chamber of Commerce and for firms allowed to delegate a person to lodge their staff’s visa applications. Unlike Belgium and Italy, this consulate’s visa section has a secretary. The secretary is tasked with taking care of public relations: replying to emails and answering the telephone calls of applicants who lodge complaints or ask for information, scheduling lists of appointments for special applicants, such as those who are part of the diplomatic protocol, or have been recommended by the consul general or the ambassador. Officers reply to phone calls. In the Visas Spéciaux section, sometimes, expatriate officers go to the window to provide explanations or comfort them. The consulate might re-examine or provide further explanation in case an applicant denied of a visa lodges an informal appeal (recours gracieux) to the consul general. Explanations about the refusal of a visa may also be provided face to face. The vice-head of the visa section is entrusted with the task of providing explanations in case of a visa refusal for a family member of a French citizen. The consulate is engaged in treating its applicants carefully, although some applicants are more carefully treated than others. The French approach promotes travel of desirable Moroccans like tourists and businessmen, while ensuring a smooth bilateral relation. Removing administrative burdens, customizing application processes, and improving rapidity are means to achieve those objectives. The consulate is a hurried machine in which each component must function perfectly. A decision is made after 48 hours. Every day at 3:00 p.m. short-stay visa applicants collect their passports with a visa or, since the coming into force of the Visa Code, a notification of a refusal. If supplementary documents are required, the ‘additional documentation form’ (complément de dossier) listing the missing documents will be attached to the passport. Every morning, from 8:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. applicants may lodge the missing documents. Diplomatic concerns pervade the

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consulate of France. The visa section organization making the consulate a ‘hurried’ consulate testifies to the importance attached to France’s foreign affairs concerns, which in turn affects visa application processes. The management of the visa application process at the consulate of Italy bespeaks of the lack of importance attributed to visas, Moroccan applicants, and to the bilateral relation with Morocco from either a political and/or commercial point of view. I asked myself who were the VIPs applicants of the visa section, those for whom there exist some kind of fast-track procedure or facilitated visa application process. I found some replies in the routines introduced by the previous consul general that were completely abandoned after his departure. Specific instructions existed for Moroccan NGOs that work in partnerships with Italian NGOs whose staff struggle to obtain visas to attend events in Italy related to their cooperation for development projects. That consul general also dictated to receive businessmen in a designated office. Diplomatic sensibility exists ad hoc rather than being inscribed in the organization. Given my experience of other consular contexts, I expect businessmen notably those registered at the Italy-Morocco Chamber of Commerce or those sent through the Istituto di Commercio Estero (Foreign Trade Institute) to be considered VIPs. On the contrary, the officers appointed to short-stay visas suspect them of approaching the Chamber of Commerce and even register there only to obtain a visa. Their chatting in the office portrays that as a matter of fact. Aware of such mistreatment, Alessia, the consulate secretary, gives herself the task of identifying and requiring special attention to those applicants considered to be important and useful for the consulate. The applicants who are successful in anticipating their appointment for instance are those capable of reaching Alessia, Alessandro (administrative commissioner), or somebody working in the visa section. This kind of situation exists in the other consulates too. But, in the consulate of Italy, it is the only effective means to receive special treatment. Performance and efficiency do not characterize the visa application process, despite the fact that the reorganization of the consulate, initiated with the previous consul general, was presented as a means to implement visa policy in a customer-friendly manner. Some chairs are provided for applicants waiting for their turn, a book for complaints or suggestion is at their disposal, a touch screen on which even unlettered applicants may express their level of service satisfaction by touching one of three faces (happy, unhappy or indifferent) displayed

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on the screen. In 2009, the Ministero per la Pubblica Amministrazione e la Semplificazione (at that time l’Innovazione) promoted an initiative called mettiamoci la faccia1 (let’s risk our face) in Italian public administrations. However, those strategies address applicants’ reception arrangements in the visa section but fail to improve efficiency and performance. Three situations exemplify the fact that even the outsourcing to private service providers has no impact on the inefficiencies and the bad performance of the consulate. A large number of applicants seek information about their visas either by standing outside consulate premises and visa application centers, or by making telephone calls. One typical case is the family reunification visa or work visa. In order to apply for those types of visas, the competent prefecture (Prefettura) in Italy must deliver a document called the Nulla Osta (no obstacle in Latin). The document certifies that all the conditions required to apply for the visa are met. Frequently, the Nulla Osta contains some typing errors, such as an incorrect first name, last name, and date of birth. In these cases, the consulate informs the prefecture that should produce a rectified Nulla Osta. The applications remain in standby until somebody verifies the reception of the new Nulla Osta and issues the visa. This apparently easy procedure is the source of a huge delay because, quite often, blocked applications lie abandoned in the office; no officer is in charge. A similar situation occurs when, on the verge of the summer, some officers appointed to examine family reunification visas go on holiday and no substitution is foreseen. The proposed solution is stopping the issuance of family reunification visas until September. As a result, hundreds of applicants who already had an appointment for the restitution of the passport and the visa have to wait for three more months. Finally, although the outsourcing of the visa application process implies that the subcontractor provides the information, applicants still require certain information that can be provided only by the bureaucracy responsible for implementing the visa policy. Indeed, the fact that applicants are handled by the visa application center constitutes a supplementary reason for the problem remaining unsolved. Consular staff considered the handling of applicants and the providing of responses not to be the responsibility of

1 See http://qualitapa.gov.it/it/iniziative/mettiamoci-la-faccia/. Accessed on 29 June 2018.

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the consulate any longer; in the case of a problem, the applicants must deal with the private service provider. In the Belgian consulate, fast-track procedures are performed only at the request of the consul general. The embassy in Rabat handles Moroccan applicants who represent a diplomatic interest for Belgium. The consul general intervenes to facilitate the procedure for applicants going to a cultural event in Belgium and for a delegate of the Walloon agency for export and foreign investments (AWEX, Agence wallonne à l’exportation et aux investissements étrangers). Important cultural events are the typical situation in which, in case of visa denial, the consulate can be exposed to criticism especially from the press. The consul general is concerned with avoiding such a kind of reputational damage. As we have seen in chapter “The National Sense Making of EU Visa Policy” the consulate of Belgium’s bad performance and inefficiency lay at the heart of the criticisms that were addressed from Belgium rather than from the local context. Inefficiency and bad performance are exemplified in the delays in examining Schengen visa applications (three-month delays, with more than 3000 applications waiting for a decision). Criticisms are addressed to the consulate management, but the first head of the visa section does not think of any solution. The problem is solved with the arrival of a new consul general, more engaged in the management of the visa section and with the arrival of a new head of the visa section. After having solved the problem of the delay, the head of the visa section is promoted to the status of a consul. The new consul general and the new head of the visa section manage to reduce the delay by persuading the expatriate officers at working extra hours even over the weekend. The sensitivity of the visa issue toward Belgium underlines the improvement of performance and efficiency in the visa application process. Diplomatic concerns toward Belgium affect the management of the visa application process. It is important to underline that although the reduction of the delay is used to justify the recourse to a private service provider, the actual reduction is achieved by working extra hours in the consulate. In the cases of Belgium and Italy, visa application processes are not adjusted according to the category of the applicant. Fast-track procedures or facilitation is performed ad hoc, mostly through the intervention of high-ranking members of staff. For France, differentiation within the visa application process is integral to the organization itself. It is not the initiative of one particular consul general. Foreign affairs concerns (or the lack of) result in a range of different management styles.

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Humans and Non-humans: The Visa Examining Process Visa-examining processes can be differentiated according to two elements in particular: the actors and the technologies involved. This section focuses first on the actors appointed to implement visa policy for each of these Schengen States. It highlights the characteristics of the workforce in terms of professional status and the proportion of permanent and temporary workers in the consulates. Then, I shed light on links with central bureaucracies notably on the role that the Ministry of the Interior plays in each of these countries’ visa-examining processes. Finally, the uses of common and national technologies for examining visa applications are explored. Managers and Frontline Workers In 1999, the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs created a professional category specialized in examining visas. The importance attached to the visa issue justifies that choice, as the head of the service visa court séjour, Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brussels explains: Given the relevance of the visa issue in some consular posts, we thought of creating a specialized unit of visa agents. In 1999 we started with roughly ten visa agents and we told ourselves that was a great idea. A consul cannot master all subtleties whereas a visa agent is specialized in that job. The idea was successful so we created a specific career as we have previously done with bookkeepers. Since 2005–2006, they are 50.

Understood in terms of job development as time passes, the term ‘career’ as applied to visa agents is a euphemism. The visa agent’s job does not involve more responsibility and higher status as time goes by. Over their entire career, they will always examine visa applications and be assigned to visa-issuing posts, in average every three years, and will never work in Brussels. High-ranking staff completes the rest of the expatriate personnel. Private security guards and locally employed workers represent the permanent staff. Diagram 1 shows the roles and the number of ­managers and frontline workers that are involved in the work of the visa section. Given the importance attached to the visa issue in Morocco, the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs assigns personnel in Casablanca for all positions.

140  F. INFANTINO High-ranking staff (temporary) consul-general (diplomatic career) consul=head of the Belgian citizens section (consular career) vice-consul=head of the visa section (consular career)

Expatriate staff (temporary) 5 visa agents

Private security guards (temporary and permanent) 2/3 agents (Moroccans, contract with GAS Sécurité)

Locally-employed staff (permanent) 16 visa section employees (level A,B,CBelgian, Belgian-Moroccans, Moroccans) 2 citizens section employees (Belgians) 3 consulate secretaries (Belgians)

Diagram 1  The staff of the consulate of Belgium in Casablanca

That is very different from the case of Italy. Diagram 2 shows the staff of the consulate of Italy in Casablanca. It is representative of all the positions listed in the consulate’s organizational chart although these positions are not always fully occupied. High-ranking positions in particular are occupied only in case of emergency: The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs assigned a consul general and a consul at the moment of scandals covered by the Moroccan and the Italian press. The permanent staff still talks of that consul general and depicts him as a true diplomat, as they have never seen before. After that period, the consul general was locum tenens: He was temporarily fulfilling the duties of the consul general although his hierarchical grade, at the bottom of the diplomatic career, did not

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High-ranking staff (temporary) consul-general (diplomatic career) consul (diplomatic career) administrative commissioner (top of the administrative career)

Expatriate officers (temporary) Administrative career 1 head of the visa section 1 head of the citizens section 6 visa service officers 1 citizen service officer

Private sercurity guards (temporary and permanent) 5/6 guards (Moroccans, contract with GAS Sécurité)

Locally-employed staff (permanent) 6 visa section employees (Moroccans-local contract) 3 citizens section employees (Moroccans - local contract) 1 consulate secretary (Italian Italian contract)

2 expatriate Carabinieri (temporary)

Trainees (Italian Universities students) (temporary) from 0 to 4 per year (unpaid)

Diagram 2  The staff of the consulate of Italy in Casablanca

correspond to the grade required to occupy the role of a consul general. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not appoint a consul but an administrative commissioner, Alessandro, a well-regarded and experienced officer. Concerning the visa section, it has been without a head for a long period and, thanks to the insistence of one expatriate officer, the consul general requested one. The number of expatriate officers in the visa section varies because the Ministry does not replace departing officers immediately. The consul general is embarked on a diplomatic career. Expatriate officers are administrative assistants who may work in posts abroad for a maximum of ten years during which they have to change three posts maximum. After that period, they are assigned to the Ministry in Rome. Administrative assistants are not specialized officers: They can be assigned to all sections in posts abroad such as the visa section, the citizens section, the chancellery, the secretariat, and so on. Unlike the other consulates, private security guards and the Carabinieri participate in visa policy implementation. Some private security guards have been working in the consulate since the end of the 1990s. Two or three of them are appointed to the visa section. They assume the role of

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translators for applicants. Their main workplace is on the external platform at the threshold of the visa section and the applicants’ side of the windows room. Carabinieri, Moroccan policemen, and private security guards provide information because they are the only visible persons outside the consulate. The two expatriate Carabinieri are bored and engage with applicants ‘to do something,’ according to their words. One in particular reports applicants’ questions to the workers inside, therefore instigating at times the disapproval of expatriate officers. In the case of France, the entire consular staff is numerous. I will focus only on the staff working for the visa section that Diagram 3 shows. The involvement in visa policy implementation of the high-ranking staff, the consul general in particular, is mandatory in the case of France. All positions are always fully occupied. The composition of the staff is unambiguously regulated, as the head of the Mission pour la politique des visas, Paris, outlines:

High-ranking staff (temporary) consul-general (diplomatic career)

Expatriate staff (temporary) 10 officers (administrative career) 1 head of the visa section (administrative career)

Private security agents (temporary and permanent) Moroccan nationals

Locally-employed staff (permanent) 10 visa service employees (French citizens)

Diagram 3  Consulate of France: The staff working for the visa section

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In Casablanca, a foreign affairs advisor occupies the position of the consul general. There is a position for a deputy consul general who is a foreign affairs secretary, one head of the visa section who is a B-level agent, six or seven C-level agents and a certain number of people who are locally employed.

As in the case of Italy, expatriate officers are administrative assistants who might be assigned to the posts abroad for a maximum of ten years and should move from one post every three years. They are not specialized officers and might be assigned to different sections. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs provides instructions regarding the visa-examining process that are conceived to achieve efficiency: Window-clerks should spend maximum three/five minutes for each applicant. Thus, applicants must order the documentation according to the list available on the consulate Web site; otherwise, they are requested to do so, generating the irritation of window-clerks. The number of daily appointments in off-peak season shifts from one hundred forty to one hundred eighty. Caseloads and time limits affect the bureaucratic encounter at the window. Interactions must be reduced to a minimum. Some window-clerks do not let applicants speak and give the impression of being rude or aggressive. The reasons have little to do with the applicants but with the pressure upon the workers. In three/five minutes, only verbal probing and document checking is possible. Uploading data and checking database happens in the afternoon, when the reception of applicants is over. No officer is authorized to leave the workplace before completing the daily number of applications. Any idea about ways to smooth and accelerate the process is welcomed. The short-stay visa applications cycle works as follows: the reception of applicants at the window, the uploading of data and the checks in databases, the sticking of visas on passports, or the preparation of the form to notify refusals. The consul general is the oil greasing the engines of this bureaucratic machine. He gives several instructions on how to examine applications and tends to check the work of his expatriate officers systematically. Interventions from the Home Country The implementation of EU visa policy depends on the institutional design of EU Member States. The Ministry of the Interior and the bureaucracies in the home country have more or less prominent roles in EU visa policy implementation. In the case of Belgium, the Ministry

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of the Interior has a major role. The actors in charge of examining visa applications are not only located in consular posts. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs runs consular posts abroad and employs the consular staff. But, according to Belgian legislation, the Ministry of the Interior is held accountable for the policy for accessing to and residing in the territory of Belgium. Consulates abroad are not entitled to take decisions on long-stay visa applications that are mailed to the long-stay visa section of the Aliens Office, Brussels, in which other officers take the final decision. The recommendations of consular officers might be followed or not. Concerning short-stay visas, the consular officers are entitled to deliver visas whereas only the Aliens Office denies them. A consular visa agent who estimates that a short-stay visa should be denied will email the application to Aliens Office via a computer system called ‘VisaNet.’ Thus, the actors appointed to implement visa policy in Morocco are also located in Brussels, as shown in Diagram 4. Level-1 officers are split into French-speaking and Dutch-speaking officers. As in many other sectors of Belgian administrations, applicants choose the language in which they want their application to be processed. Each Level-1 officer works with two or three C-level officers. Approximately thirty officers work in the section. A number of Level-1 and C-level officers are in charge of one specific type of short-stay visa application: the application for a visa with a view to marriage. François, a Level-1 officer, explains the allocation of charges within the section:

Head of the section

Six Frenchspeaking level1 officers

C-level officer

C-level officer

Four Dutchspeaking level1 officers

C-level officer

C-level officer

C-level officer

C-level officer

Diagram 4  Hierarchical organization of the short-stay visa section of the Aliens office—Ministry of the Interior, Brussels

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Countries are distributed so the workload is distributed according to the C-level officers. They are assigned some countries and we supervise them. For any reason one of my C-level officers might move to another level-1 officer and countries move with that officer. I sign for the countries assigned to my C-level officers. For instance, in the case of excessive workload in one embassy, we modify the repartition of countries for C-level officers. It might happen that I both process and examine applications to give a hand. One officer [Level C] works for Casablanca all the time and Jamila signs. My two C-level officers also help. So, overall, it’s me or Jamila who sign [the applications from Casablanca].

The organization of the workload is meant to remove the choice of the countries from the decision makers. The C-level officer processes the application and formulates recommendations. A Level 1 takes the final decision. François describes the decision-making in terms of ‘signing.’ That is not uncommon. To decision makers, assessing implies becoming liable via affixing their own signature. In case officers consider that the risk of signing is too high, the head of the visa section takes the final decision. To avoid such a kind of situation, the head gives clear instructions on cases that could raise multiple interpretations. However, to improve productivity, the statutory allocation of tasks is transgressed daily. Level-1 officers might process and examine applications or simply following the recommendations of C-level officers. Caseloads and the limited number of human resources affect the allocation of decision-making tasks more than the hierarchy. In the case of France, the Ministry of the Interior intervenes in multiple manners. The Foreign Affairs personnel of the Sous-direction des Visas, Nantes, depends on the Ministry of the Interior. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in charge of consular posts abroad. However, prefects might be assigned to the position of consul general. They visit ­consular posts and OFII2 missions on a regular basis. Prefectures authorize the

2 The OFII is the French office for immigration and integration (Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration). In Casablanca, the OFII mission is in charge of procedures related to visas (work and family reunification) as well as the French language and civilization tests and the physical performed by a doctor required for some types of visas.

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issuance of re-entry visas (visas delivered to foreigners who have lost their residence permits). Consular officers discuss another unauthorized action that prefectures take. Prefectures refuse to deliver residence permits to foreigners who traveled to France and then married somebody, and force these foreigners to go back to their home country and apply for a long-stay family reunification visa. One expatriate officer explains that the practice is unauthorized by law: Since April, this is not official, I have the impression that prefectures send people here to apply for visas, although a Ministry of the Interior’s circular excuses the lack of a long-stay visa. However, prefectures tend to send them here. For two weeks in the summer, we have had a series of very bad applications. They all came back to apply for the visa.

Such a use of discretion built a rule that circumvents the legal rule. For short-stay family or private-visit visas, France requires a hosting certificate issued by a city hall. Therefore, a part of migration control is exercised within France’s city halls. The requirement for the hosting certificate visé du maire (with a visa of the mayor) for foreigners traveling for family visits was invented as an administrative instrument to control migration from the Maghreb region in particular, before the introduction of visa requirements (see chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third Country’ but Three National Contexts”). This requirement was maintained when visas were introduced and part of migration control is thus kept in France. The Italian Ministry of the Interior plays a role in visa policy implementation only in regard to long-stay visas, which are not externalized in consulates abroad. The issuing of a long-stay visa (mostly family reunification visas and work visas) essentially depends on the Prefecture that grants its authorization, the Nulla Osta, to the applicant’s relative (family reunification visas) or to the employer (work visas). The conditions that are required to grant these two types of visas are verified in Italy. The consulate only verifies the family tie for family reunification visas and verifies that the Nulla Osta is not counterfeit. With regard to short-stay visas, migration control is completely externalized to consulates abroad. Unlike Belgium, only officers from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs can take decisions. Unlike France, Italy does not require a hosting certificate issued by a city hall.

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Non-humans: Schengen and National Technological Toolboxes Non-humans also participate in visa policy implementation. Those are Schengen and national technological toolboxes that Box 3 compares:

Box 3 The Schengen and national technological toolbox for Belgium, France, and Italy Belgium Schengen Schengen Information tools System (SIS) Visa Information System (VIS) Local Schengen Cooperation emails National Visa Net tools Régistre National

France

Italy

Schengen Information System (SIS) Visa Information System (VIS) Local Schengen Cooperation emails Biodev/L-Vis List of hospital debts List of répondants

Schengen Information System (SIS) Visa Information System (VIS) Local Schengen Cooperation emails Rete Mondiale Visti

The Schengen tools are common whereas the national ones are differentiated except for the database used for visa applications (VisaNet, Biodev/L-Vis, Rete Mondiale Visti) that lists a series of information that are similar. I question the uses of tools going beyond deterministic techno-scientific approaches according to which technologies arrive and frontline discretion diminishes or disappears. The comparison allows for putting forward two main arguments: The existence of a tool is not a sufficient and necessary condition for using it; the same tool can be used in distinct manners. Tools are used according to the understanding of the problem of making decisions. Uses vary according to the understandings of decision-making as more or less objectivized. Seeking for proofs to justify decisions increases the extent to which the technological tools are used to list information and find facts. Because the technological toolbox is aimed at acquiring and gathering information, it follows the lines of identification techniques, which started with the invention of identity papers and result in the rationalization of surveillance (Noiriel 1988). Identification techniques are not novel, but technologies are more powerful nowadays. Surveillance techniques based on more powerful technologies are effective in accumulating

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more and more information about foreigners. In so doing, the surveillance techniques described here are part of what the historian Gerard Noiriel (1988, 100) calls ‘the people-tracking paradigm’ (le paradigme de la trace), which is the tendency to seek information about people, which started with the bureaucratic rationalization of identification techniques. To examine applications, Belgian officers rely on a very peculiar tool, i.e., the Régistre National. The Régistre National is a database that contains information about nationals and foreigners registered in Belgian city halls and nationals registered in consular civil registries. It contains the following information: name and last name, date and place of birth, sex, citizenship, main place of residence (including any change in the residence), date and place of death, occupation, marital status, composition of the household, administrative status, legal cohabitation, and situation of stay for aliens.3 In the case of Belgium, the existence of the Régistre National modifies examining practices because it means that Belgian officers have much more information at their disposal. It acts as a source for exemplary cases of migratory ‘risks’ and helps establish the criteria for decision-making. Given the institutional architecture of visa policy implementation in Belgium, split between Brussels and local consulates, the national database, VisaNet, plays a crucial role for the Aliens Office in Brussels because officers make decisions on the basis of the information provided in it.4 French visa policy implementation includes the collecting of specific information in two databases: the database of hospital debts and the list of répondants. Hospitals report to the fiscal administration that reports to the embassies. Embassies report to consular posts. Debts range from €25 to €25,000. A hit in this list implies the refusal of the visa and the reporting of the applicant to Schengen partners. French consular officers also compile a list of répondants, which contains the names of reported guarantors, reported hotels, and details of the person or entity that gave false information or produced a false reservation. It is mandatory for consular officers to examine application to verify hotel reservations, because if the reservation has been canceled, this information gives grounds for the refusal. 3 http://www.ibz.rrn.fgov.be/fileadmin/user_upload/Registre/Acces_RN/RRNS003_ F_IV.pdf. 4 The uses of the Régistre National and VisaNet and the ways in which they affect decision-making processes are discussed extensively in the chapter “The Making of Decisions”.

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The case of Italy shows that although the three national databases are devised so that they could contain the same pieces of information, information might not be uploaded since it is not considered relevant for decision-making. The Rete Mondiale Visti, Italian database for visa applications, includes entries about the hosting person and the guarantor, but information about them is never uploaded. The common Schengen toolbox allows for the centralization and unification of information in unprecedented ways. The creation of the Schengen Information System (SIS), a joint database containing information on objects and persons, and used for the maintenance of public order and security, has been the necessary condition for the lifting of interstate frontiers since the original Schengen process. Already the Schengen Implementation Agreement provided for mandatory checks in the SIS. Reported foreigners are denied of a visa automatically. The SIS can be therefore characterized as an e-border, as it activates the border for the persons whom are reported. The information is entered into national databases (NSIS) that are connected to the central database in Strasbourg. National authorities in the home country (not consulates abroad) enter the information. This study does not offer insights on the national logic underlining the reporting of aliens in the SIS. Other studies such as the pivotal work of Didier Bigo and Elspeth Guild (2003) on the Schengen visa pointed out the persistence of national logic in reporting aliens in the SIS and highlighted that France, Italy, and Germany report the largest numbers of aliens. Cross-national differences exist in the national uses of the database, but the information entered into the database systematizes decision-making in consulates: A visa cannot be issued to a reported person regardless of the motivation or the Schengen State that entered the information. The second common database that is used for examining visa applications is the Visa Information System (VIS), which consular officers use in a variety of ways. The VIS connects information on visa applicants from all Schengen States. It contains information such as biometric data, data provided on the visa application form, the visa for which the applicant has applied, and the decision on the application. Thanks to the Biometric Matching System, the VIS enables consular officers to check whether applicants’ biometrics exist in the database. In other words, they see whether the applicant has already applied for a visa at any Schengen consulate. They also see the result of the application and the motivation in case of denials. The motivation is one of those listed in the standard form

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for notification of refusals (Appendix B). To officers, the novelty of the VIS does not consist in the information that it provides; even before its rollout, consular officers could obtain the same kind of information by checking the passport. When applicants lodge an application, their passport is stamped. A passport containing the stamp of another Schengen consulate signifies that the person has applied for a Schengen visa. If the passport lacks a visa sticker, officers understand that the application has been refused. It can be argued that the database is more reliable as applicants change their passports after a certain number of years, making previous refusals invisible to consular officers. However, that is not the kind of information consular officers look for. Consular officers are more interested in the motivations that provoked the previous refusal in another Schengen consulate. The VIS is not useful in that respect since it lists the standard motivations—general formulations that hide the real motivation for visa denial. As a result, consular officers make telephone calls to other consulates to acquire that kind of information, despite the existence of the VIS. The VIS exemplifies the bureaucratic obsession with rationalization (Noiriel 1988). More rational technologies are deemed to be more reliable. However, technological rationalization may not offer improvements to decision makers. Officers seek information that can only be acquired through informal exchange. As soon as the VIS starts to be rolled out, it is understood as a source of uncertainty. Officers ask themselves a different question to which they attach real importance: Do consular officers have an obligation to deny visas to an applicant to whom another consulate has previously denied a visa? The head of the French visa section is particularly worried about the possibility that the database could work as the SIS and generate automatic refusals in the case of previous refusals. She shares the concern with me and asks herself: If one visa has been denied previously, will the visa be denied in our consulate automatically?

Given the uncertainty in consulates, I ask that question to high-ranking civil servants in charge of visa policy in national ministries based in Nantes, Brussels, and Rome as well as to Birgitte, the policy officer of the Visa Unit, Directorate General Migration and Home Affairs, European Commission. The replies are not consistent. Birgitte says:

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No, you see the decision, if you see previous refusals, you have a bad case (…) The mentality of people would change because they start to realize that they are part of the Schengen area, that they are not alone in their little consulate.

According to Birgitte, the obligation does not exist. She makes reference to a sort of cognitive effect that should encourage the awareness of other Schengen consulates and might encourage uniform assessment. The reply follows the line of a soft approach to the harmonization of visa policies on the ground. The civil servant of Belgium who is in charge of participating to the Council and the Commission working groups on visas replies in a very similar way: The consulate can see whether the applicant is bona fide, can try to better understand the profile of the applicant by the applicant’s background. Refusals allow assessing the profile better. A refusal does not need to imply another automatic refusal.

The Italian civil servant who also participates in European working groups denies the existence of any obligation and does not mention any cognitive effect. His discourse reinforces the idea of national sovereignty: Let’s say that the obligation does not exist. The assessment remains in the hands of the consulate always.

The French Deputy Director of the Sous-Direction des Visas, Nantes, provides the most striking reply: It is possible to issue the visa provided that we inform the country that denied the visa previously. So, the visa issued will be an LTV [Limited Territorial Validity visas]. In theory, it’s either a refusal or an LTV. (…) That is a guarantee.

It is interesting to note that only the French civil servant is certain on the obligation to deny the visa and explains the procedure to follow in case the consulate delivers the visa anyway. That person considers the obligation to deny the visa a warranty. Such an interpretation bespeaks of concerns about the freedom of movement of Schengen visa holders. It also reveals the French attitude at steering the discretion of other Schengen

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consulates that I observe in the uses of the emails sent to Schengen partners that partake to local Schengen cooperation. The shifting answers that I obtain are a good example of judicial uncertainty and ambiguity of instructions that leave to day-to-day implementers the task of deciding upon the uses of the tool. The emails sent within the frame of local Schengen cooperation are another case of uncertainty and consequent practical decisions. Pursuant to Article 48(3)(b) of the Visa Code, the information that shall be exchanged within local Schengen cooperation with regard to the assessment of migratory and/or security risks includes: (i) the socioeconomic structure of the host country; (ii)  sources of information at local level, including social security, health insurance, fiscal registers, and entry-exit registrations; (iii) the use of false, counterfeit, or forged documents; (iv) illegal immigration routes; (v) refusals. In Appendix C, I list the emails sent by Schengen consulates within the framework of the local Schengen cooperation during the same period. Appendix C shows that shared information is about the opposition to the issuing of visas to reported persons and the motivations for the opposition. Lists of deported persons are also exchanged. Let us start with the distinct national uses of email. In some cases, the opposition to visa issuing is clearly stated, in other cases not. By sending information that identifies banned travelers, Schengen States can be said to ‘email’ their border to Schengen partners. Appendix C shows that persons are reported mostly for forged documents and irregular stays. Germany, Spain, and France report persons that are suspected of an intention to travel to the Schengen area to join a family member or to receive health treatments (in the case of France). France is the most active consulate in reporting its banned applicants and opposing the issuing of visas. The motivations with or without a formal and explicit opposition are wide-ranging. Except in the case of hospital debts, consular officers are usually motivated by some kind of evidence that creates a belief that the applicant will not renounce to travel to France, despite the visa refusal: A close member of the family is in a hospital in France or lives in France or the applicant needs medical treatment, for example.

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The vice-head of the French visa section states the main aim that the French consulate ascribes to the instrument: We report if we have the impression that the person will apply elsewhere.

The consulate of France is particularly active in reporting and opposing visa issuance. In doing so, it attempts at steering the discretionary power of the other consulates, as France is concerned with the remote control of migration in Morocco in particular, and in Maghreb ex-colonies in general. Regardless of the distinct national uses of the tool, these emails reveal a shared understanding of the aim ascribed to the exchange of information—opposing the issuance of visas—an understanding that is not clearly stated in the aims ascribed in the Visa Code.

Conclusion Handling practices and visa application processes are underlined by different senses attributed to visa policy in Morocco and different representations of applicants. For France, customized and efficient visa application processes result from the understanding of visa policy also as a diplomatic task. For Italy, visa policy is scorned migration control and the representation of Moroccan visa applicants as scorned applicants underlines a lack of differentiated procedures, and poor efficiency and performance, in spite of the outsourcing of visa services. For Belgium, the sense that visa policy consists in migration control underlines the lack of diplomatic concerns. Performance and efficiency are shaped by the sensitivity of the visa issue toward Belgium. In light of state-bound factors that engender different management styles of visa policy implementation, top-down harmonization seems difficult to achieve. EU visa policy is implemented by national organizations, which have historically rooted priorities that are divergent from one another. EU visa policy is dependent upon national institutional structures: The bureaucracies and actors that examine applications are distinct, as are the technological toolboxes at their disposal. Those are organizational conditions that account for different implementation practices. However, also the same technological tools are utilized in different ways, according to these Schengen States’ priorities. The information considered relevant to collect and to use shift according to the

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understandings of the problem of making decisions and the purpose of action. Contradicting technological determinism hypothesis, technological tools are enabling rather than curtailing discretion because they represent supplementary resources for action. But tools do not determine the same effect on decision-making. The interactions between technologies and implementers are complex. Implementers and organizational routines shape technologies. The understanding of the distinct settings of EU visa policy implementation is the first step toward a closer analysis of the ways in which these organizations work, the nature of the job, and the skills required to put EU visa policy into action, which is the topic of the next chapter.

References Bigo, D., & Guild, E. (2003). La mise à l’écart des étrangers: la logique du visa Schengen. Paris: L’Harmattan. Dubois, V. (1999). La vie au guichet. Relation administrative et traitement de la misère. Paris: Economica. Edelman, M. (1964). The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. Guild, E. (2001). Moving the Borders of Europe. Inaugural Lecture, Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen. https://cmr.jur.ru.nl/cmr/docs/oratie.eg.pdf. Accessed 15 February 2018. Guiraudon, V. (2003). Before the EU Border: Remote Control of the “Huddled Masses”. In K. Groenendijk, E. Guild, & P. Minderhoud (Eds.), In Search of Europe’s Borders (pp. 191–214). The Hague: Kluwer Law International. Infantino, F. (2016). Outsourcing Border Control: Politics and Practice of Contracted Visa Policy in Morocco. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-Level Bureaucracy. Dilemmas of Individuals in Public Services. New York: Russel Sage Foundation. Noiriel, G. (1988). Le creuset français. Paris: Seuil.

Policy Work in Visa Sections

‘La pratica’—the Italian term for the English word ‘file’ or the French word ‘dossier’—is the term that best illuminates the nature of the work performed within these bureaucracies. Literally, it translates into English as ‘the practice.’ Thus, it describes the nature of the work and the skills required to put policy into action accurately, since both are based on experience rather than theory. This chapter sheds light on the functioning of consular visa sections by focusing on the workplace, the workers, and the ways in which they perform their job. This chapter reveals the factors that systematize the uses of discretion and the conditions under which routines, which are defined as ‘patterns of behavior engaged in by more than one person in response to a common stimulus’ (Feldman 1992), become the mode of organizational action. Conditions relate to the characteristics of the workforce and the nature and the skills required to carry out everyday tasks. Visa sections are organizations composed of newcomers who tend to seek guidance from the permanent personnel; the staff works in a condition of uncertainty as their job includes predicting future behaviors and translating vague ideas and ambiguous instructions into actual decisions. Thus, workers aim at diminishing their individual responsibility. Consular staff is divided into two general categories: permanent and temporary staff. Except for locally employed workers and some private security guards, the rest of the workers are temporary. The managers of visa sections (the heads) and the managers of the consulate (highranking civil servants) are also temporary staff. The newcomers are those © The Author(s) 2019 F. Infantino, Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8_6

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held accountable for the consulate management and its local policy (the consul general) and for the implementation practices (the head of visa sections and the expatriate officers). Despite their higher hierarchical position, the expatriate officers still depend on the permanent staff to make decisions. Permanent staff has the skills to perform the job, which are not acquired through formal training or by reading instructions such as circulars or national Handbooks. Newcomers seek to acquire skills to cope with the uncertainty that characterizes their job. Uncertainty is juridical, as instructions and regulations fail to specify the ways in which they should be enforced. That is one of the conditions that make discretion an inherent feature of the enforcement process. Moreover, to carry out their daily job, officers must develop skills that are specific to the context of Morocco. The permanent workers have the deepest knowledge of the country. Despite the reluctance of expatriate officers to acknowledge this, informal socialization with the permanent workers is key to processing and examining visa applications. To acquire the necessary social knowledge and skills, not only locally employed workers but also other colleagues are key. In a condition of uncertainty about the ways in which daily tasks should be performed, situating its own use of discretion in a shared use of discretion diminishes the individual’s responsibility. Thus, routines are maintained. Another condition for the making of routines is ascribed to the broad understandings of the purposes of organizational action. The national senses of visa policy are not knowledge directly applicable to decisionmaking. To carry out their tasks, officers engaged in day-to-day implementation still face uncertainty and contradictions that they attempt to solve within the context of informal socialization with colleagues and managers. In the light of uncertainty and contradictions, mimicking the uses of discretion or establishing shared patterns diminishes the responsibility of the individual for the action taken. The capacity of making sense of action is inherent to discretionary powers. Making sense of action implies the connection of criteria to outcomes. This chapter points out the processes whereby meaning emerges from social interactions. The role of managers (consul general and head of visa sections) can be distinguished with respect to their involvement in giving instructions, defining problems and understandings during policy implementation. This chapter starts by focusing on the understandings of the workplace and the fact that although visa sections are bureaucracies dealing

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with immigration, workers do not consider them as a downgraded workplace. It continues by analyzing the functioning of the visa sections and the fact that hierarchies, responsibilities, and tasks do not necessarily overlap. The trajectories of workers and the reasons underlying the allocation of tasks are discussed. Then, the knowledge and the skills required to put EU visa policy into action are analyzed as well as the role that interactions with managers or peers play in framing the problem of making decisions.

Visa Sections: A Downgraded Workplace? When officers work in a post abroad, they move up the social system. They become part of the diplomatic personnel and embody a nationstate in a foreign country; they enter the realm of benefits (car benefits, paid rent, travel facilities, etc.) and much higher salaries. Under those conditions, even expatriate officers working in the visa section do not experience any sense of social downgrading whatsoever. For the case of Belgium, although the visa agent’s career is static—Belgian officers examine visas from the beginning to the end of their career and they cannot be assigned to a service other than a visa section—visa agents have evolved in terms of their previous careers. The first visa agents were persons already employed by the Ministry. This is the case with Josué. As soon as a specific career for visa agents was created, an appeal for applications to the entry examination test was launched. Patrick, Béatrice, and Dirk passed the entry examination test. Patrick who has been employed since 2001 describes his cohort: Seventeen people formed our group. Three out of those seventeen had previous work experience in an embassy or a consulate. All the rest were in my same situation, some people who have worked for banks, the post office, or SABENA [the former national Belgian airline].

By embarking in the career of visa agents, former employees of banks, posts, or the national airline enhance their personal prestige in symbolic and concrete ways. In the Italian visa section, the way of dressing reveals the prestige of the role they associate with their position. Once in a post abroad, such ‘regular’ employees suddenly embody the Italian state. Massimo clearly states that:

158  F. INFANTINO In Rome, a B2 [administrative assistant, at the bottom of the hierarchy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ employees] is nobody, here instead one becomes important.

An administrative assistant improves his/her financial position too. Expatriate officers’ salaries vary according to the distance and the danger associated with the foreign country. At the Ministry in Rome, an administrative assistant earns €1200 whereas the same administrative assistant earns approximately €6000 in a post like Casablanca, which is not particularly far away or dangerous. According to Mario, the low salary in Rome is an incentive to make employees move: In Rome, the salary is very low, it is just an incentive to make you leave.

The consular post in Casablanca is not a top destination of the Italian consular network. However, the administrative commissioner, one senior visa section officer, and a former head of the Italian citizens’ section required and obtained several appointments to the Casablanca consular post. The consulate of France in Casablanca is particularly prestigious. Officers prefer to work in the visa section rather than in the French citizens service, which has a very bad reputation, precisely for the clients it handles. Officers consider French citizens settled abroad to be the most undesirable clients. French citizens are demanding and aim at treatment that follows certain standards. French citizens enjoy more rights than foreigners. Unlike the visa section, in which only window-clerks deal with applicants and few expatriate officers are appointed to the windows, in the French citizens’ service, expatriate officers handle French citizens on a daily basis. The main element making the visa service undesirable for expatriate officers is the rhythm of work, particularly in the Grand Public short-stay visa section.

The Mismatch Between Hierarchy, Responsibilities, and Tasks Organizational charts do not accurately describe the actual functioning of these organizations. In visa sections, one’s position in the internal hierarchy, one’s responsibilities and the tasks carried out do not necessarily overlap. Workers at the bottom of the hierarchy carry out tasks that are statutorily attached to officers in higher hierarchical positions.

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In practice, locally employed workers have influence in decision-making although, officially, they should not. Expatriate officers are appointed to that task, but they need locally employed workers to carry it out. That condition blurs the hierarchical lines in the day-to-day life of the organization. Locally employed officers are not allowed at signing any decision. The person who signs a decision is liable for it. Thus, uncertain expatriate officers need to exchange with colleagues. In the visa sections of Belgium, France, and Italy, some criteria make some expatriate officers and locally employed workers more reputed than others. Reputation is socially constructed within the context of the organization. That affects the allocation of tasks, socialization, sources of appropriateness, and routines. Belgium: Suspicion Within The previous career of Belgian visa agents is a crucial element for internal differentiation. From the point of view of the staff embarked on consular or diplomatic careers, visa agents previously employed in other types of organizations lack a foreign affairs sensibility. That is the case for Patrick whom other colleagues define as ‘the person who comes from the XXX.’ He is considered to be rude and noisy. Although visa agents’ professional specialization requires them to examine visa applications, the most reputed, Béatrice, Julie, and Dirk are appointed to long-stay visa applications, deemed more demanding and difficult. Family reunification and student visas are a concern in Casablanca and require more investment in terms of human resources. The everyday practices of control for these kinds of visas are numerous: interviews of spouses for family reunification, questionnaires for students, etc. The objective of stemming undesirable migration by blocking ‘fake’ marriages and ‘fake’ students requires particular skills for expatriate agents with respect to the ability of finding effective proofs to deny these visas (Infantino 2014). Interviews are the most effective means to establish proofs, provided that officers have profound knowledge of the local context and local languages. Typically, locally employed workers rather than expatriate officers have that kind of knowledge. In effect, the person appointed to conduct interviews for family reunification visas is Isabelle, one locally employed worker. Isabelle is Belgian and started to work for the consulate in 1990. At that time, she was already settled in Morocco and worked in the tourism sector. Isabelle speaks darija (Moroccan Arabic) fluently and

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understands the Berber language, the tamazight (also called the rifain), spoken in the northeast regions of Morocco from which many applicants come from. Isabelle knows about local customs and traditions: She has a say on the nature of a marriage (arranged marriage, ‘fake’ marriages, and so on). She is considered to be skilled in detecting ‘frauds.’ Isabelle states that to understand the ‘real’ motivations of applicants, ‘it is necessary to understand the customs of the country and its different regions.’ Like an artisan, Isabelle is aware of her know-how. She claims that without faceto-face interactions, decisions are ‘arbitrary.’ The head of the visa section describes Isabelle as the worker who has real gut feeling, le flair. Isabelle is knowledgeable and Belgian. Belgian diplomatic posts tend to hire nationals as locally employed workers. In the visa section, the majority of the locally employed workers are Belgians or BelgiansMoroccans. Moroccans constitute a minority (three out of twelve). I ask to the consul whether that is specific to the consular post in Casablanca. The consul reveals the reasons to choose permanent workers who are Belgians or dual nationals: It’s like that in the majority of foreign countries. We are not necessarily looking for dual citizens but we look for somebody who speaks the local language (…) often we look for people with some kind of ties in Belgium, either Belgians or dual citizens, to have somebody with a Belgian mindset.

Identifying with Belgians and living in the local context are the characteristics that make the perfect candidates. Finding that kind of profile is not always possible. Moroccans are also hired but on different conditions. Moroccans are first employed for a trial period whereas Belgian nationals or dual nationals are immediately employed on long-term contracts. Favorable hiring conditions facilitate the maintaining of the wanted workforce. Being Belgian generates trust. To be employed on a long-term contract, Moroccans need to develop trust during the trial period. The allocation of tasks exemplifies ethnicity-driven suspicion: Moroccans support the functioning of the visa section but do not work directly for processing and examining visa applications. These workers include the archivist, the conductor, two workers who reply to emails, answer the phone and fill in the notification of refusals. These are all ‘C-level’ workers, corresponding to the bottom level of salary, which is 12,000 Moroccan dirhams (approximately €1100). Among the B-level workers, only one Moroccan has been entitled to process applications

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after eight years of work for the consulate. A-level workers only include Isabelle and another Belgian, Marie-Aline, who started to work for the consulate in 1993. Marie-Aline has been living in Morocco since 1975. She understands and speaks darija fluently. She is also appointed to the interviews for long-stay visas. She is often asked to conduct investigations. Belgians and dual nationals have a Belgian contract regime; they pay taxes and have social security in Belgium. Moroccans are employed on a Moroccan contract regime. Favorable working conditions attract Belgians who find themselves in Morocco for work reasons or family reasons. The locally employed workers are all female except for the archivist and the conductor. Belgians or dual nationals are all married or have been married to Moroccans, and the majority speaks darija. A large number of locally employed workers, one visa agent, and the head of the visa section practice Ramadan in the workplace although they are not Muslims. Adopting the local customs is in line with the representation of diplomatic work. It does not affect the mission of migration control nor enhance empathy toward Moroccans. France: The Co-nationals The eleven members of the French expatriate staff are embarked on administrative careers. The majority of the expatriate officers passed the entry examination test to be employed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Only two of them were gendarmes (gendarmes) before. Three out of eleven officers are male. Expatriate officers are not specialized in examining visas. They might be assigned to the windows at the moment of their arrival, to let them get a sense of the consulate’s clientele, or as a punishment. The consul general might decide to remove an officer from examining visas in case the officer does not follow some of his instructions. The most experienced officers are appointed to examine long-stay visa applications: This is the case for a former secretary of the ambassador and a former employee of the French citizens’ section in another post. Colleagues look at them in light of their previous work experience that makes them well regarded. Therefore, they are entrusted with the most difficult tasks. The less experienced expatriate officers, Didier and Hélène, are entrusted with the task of examining short-stay visa applications, which is not considered to be a task requiring the best human resources, in the Grand Public visa section that handles the mass of ordinary applicants. Although Hélène is almost fifty, this is her first

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experience abroad. Didier was a gendarme before being employed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has never worked in visa sections before Casablanca. The less experienced expatriate officers can rely on the most experienced and well reputed locally employed workers who are purposely assigned to the Grand Public visa section. These are Alice and Françoise. Alice is a French national born in Morocco. She calls herself a pied noir, a term that is often associated with French citizens who lived in Algeria during the French rule and returned to Europe after Algeria was granted independence. The consulate has always employed French nationals born in Morocco. Those who are employed for the longest duration managed to be appointed to the OFII mission (French Office for Immigration and Integration), which they prefer because the OFII does not make decisions over applications. The members of the locally employed staff working today for OFII have, respectively, been working for the consulate since 1992 (a Spanish national born in Morocco), 1979 (a French national born in Morocco), and 1981 (a French national born in Morocco). Among the group of French born in Morocco, Alice is the most recently employed. She started to work for the consulate in 2003 whereas Françoise started in 2000. Two others started in 1999 and 2000. They are appointed to relevant tasks: conducting in-depth interviews when a spouse lodges a family reunification visa application and working as a secretary. The secretary plays a key role as she takes care of public relations. All French citizens born in Morocco speak Moroccan Arabic (darija) fluently and are considered to be profound connoisseurs of the local context since that is the place where they were born and grew up. Alice is the reference for Didier and Hélène, the decision makers, and for her more recently employed colleagues. Alice is experienced regarding the functioning of the consulate, about the procedures and provides answers to uncertain colleagues. At the window, very often colleagues ask Alice what to do. Because of her proficiency in darija, she is capable of verbal probing all types of applicants, even those who cannot speak French like elderly illiterate people. Alice is the most appreciated locally employed worker because she is efficient and solves problems for her colleagues. She collects and transmits useful information to make decisions, and she even suggests the final decision. She complies with time constraints and manages to investigate applicants with ‘diplomacy.’ In face-to-face interactions, Alice always smiles, she is never rude, and she loses her patience very rarely, even when she has to collect fingerprints

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of elderly people, a time-consuming and stressful task given the technicalities involved (press the fingers, put the fingers in the right position, and so on) and the barrier of the window glass. She never reacts to applicants’ provocations. One day, a man arrives at the window and says ironically, ‘it’s cool in here,’ meaning that he was waiting outside for a long time under the sun. Unperturbed and with equal readiness, Alice smiles. At the window, Alice is capable of investigations, decision-making, efficiency, and diplomacy. Other locally employed workers settled in Morocco for professional reasons and started to work for the consulate later. The most recently employed workers were in Morocco for their partners’ professional reasons. They are not the most well-regarded officers; they are not assigned to difficult and important tasks and do not constitute a source for colleagues like the French inhabitants of Morocco. Italy: New and Old Generations The members of the expatriate staff working in the Italian visa section are five male officers. Three elements in particular allow for categorizing them into an old, less reputed and a new, reputed generation. First, the ways in which they were recruited: Only the two younger officers, Massimo and Mario, have been recruited at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by passing an entrance examination test. The rest of the expatriate officers work for the Ministry because, in the past, they were transferred from other disappearing ministries or local public administrations. Second, the level of education: Massimo and Mario are the only graduates. The old generation did not pass the entrance examination tests requiring diplomas. One of them could barely write in correct Italian. Third, their relation with the scandals that have hit the consulate during its recent history. Massimo and Mario are at their first assignment whereas some expatriate officers and locally employed workers were already in the consulate at the time of the scandal. Three out of the six locally employed workers have been working for the consulate since the end of the 1990s, the period during which the consulate became a visa-issuing post. They have experienced the chaotic management of the consulate, and two of them were accused of corruption. For one in particular, the Ministry conducted an inspection. Soufiane and Rafik are the most recently employed workers: They were both hired in 2007, when the Ministry appointed one consul general and one consul to reorganize the consulate. Thus, they also belong to the new generation.

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The allocation of tasks clearly follows those categories. Even though Massimo and Mario are inexperienced officers—Casablanca is their first experience in a post abroad, and they have never examined visa applications before—the entry examination test, their education background, and the absence of any connection with scandals legitimize those officers vis-à-vis their colleagues. They are entrusted with the most difficult tasks: examining Schengen visa applications, examining the applications for trainees on the job (tirocini formativi), and studying the appeals launched against the consulate’s decisions on family reunification applications of spouses or children within the frame of the kafala.1 Because he has a law degree, Massimo is in charge of the appeals. The ‘juridical forma mentis,’ according to Massimo’s terms, is useful to understand whether the consulate should adjust to appeals and modify the routine of decisions given the fact that appeals are successful. Because the prefectures in Italy carry out a substantial part of long-stay visas (most notably work visas) examining process, the issuance of long-stay visas is almost automatic: It does not require much work for expatriate officers. Assessing the migratory ‘risk’ of Schengen visa applications is more demanding and discretionary, so only those considered as the new generation of expatriate and locally employed workers carry out this task. Rafik and Soufiane—the two trusted members of the new generation of locally employed workers—are permanently assigned to Schengen visa processing and verbal probing at the window. They are less suspected of bribing. Massimo and Mario need to rely on them and find themselves in a paradoxical situation: The top officers entrusted with the most difficult task, examining Schengen visa applications, are inexperienced. Two representatives of the Italian state are actually dependent on two Moroccans to exercise the sovereign right of the nation-state of deciding who gets in. In front of me, Massimo asks questions to Rafik and almost apologizes when he says, ‘only Moroccans have this kind of knowledge.’ Unlike the consulate of France and Belgium, and although there exist Italian immigrants in Morocco or Italians born in Morocco, certainly in limited numbers compared to French nationals, the consulate of Italy is not successful in employing co-nationals as locally employed workers. Locally employed workers of this consulate are all Moroccans excepted for the consulate secretary who is employed on an Italian 1 The Kafala is peculiar to Islamic jurisprudence. It establishes that a person can raise somebody else’s child (abandoned or not).

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contract regime. The administrative commissioner explains that with the fact that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs does not allow employing local staff on an Italian contract regime anymore. The salary levels of this consulate are the lowest in comparison with Spain, France, or Belgium, a fact that is often repeated among locally employed workers. These workers earn 7000 Moroccan dirhams (approximately €600) per month and have long-term contracts following the Moroccan contract regime. Recruiting occurs through a local competitive entrance examination that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has to authorize. The formal requirements of eligibility are two years of residency in Morocco. The examination consists in exams of Italian and classical Arabic because these are the languages of papers and official documents. Because the consulate has to wait for the Ministry’s authorization to launch the entrance examination, the majority of employees have been hired on a short-term contract first. However, many locally employed workers notably those pertaining to the old generation have applied and obtained Italian citizenship. While this is certainly an incentive for working in the consulate of Italy, it does not need to imply that they consider them to be Italians and thus trustable. In sum, in the three cases discussed here, we have seen that locally employed workers are assigned to key positions in the visa sections. I have identified those workers on whom expatriate officers rely. Locally employed workers assigned to key positions are Moroccans for Italy and co-nationals in the case of France and Belgium. We have seen that all these workers have a certain experience of the consulate and, most importantly, of Morocco. Workers at the lowest level of the hierarchy are key players in visa policy implementation. At the consulate of Belgium and France, the examining of Schengen visa applications is considered to be less demanding than examining long-stay visa applications. Therefore, the ‘best’ officers are assigned to long-stay visa applications. At the consulate of Italy, the situation is the opposite. For Italy, the examining of long-stay visa applications is not externalized to consulates abroad and substantially depends on the prefectures (see chapter “The Politics of Management”).

The Knowledge Required to Perform the Job A look at similarities rather than differences between the Belgian, French, and Italian visa sections hints at some general themes about the skills required to perform the job and the processes whereby officers

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acquire those skills. To process and examine applications, Belgian, French, and Italian officers engage in skills-learning processes (Hughes 1971) regardless of their professional specialization. Belgian visa agents—a specialized professional category—share the same skills-learning process than their foreign colleagues. The specialization allocates the responsibility for the examining of applications and indicates who is unambiguously held accountable. Specialization does not impact the ways in which these officers learn how to perform their daily job. All these officers attend a formal training before their assignment to posts abroad. They all contend that formal training is ‘abstract’ or ‘theoretical,’ meaning that it does not develop the know-how required to carry out their daily tasks. Formal training focuses on the regulations defining what a visa is, what it authorizes, and on the procedures. The Belgian Patrick, the French Clothilde, and the Italian Massimo give priority to experience and learning-by-doing: Patrick: [During our formal training] we were seventeen people. Our training in the foreign affairs ministry lasted three months. At the end, we have stayed in Casablanca for one week to see in practice what they taught us in theory. Then, they sent us everywhere (…) the rest is learning-by-doing (…) I have learned much more during the three months in the field than during the formal training. Clothilde: You learn the job of a visa officer by doing. Of course, our training is about what a visa is, but you learn the assessment on the job. Massimo: A part of the pre-posting training focuses on visas, but it’s only about regulations (…) the assessment requires experience. I’m learning by doing, I still don’t have the gut feeling. As Feldman (1992, 177) noted: ‘formal training helps to impart values that influence perceptions of appropriateness. These values are about the roles to be played and the tasks to be performed.’ Officers maintain that processing and examining applications require ‘experience,’ in other words, knowledge derived from lived experience. That knowledge can be therefore characterized as ‘everyday knowledge,’ which is opposed to ‘scholarly knowledge’ (Greenwood and Levin 1998) or also ‘local knowledge,’ which is opposed to ‘expert knowledge.’ As Dvora Yanow (2004, 12) notes, both are specialized expertise. However, ‘it is the character of “expertise” that is different: local knowledge legitimates the experiential

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contextual as a type of specialization equal in value (under certain circumstances) to the scholarly academic.’ Expert and local knowledge has opposite characteristics. The former is theory-based, abstracted, generalized, scientifically constructed, academy-based, technical-professional, explicit, and scholarly. The latter is practice-based, context-specific, interactively derived, lived experience-based, tacit, and concerns the everyday (Yanow 2004). The experience is also about the specific country in which visa policy is implemented. Formal training does not constitute a source for performing the job in the everyday because it cannot cover all the situations encountered on the job (Feldman 1992). In the case of visa sections, formal training cannot cover all situations encountered on the job also because situations are specific to the foreign country in which the visa policy is implemented. The head of the Belgian visa section puts that forward: I call this [the practical handbook, vademecum] the theory. The gap between the theory and the practice is huge. What we face in Casablanca is different than Dakar or Kinshasa. Only practice matters.

Even specialized officers like Belgian visa agents need to relearn how to perform their job each time they are assigned to a new post. Patrick, the Belgian visa agent, maintains: What I have learned in my previous post is useless here.

To examine Schengen visa applications, the French officer Clothilde recalls that she needed to learn what a sufficient salary level is from colleagues: In the beginning, I used to compare wages to French standards. So, 5,000 Moroccan Dirhams [approximately €500] looked insufficient. I used to refuse those applications. Afterwards, colleagues told me that 5,000 Moroccan Dirhams is a good salary level.

Similarly, the Italian officer Mario asks the locally employed worker Rafik whether policemen in Morocco are military corps because, in that case, if they do not return they will be considered to be deserters. Mario states: Thus, if I issue a visa to a policeman, I should not worry much about it.

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Skills about decision-making build upon a specific kind of knowledge that is both practical and local, as it includes know-how and belongs to a particular place (Infantino and Rea 2012). To learn and develop that knowledge, officers talk with colleagues. Local and practical knowledge is interactively derived. Interactions with colleagues are a common feature of daily life in a visa service. Interactions are so salient because consulate visa sections have a specific characteristic: A certain section of workers and all managers are always newcomers to the organization. Consulates work in a state of permanent rotation. Newcomers seek local knowledge, the ‘knowledge that is already present in the organization, already known by some group of people’ (Yanow 2004, 10). That follows the lines of what Feldman (1992, 178) noted: ‘the newcomer to the organization will learn the modes of operation from members who have been a part of the organization longer.’ Informal socialization with colleagues is the process whereby newcomers acquire local and practical knowledge. According to Feldman (1992), informal socialization sets social limits regarding the uses of discretion because it imparts the perception of appropriateness concerning behaviors. Socialization is the process whereby a person learns to behave in a way that is acceptable in that social context. Students of organizational behavior define socialization in the context of organizations as ‘the process by which an individual acquires the social knowledge and skills necessary to assume an organizational role’ (Van Maanen and Schein 1979, 211). It is informal provided that it occurs by asking here and there. In an organization whose most of the members are newcomers, informal socialization not only sets social limits to the uses of discretion because it imparts the perception of appropriateness concerning behaviors but also sustain the fact that routines are the mode of organizational action. The appropriateness of an individual’s practices is socially constructed within the frame of the interactions in the workplace. Officers face uncertainty because they always operate in novel contexts. In a condition of uncertainty about the ways in which daily tasks should be performed, situating its own use of discretion in a shared use of discretion diminishes the individual’s responsibility. Beyond statutory and hierarchical differences, the employees that have the widest experience of the local context play a key role in informal socialization. Because the locally employed staff is permanent, this staff has both practical knowledge about the organizational accepted practices and local knowledge about the foreign country.

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The Framing of Decision-Making To use their discretionary powers, officers need not only practical and local knowledge but also to make sense of action. They need to define what decision-making is about. In other words, they ‘frame’ the problem of making decisions. Framing broadly refers to a specific definition of a problem, which necessarily emphasizes some aspects of reality while obscuring others (Saguy 2013; Snow et al. 1986). Definitions and meanings result from social interactions within the workplace. In the three visa sections, managers and colleagues play different roles in framing problems during the implementation. The comparison reveals that the constraining role of supervisory authority depends mostly on the level of involvement of managers—consul general or head of the visa section—in the processing and examining of applications. The Structuring of Understandings: The Case of Belgium The Belgian consulate in Casablanca is the most important consular post, because of the importance attached to the task of controlling migration in Morocco and given the scrutiny that the consulates receive in Belgium. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs always appoints a head of the visa section. The consuls general engage in the management of the visa section only to respond to the criticisms that the consulate receives from Belgium in regard to inefficiency. To speed up the visa-examining process and reduce the delay—the main cause of criticism in Belgium—the first consul general gives one instruction: not double-checking documents. The consulate cannot be legitimately criticized for the decisions it takes, which is his discretionary privilege, but for its inefficiency. Making decisions is an issue of efficiency. Meetings gathering all workers of the visa section are scheduled on a regular basis. The consulate management is concerned with ensuring uniformity of decisions. Together with the embassy, the consulate high-ranking staff is working on the so-called livre blanc. It is a report describing the ‘abuses’ of the legal opportunities to migrate offered by the Belgian legal system such as applying for a residence permit or for Belgian citizenship once a short-stay visa holder arrives on the Belgian territory, marrying somebody, using welfare benefits, and the so-called Belgian route—to circumvent restrictions on the right of family reunification in the Netherlands, Moroccans established in the Netherlands

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move their residency from the Netherlands to Belgium to apply for family reunification in Belgium. The livre blanc defines these practices as ‘pseudo-legal migration,’ which is a definition that underlines the perceived illicitness of legal migration. During my fieldwork, the visa service staff attends a meeting held at the embassy in Rabat to discuss the ‘abuses’ identified in the livre blanc. The livre blanc framed the problems represented by visa applications from Morocco in terms of illicitness of regulations and abusive applicants’ practices. The ‘problems’ associated with Moroccan migration to Belgium are the problems associated with useless, redundant migration. Moroccan visa applicants are a problem because they are seen as potential abusers of the welfare state, notably concerning the healthcare system and unemployment benefits, and/or impossible to integrate or ‘assimilate,’ according to the term used by the first consul I met. Also the head of the visa section frames the problem of Moroccan applicants in terms of assimilation: I am not a racist. I married a Moroccan. How can we assimilate them if they do not even speak Arabic? Europe should provide funds to create special schools.

A specific understanding of law—notably European Directives— emerges. Law is often considered to be illicit and an obstacle to the achievement of the objective of bureaucratic action, that is, stemming migration. The consul (1) has claimed: We do our job and then EU directives open the doors.

Some consular staff define the report as the livre blanc precisely because they see it as a valuable support to the modification of legislation concerning family reunification and the alteration of Article 12 bis of the Belgian Nationality Code, which are actually modified later.2 The frame of the illicitness of regulations and abusive applicants’ practices make sense of day-today action. One day, I ask Béatrice about family reunification applications 2 Loi du 4 Décembre 2012 modifiant le Code de la nationalité belge afin de rendre l’acquisition de la nationalité belge neutre du point de vue de l’immigration (M.B. 14 December 2012). Loi du 8 juillet 2011 modifiant la loi du 15 décembre 1980 sur l’accès au territoire, le séjour, l’établissement et l’éloignement des étrangers en ce qui concerne les conditions dont est assorti le regroupement familial (M.B. 12 September 2011).

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of spouses and the skills required for recognizing ‘fake’ marriages. I ask, ‘how do you do that?’ (comment tu fais?) and she unexpectedly replies, ‘How do I tolerate all these abuses?’ (comment je fais pour tolerer tous ces abuses?) In another occasion, I am a witness of a chat between Josué, the visa agent, and Catherine, a locally employed worker. Catherine hands an application to Josué and states: ‘this application really made me nervous because she has benefits from the CPAS [Centre Public d’Action Sociale, the Belgian public center for social welfare]’. Josué says: ‘she is a burden for the Belgian state.’ The locally employed worker adds: ‘Guess what, I processed this application after our meeting in Rabat.’ Meetings, discussions with managers in the everyday, and the livre blanc framed the problem represented by laws and Moroccan applicants: They do not dictate what officers should do but impart values about the roles to be played and the sense of the tasks to be performed. Visa agents and most locally employed workers share the frame, especially in regard to the problem of ‘assimilation’ and the ‘abuses’ of the welfare state. A story was often repeated in the visa section to describe the impossible assimilation: ‘elderly people cannot even use the lift in the consulate, how can they live in Belgium?’ Migratory systems connecting Morocco to Belgium concern in particular the northeast region of Morocco. Because they are uneducated and illiterate, these populations have always been considered to be undesirable. Already in 1963, Belgian diplomats in Casablanca described the populations of the Oriental region—and the province of Nador and the prefecture of OujdaAngad in particular—as uneducated and illiterate (see chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third-Country’ but Three National Contexts”). These applicants are useless in Morocco and in Belgium, as Isabelle contends: For long-stay visas, barriers do not exist. We take to Belgium people who are useless here and there. The Netherlands has three filtering procedures: they require a fixed-term contract, a minimum threshold for revenues, and a language exam.

Also according to Isabelle, Belgian laws are too lax unlike regulations in the Netherlands, which represents a reference. Supervisory Authority and Consistency: The Case of France The French consulate in Casablanca represents an important investment in terms of human resources. Visa policy in Morocco is understood not

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only as migration control but also as a diplomatic task. This consulate is ‘hurried,’ given its commitment to efficiency and performance, which are organizational concerns underlined by diplomatic sensibilities. Local institutions and local media particularly scrutinize this consulate that is consequently engaged in providing a certain image. For the analysis of policy work, these aspects are relevant because they affect the role that the consul general plays in providing supervisory authority. In the case of France, it is mandatory for consuls general to engage in the management of the visa section. However, the implication of the consul general reveals the sensitivity of the visa issue for France in Morocco. The consul general establishes accepted practices and monitors the examination process of officers. Consistent practices reduce the opportunities for fueling rumors that blame the consulate for arbitrariness. On a regular basis, he checks applications to verify the ways in which they have been examined. He is concerned with the consistency of practices, and thus, he establishes rules. This is the case for applicants who are used to having short-stay multi-entry visas whose ­validity lasts up to five years (the so-called visa de circulation). The consul general monitors directly the enforcement of one specific rule: If applicants actually traveled with the visa they applied for, the validity can be extended but gradually, six months, then one year, then three years, etc. The consul general sanctions officers who are not complying with that rule. That is the case of one officer, appointed to the restitution of passports and notification of refusals, the most devaluated task of the visa section because it is the most tension-generating interaction with applicants. It also implies giving a personal face to the refusal. The consul general establishes two accepted practices. In cases of reasonable doubts, it is preferable issuing visas but with a visite retour. The visite retour (return check) is a paper attached to the passport of an applicant who has obtained a visa that dictates to the applicant to go to the consulate and return the paper signed as a proof of return to Morocco. He also establishes to double-check hotel reservations because, in case of cancelation, the reservation is considered to be false and become a factual ground to motivate the refusal of the visa. Lack of Supervisory Authority: The Case of Italy The positions listed in the organizational chart of the consulate of Italy are not fully occupied, the consul general is inexperienced, and

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the visa section does not have a head. Visa policy is understood as ‘scorned migration control,’ Italy does not have foreign affairs concerns in Morocco, the consulate of Italy is not scrutinized either locally, like France, or from the home country, like Belgium. Therefore, the consul general’s objectives are disconnected from the achievement of results in the performance of the public service. The high-ranking consular staff does not play a role in defining the problem of making decisions on Schengen visa applications. Officers are left on their own. To examine Schengen visa applications, Massimo and Mario rely on each other and locally employed workers. They are concerned with following legal rules for examining applications especially because several corruption scandals hit that consulate (see chapter “The National Sense-Making of EU Visa Policy”). Thus, they read circulars.3 However, circulars do not detail the examining of applications in local contexts. The lack of managers’ direct intervention leaves Massimo and Mario with the opportunity to define the problem of making decisions. These Italian officers learn about the routine of decisions for a specific type of applicants: parents visiting their children. The assessment of the socioeconomic situation of parents (mothers in particular) who travel to visit their children established in Italy was less strictly enforced, and short-stay visas were issued, otherwise those parents were restrained from seeing their children. The rationale is the following: In case parents have other children in Morocco, they do not meet the legal requirements to apply for family reunification, which is a long-stay visa that parents might use to travel rather than to settle in Italy. Thus, if short-stay visas are denied to parents who do not meet the legal requirements to apply for family reunification, these parents will never visit their children. This new generation of expatriate officers has come to terms with the logic governing this previous routine of decisions in the visa section. Mario describes the reasons underlying the new routine: I feel very bad, sometimes I think my job is cruel, for example I really don’t like to deny visas to mums who wish to visit their children. But, I must comply with the rules, if they don’t meet the requirements what can I do? I know that in the past the tendency was to issue visas, because if mums have other sons in Morocco, they don’t meet the requirements to 3 Unpublished Circular: Circolare n° 14 del 24 ottobre 2011. We will see the content of the circular that is relevant for this analysis in the chapter “The Making of Decisions”.

174  F. INFANTINO apply for family reunification, so if we don’t deliver tourism visas to these mums, they will never have the opportunity to visit their children. Then, if their children are blue collars, shortly they will be Italian citizens, so mums will travel without any problem. Now, we don’t have this kind of instruction. I feel very bad for these cases.

These Italian officers are uncertain about the criteria to examine applications. They learn the routines of the visa section but decide to establish another routine of decision. The shift of practices is underlined by a shift in the way in which they frame the problem of issuing visas. These officers make sense of the decision problem differently. The decision should follow the same rules for every case and should not include exceptions based on humanitarian logic. Indeed, Mario and Massimo also dismiss the previous routine in the case of mothers traveling to assist their children’s family when a baby is due to be born. The rationality governing the issuance of visas for assisting the delivery of a baby was humanitarian according to the definition of humanitarian government which Fassin (2007) proposes: ‘the administration of human collectivities in the name of a higher moral principle which sees the preservation of life and the alleviation of suffering as the highest value of action’ (Fassin 2007, 151). To cope with the uncertainty that is also due to the absence of a manager, Massimo and Mario take action and make their sense of the decision-making problem. The corruption scandals that occurred in the consulate and the concerns linked to their future career affect the framing of the decision problem. Examining visas in a consular post like Casablanca, a post well known in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its levels of corruption, may impact on their reputation and affect the posts where they will be sent afterward. Massimo and Mario are young, on their first assignment abroad. This example is very effective in showing that establishing criteria to be followed in every application does not ensure an equal treatment of applicants, which requires adjustment to every case. The ways in which they frame the problem of decisionmaking on those specific, but common applications do not stem from their beliefs inscribed in their trajectory or background. Actually, Mario says that ‘he feels bad.’ Nevertheless, he performs the routine and systematizes his uses of discretion by interacting with his colleague Massimo. Because they are not the consequence of individual choice,

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routines are a more appropriate mode of action. Officers tend to situate their own action in a shared use of discretion, thus reducing their personal responsibility and diminishing uncertainty.

Conclusion The work undertaken to put visa policy in practice builds on the development of skills and practical and local knowledge, rather than on formal training or the reading of instructions. Skills and knowledge are means to cope with the uncertainty that characterizes officers’ jobs. Uncertainty is juridical, as day-to-day enforcement is unspecified. It is also related to one specific organizational condition, the permanent rotation of workers who face novel contexts each time they arrive in a consular post. The knowledge required is contextual, collective, interactional, and derived from lived experience. It includes know-how, accepted practices, and knowledge about the socioeconomic characteristics of the foreign country and their populations, local traditions, customs, and stratagems. Those kinds of competencies differentiate workers while asserting the permanent workers’ primacy although they stand at the lowest level of the hierarchy. The gut feeling implies acquiring those competencies. Informal socialization with colleagues, peers, and locally employed workers is the process of learning that maintains organizational routines. Uncertainty about the appropriate way to perform the job leads to mimicking, and this implies the reproduction of patterns of accepted practices. To study the factors that systematize the uses of discretion, it is necessary to identify not just limits set by formal rules and supervisory authority (Lipsky 1980) but also the social limits that supplement formal authority, notably formal training and informal socialization (Feldman 1992). Meanings emerge in interaction. Unlike the sensemaking that refers to the macro-level of the modes of knowing, framing in interactions refers to the day-to-day mid-level organizational action. Managers frame problems during the implementation in the case of Belgium and France whereas Italian officers frame problems alone. Supervisory authority systematizes the uses of discretion, by framing problems (Belgium) and by providing instructions and appropriateness to practices (France). The lack of supervisory authority is a supplementary source of uncertainty for Italian officers, who rely on each other and on locally employed workers.

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We have seen the nature of policy work in visa sections and the ways in which visa sections function. It is now time to address the content of policy work and its outcomes, in other words, the actual decision-making on Schengen visa applications, which is the topic I turn to in the next chapter.

References Fassin, D. (2007). Humanitarianism: A Nongovernmental Government. In M. Feher (Ed.), Nongovernmental Politics (pp. 149–160). New York: Zone Books. Feldman, M. S.  (1992). Social Limits to Discretion: An Organizational Perspective. In K. Hawkins K. (Ed.), The Uses of Discretion (pp. 163–183). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Greenwood, D. J., & Levin., M. (1998). Introduction to Action Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Hughes, E. C. (1971). The Sociological Eye: Selected Papers. New Brunswick: Transaction Books. Infantino, F. (2014). Bordering ‘Fake’ Marriages? The Everyday Practices of Control at the Consulates of Belgium, France and Italy in Casablanca. Etnografia e ricerca qualitative, 7(1), 27–48. Infantino, F., & Rea, A. (2012). La mobilisation d’un savoir pratique local. Attribution des visas Schengen au Consulat Général de Belgique à Casablanca. Sociologies pratiques, 24, 67–77. Lipsky, M. (1980). Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of Individuals in Public Services. New York: Russel Sage Foundation. Saguy, A. C. (2013). What’s Wrong with Fat? New York: Oxford University Press. Snow, D. A., Rochford, E. B., Jr., Worden, S. K., & Benford, R. D. (1986). Frame Alignment Processes, Microbilization, and Movement Participation. American Sociological Review, 51(4), 464–481. Van Maanen, J., & Schein, E. H. (1979). Toward of Theory of Organizational Socialization. Research in Organizational Behavior, 1, 209–264. Yanow, D. (2004). Translating Local Knowledge at Organizational Peripheries. British Journal of Management, 15(1), 9–25.

The Making of Decisions

Morocco is listed among the foreign countries whose nationals are submitted to visa requirements according to one criterion in particular, namely the migratory ‘risk.’ The Schengen visa policy has legitimated the shift of logic underlining the imposition of visa requirements from security concerns in regard to states toward the migratory risks that citizens of foreign states might pose. Because Moroccans are required to obtain a visa to access the Schengen territory, they are considered to be a migratory risk. Because of their nationality, Moroccans are negatively categorized as a ‘risky’ group. Suspicion toward Moroccan visa applications is thus generalized; issuing a visa to a Moroccan means trusting this individual despite his nationality (Bigo and Guild 2003). In other words, consular officers’ task consists in filtering out those allowed to be mobile within one negatively categorized group of applicants. This chapter focuses on the everyday accomplishment of officers’ task—decision-making on Schengen visa applications—and analyzes the uses of discretion that convey operational meanings to the vague notion of migratory risk while shaping the visa policy outcomes. This chapter highlights the risks that the three visa sections attempt to manage and emphasizes the divergences and convergences of visa policy outcomes. I argue that the converging operational meaning of the migratory risk is the risk of settlement, either undocumented or lawful, and that the management of the risk of lawful settlement is set as the

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priority. The negative categories of the risk of lawful settlement embodied by specific profiles such as old parents or young unmarried or unoccupied converge and become shared targets of bordering practices. I discussed history and path dependencies as factors of divergence. In light of broadly worded legislation and three distinct bordering policies and bordering practices, it is counterintuitive to observe that similar operational meanings of the migratory risk exist. This chapter is intended to reveal the processes of decision-making and their outcomes. We will see that decision-making outcomes sometimes have little to do with single visa applicants whose applications are examined as cases in a stream of cases. This chapter is divided into four sections. The first section is intended to bring insights on the process of making decisions. It highlights decision-making as an organizationally grounded process of categorization and discusses its empirical appropriateness, i.e., the extent to which this process draws on local exemplary cases of risk or out-of-context categories of risk. This is a first necessary step before investigating the content of decision-making country-by-country, which the remaining of the chapter tackles by following a similar scheme. The sections on France and Italy present the decision-making process by paying particular attention to the features-finding process and the objectivation of decisions, the ways in which the organization or the individuals establish what is relevant information, the purposes and concerns that underline categorizations, the negative categories of risk. As this chapter is intended to unravel the filtering action of the border as enacted in consulates, it focuses in particular on negative categorizations rather than positive ones. In the case of Belgium, the structure of the section is slightly different since it reflects the articulation between the consulate and the Aliens Office, Brussels.

Understanding Decision-Making Decision-making on visa applications is accomplished through a process of categorization, i.e., generalizing a particular case according to the features the case presents. Categorization is intended to compare features of the case at hand with those of a known category. Officers make decisions on one case having in mind other similar cases. Decision makers treat single cases as components of caseloads and respond to single cases not only as individuals but also as part of an organizational whole. The observations of officers taking decisions on visa applications shed light on decision-making as a process of categorization. During interviews,

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officers often define it as a case-by-case process.1 It is true that decisionmaking on visa applications is not regulated by automatic criteria. Lodging the requested documentation does not entail the automatic issuance of the visa. Objective criteria do not regulate the issuance of visas either. Bureaucratic action is intended at objectivizing decisions. Defining the issuance of visas as a case-by-case process also refers to a principle of law. The case-by-case process means that each case must be assessed on its own merits. In this sense, case-by-case processing is not a synonym of arbitrariness. On the contrary, it refers to equal treatment. I think that is why officers define their job in these terms. However, each visa application is rarely examined as a single case according to one officer’s individual criteria. Conversely, the decision-making process is aimed at finding features that are relevant to categorize the case at hand, and the decision is made according to the category in which the applicants’ and the applications’ features fall. Caseloads and time constraints are also organizational conditions under which routine of decisions is made. Scholars agree in understanding decision-making as a process of categorization. Unlike the individual-case-oriented approach, the organizational approach apprehends categorization as organizationally grounded and focuses on what underlines categorizations in specific organizational settings. That perspective is interested in the organizational concerns and settings (Gilboy 1991), purposes (Emerson 1983), and conditions (Brodkin 1986) that shape and systematize the uses of discretion. The organizational conditions are the circumstances in which policy is put into action; the organizational purposes are the beliefs and understandings of the meaning of daily action; organizational concerns define problems and underline purposes. We have seen in the chapter “Policy Work in Visa Sections” that newcomers to the organization, the expatriate decision makers, seek practical and local knowledge in order to learn the appropriate way of performing their daily job. The skills required for examining applications are not learned in circulars or Handbooks or formal training but through the informal socialization with colleagues. Officers learn accepted practices and patterns of responses—the routines. In doing so, they understand purposes and concerns, and attach meanings to their action. 1 Officers define decision-making as a case-by-case process also in the analysis of French prefectures (Spire 2008).

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The features-finding process is inscribed in the organization and therefore systematizes decision-making. This chapter will show that the organization establishes through forms (Italy and France) and databases (Belgium) what the relevant information required to process and examine applications is. Furthermore, we will see the relevant information that is established by workers (France and Italy) and by managers (Belgium). From the features-finding process, it is possible to understand the categories, as features that do matter are those that allow for placing a case into a category. Through that process, the organization searches for features that permit generalizing the case at hand, according to the established categories. The comparative approach reveals, ‘Why particular categories have emerged and are being used by social control agents,’ to put it in Emerson’s (1983, 2) terms. In effect, we will see that features-finding processes establish pieces of relevant information that are state-bound, which reflect the state-bound categories. State-bound categories of risk are underlined by state-bound concerns and purposes, which explain why some features are typed as negative features of risk in a specific setting. The case of Italy reveals features-finding processes that establish pieces of relevant information that allow for categorizing cases according to out-of-context categories. These categories are out-of-context because they generalize cases according to purposes and concerns that are not grounded in the Italian organization. Decision-making on visa applications is not an actuarial process. Features of risk are not inferred from any statistics. To put it in Schauer’s (2003) terms, the process of generalization of particular features that allow for categorizations is ‘statistically unsound.’ Except for the features that fall in the negative category of the risk of irregular migration, features that fall in other negative categories of migratory risk are not inferred from any statistic. Statistics on the apprehension of irregular migrants indicate the set of features such as the age, sex, and especially the region of origin that can be used to create the category of the risk of irregular migration. Thus, a young male applicant from the province of Nador falls into the category of risk of irregular migration for Belgium, and a young male applicant from the provinces of Khouribga and Beni Mellal falls in the category of risk of irregular migration for Italy. However, I have never heard one consular officer using these statistical arguments to confer appropriateness on his decision. We will see that these organizations are little concerned with managing the risk of irregular migration.

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Other negative categories of migratory risks derive their empirical appropriateness from exemplary cases whose features establish categories that are state-bound. Exemplary cases are inferred from databases and knowledge developed in interaction with applicants or guarantors. We will see that Belgium uses the evidence of chain migration, gathered thanks to the databases, as exemplary cases of risks and proofs of the migratory risk. Italy establishes state-bound categories, like that of the risk of finding a job in Italy, in interaction with applicants and/or guarantors. Other categories are out-of-context because they are not inferred from exemplary cases relative to the local or the national contexts. That is the case of France, which establishes categories on the basis of the migratory risks of ex-colonies, and Italy, which adopts the knowhow to detect the applicants that pose a risk for the welfare state, and a risk of lawful settlement. Overall, categories of risks about future behaviors are inferred from analysis of the past. To cope with the uncertainty about the future, the past is a source of certainty. It is now time to examine the content of the process of decision-making country-by-country, which is the purpose of the remaining of this chapter.

Split and Divided: The Belgian Implementation Style Belgian consulates are not entitled to deny visas. Officers categorize visa applications positively and issue the visa, or negatively, and email the visa application to the Aliens Office, based in Brussels, through a computer system application called VisaNet. From 2005 to 2012, Morocco has been the top country within all the consular posts of Belgium abroad in terms of applications emailed to the short-stay visa service of the Aliens Office. From 2013 to 2016, Congo is the top country and Morocco becomes second.2 In the Aliens Office, the job of Jamila and François consists in validating or invalidating negative categorizations. Officers must provide facts that justify their decision. Another specificity of the Belgian case is that visa denial must be motivated not only on legal but also on factual grounds. That does not need to imply that refusals are

2 Aliens Office Rapports d’activités from 2008 to 2014 and Rapports Statistiques up to 2016. Available at: https://dofi.ibz.be/sites/dvzoe/FR/Pages/Publications.aspx, accessed 10 May 2018.

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somehow more ‘objective’ than in other consulates. It rather implies that organizational action is aimed at objectivizing decisions in specific manners. The fact-finding process becomes a priority. The requirement of factual grounds neither entails that refusals are fewer. From 2009 to 2014, Belgium has been the top Schengen country for refusal rates and only second, after Malta, in 2015 and 2016.3 Also in Morocco the refusal rate is particularly high and higher than the countries like Italy and France (see Table 2 in the Introduction). In the Aliens Office, suitable factual grounds to motivate refusals are established. In the consulate, visa agents learn about the factual grounds that are likely to validate their negative decision by reading models of notification of refusals. The locally employed worker Perrine gives the example of the lack of means of subsistence in Morocco as a suitable factual ground: If the applicant does not provide evidence of his financial means in Morocco, the visa will be denied. We saw the Aliens Office models of refusals.

The Aliens Office works with routines of refusals—the models—and provides these models to consulates, to systematize decision-making, and to reduce its caseload. It is time-consuming to receive applications that do not present factual grounds allowing for refusal. In the consulates, the problem of visa agents lies in making the Aliens Office validate their negative categorizations. Thus, they try to understand effective grounds for refusals and upload information on VisaNet that is both factual and subjective. In the Aliens Office, officers do not receive the paper documentation. Officers ground their decisions on the pieces of information that exist in VisaNet. Therefore, in the Aliens Office, François requires consulate’s workers to describe the documentation provided in detail: Visa agents have instructions about what they have to upload and how. They must provide details on the pieces of documentation and, after that, they can add their opinion that might or might not be followed. We forge our opinion on the basis of the detailed documentation.

3 Source https://ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/what-we-do/policies/borders-and-visas/ visa-policy_en.

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François and Jamila would like to find the kind of factual information that is considered relevant to the Aliens Office rather than visa agents’ personal opinions. In effect, VisaNet demands factual information such as proofs of the family tie, the guarantor’s or the applicant’s ability to pay for the stay and other, as shown in Box 1 that reproduces the screen of VisaNet in which information is uploaded:

Box 1 Relevant information to examine short-stay visa applications (reproduction of a computer screen)

Documentation: Education certificates, invitation, formal obligation (prise en charge) art. 3 bisa, individual hotel reservation, individual invitation, etc. Opinion/Positive elements: The applicant has been issued a visa (long- or short-stay visa) by the consulate of Belgium previously. The applicant has been issued a short-stay visa by another Schengen State beforehand. The applicant has to attend a family ceremony. Smedem (fast-track procedure for businessmen). The applicant is bona fide. The applicant is able to pay for his/her stay. The person who stands guarantor for the applicant is able to pay. Opinion/Negative elements: The ability to pay is not demonstrated. The person is reported in local lists. The person is reported in the Benelux list. The person is reported in the Schengen Information System. The person is unemployed. The person has been denied a visa previously. The person is not bona fide. Presumed overstaying. The tie with the guarantor is imprecise.

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Unstructured comment: aThe

formal obligation made in accordance with article 3 bis of the law of 15 December 1980, regarding the access to the territory, the stay, the residence, and the removal of foreigners includes information about the guarantor, information about the third-country national being cared for (to be completed by the guarantor), and a statement of the guarantor’s commitment to account for the applicant’s costs of health care, stay, and repatriation costs. The form requires the stamp of the mayor.

Box 1 shows that except for the ‘presumed overstaying’ and the appreciation of the applicant’s ‘good faith,’ elements in VisaNet are mostly factual. However, Jamila and François are often wondering whether the factual information is correct, each time claims about the fakeness of documentation like birth certificates or bank statements are made. In the consulate visa section, facts might be established in accordance with subjectivity, like calculations of the applicant’s ability to pay for the stay, which is not merely arithmetic. Locally employed worker B1 and his colleagues also consider the ways in which revenues are produced: Our feeling matters as well. For instance, how their ability to pay is. We can say that their bank account has been boosted, we can see that technically [because they see bank transfers] or we can feel it, because the person has just created a company only for the purpose of applying for a visa.

Even though documentation is not forged, the proof of an applicant’s economic status and professional status might be considered unreliable. Likewise, the consular staff often debates about the elements to take into account when calculating the guarantor’s ability to pay for the stay. Visa agents are professionals whose discretionary judgments are often invalidated by other professionals pertaining to the Ministry of the Interior. Such intrastate tensions and inter-ministries quarrel harden the position of visa agents. In the consulate, sentences like ‘the Aliens Office doesn’t follow us’ or ‘they should trust those who are in the field’ are often repeated. One can hear visa agents’ outbursts each time they receive the authorization to deliver a visa that they would have denied. Supported by the consul, visa agents blame the so-called Moroccan

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lobby that is presumed to exert pressure on the Aliens Office. Béatrice and Patrick illustrate the ways in which they make sense of the Aliens Office decisions: Béatrice: In Belgium, Moroccans are lobbying a lot. You can see that in the case of bad applications that should be rejected. You think that, as a matter of fact, this woman will settle in Belgium with her children. You send it and it is a ‘GO’ [authorization to issue the visa]. They start sending emails and make telephone calls, they put pressure on us. We want to do our job but the pressure to issue visas comes from the Belgian side. Patrick: Most of the time visas are issued even though the application is not good, because the influence of the Moroccan community is so important that the Aliens Office has very little means to reject.

Visa agents consider Belgian bureaucracies lax and under the pressure of the so-called Moroccan lobby, which refers to the existence of supporters from the inside. It is puzzling to observe recurrent contrast in decisions among central and delocalized national bureaucracies. Concerns and purposes shift considerably and underline diverging decisions, interpretations of facts as the following sections show. The Consular Tracking of and Fight Against ‘Pseudo-Legal Migration’ When it comes to describing the main concern in assessing visa applications, consular staff employs a specific terminology. They speak of ‘procedure circumventing’ (détournement de procédure) to indicate the risk that somebody applies for a short-stay visa, such as a family visit or tourism, although the intention is settling in Belgium. Senior officers know that the notion existed well before the entry into force of the Visa Code. However, it is contextualized to current times. It refers to the suspicion that shortstay visa applicants ‘take advantage’ of the existing legal structures of opportunity to settle in Belgium on a regular status, to acquire Belgian citizenship and, finally, to enjoy welfare state benefits. Officers refer to three legal mechanisms in particular: applying for Belgian citizenship as permitted by article 12 bis of the Belgian Nationality Code4; registering 4 Code

de la Nationalité Belge (MB 12 July 1984).

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at the city hall and acquiring a residence permit; and applying for family reunification thanks to Council Directive 2003/86/EC of 22 September 2003 on the right to family reunification.5 This directive entitles a person who has enjoyed the right of family reunification to reunify other family members. In the consulate, that is called ‘a cascade of family reunification.’ Thus, officers are assessing applicants in the view of preempting ‘pseudo-legal migration,’ a phrasing that indicates the perception that although legal, those forms of migration are illicit. Béatrice expresses her concerns: This is incredible. I don’t understand that a short-stay visa holder can register in the town hall, find a job and earn some money. You see many Moroccans who leave and receive welfare state benefits immediately. That is incredible. (…) Elderly people can stay as soon as they say I’m the dad or the mum of. The Town hall might issue a residence permit. The citizenship is after that.

The feared chain of events includes the acquisition of rights to social security benefits. Discourses that recall ‘welfare chauvinism’ are the norm among officers making decisions, like Josué who states: I would like that something is left to my children.

Only Perrine, the locally employed Belgian worker married to a wealthy Moroccan tells me something different. When nobody is in the office, she almost whispers to me: ‘If they want to go to Belgium to receive health treatments, I don’t care.’ The negative categories of the risk of lawful settlement by registering in city halls, by applying for Belgian citizenship, or the risk of accessing the welfare state, are inferred from particular cases, which become exemplary cases. One day, the consul and Josué show me a report, included in the livre blanc and emailed to the Ministry in Brussels, in which they describe one exemplary case, the case of Madame Alaoui, which is built thanks to information gathered through the national technological toolbox, i.e., the Régistre National and VisaNet. Madame Alaoui has been issued a short-stay family visit visa. In Belgium, she applies for Belgian

5 Council Directive 2003/86/EC of 22 September 2003 on the right to family reunification.

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citizenship in accordance with article 12 bis of the Belgian Nationality Code. She obtains Belgian citizenship before the expiry of the visa applied for. Officers are concerned with this form of ‘procedure circumventing’ and especially with the right Madame Alaoui has obtained to reunify with other family members, thanks to the 2003 EU Directive on the right to family reunification. In the Régistre National, the consul learned about Madame Alaoui’s registration in one city hall, because the consul found her name in the composition of a household, and about her application for Belgian citizenship. In search of factual grounds, consulate visa agents use the Régistre National and VisaNet to find some evidence supporting their negative categories. In doing so, they also establish new criteria for examining applications based on the reliability of the guarantor, i.e., the person who stands for an applicant unable or insufficiently able to pay for the stay. Officers check whether the guarantor stood for others before and whether these applicants settled in Belgium. The sources are: the documentation provided, the Régistre National and VisaNet. The documentation indicates who the guarantor is. VisaNet allows for checking whether the guarantor stood for other applicants before. Because guarantors are listed in VisaNet each time they stand for an applicant, VisaNet also acts as a database of guarantors. By crossing the data in VisaNet regarding the previous applicants the guarantor stood for with the data included in the Régistre National on the composition of households, officers can check whether the previous applicants for whom the guarantor stood for settled in Belgium. That constitutes a criterion of the guarantor’s reliability. In consulates, any worker is instructed to upload information on the guarantor. When Perrine and Patrick talk about the information they gather, they are actually describing chain migration based on social networks—a well-established factor that sustains migratory movements (Massey 1999). Their discourse discloses an understanding of those kinds of migratory movements in terms of illicitness, abuse, unreliability, and rule-breaking: Perrine: I check the guarantor, how they are tied, if he was born in Belgium or not, I check how he left, because generally those who leave make other people come, I check whether the guarantor stood for other applicants before and whether they stayed. If somebody stayed, that means that the guarantor is unreliable.

188  F. INFANTINO Patrick: I’m giving you an example: I have an application of a young woman who wants to visit her brother. I have the birth certificates proving she is the sister. Her brother is the guarantor, so we ask the composition of his household. I see a spouse, three children and his mum and dad that he supports financially. I put the dad’s and mum’s name in VisaNet and check whether they left with our visa. I check when they registered in the town hall and most of the time, the date corresponds with the period of validity of the visa. That is a negative element for the sister’s visa. We think that she wants to stay too.

Consular officers track the ‘procedure circumventing’ of previous applicants to confer empirical soundness on the actual applicant’s risk of procedure circumventing and ‘pseudo-legal migration.’ However, only parents that meet specific requirements such as the financial dependency on their son in Belgium have the legal possibility to register in city halls. Other relatives like brothers, sisters, and cousins cannot register. Preventing Moroccan relatives to reach the territory of Belgium is a precautionary strategy aimed at avoiding any potential opportunity to settle in Belgium. Family ties are the main feature that allows for categorizing the applicant as a risk of ‘pseudo-legal migration.’ Moroccan applicants mobilize legal structures of opportunity on the basis of family ties with Belgians-Moroccans. Family ties are understood as reasons to stay, most notably for the case of unemployed young applicants and parents especially if widows. Béatrice would like to think of her job in positive terms, ‘in terms of travel, rather than migration control.’ She is disheartened: When you have twenty applications and you see widows or young unoccupied, you think that they want to emigrate.

Béatrice will issue visas to old parents traveling for family visits provided that: the documentation proves the ties; factual elements (properties, pension, and other children in Morocco) exist that can prove the willingness to come back. [I check] whether all documentation is provided to prove the family tie and if they have ties in Morocco. You can’t know if they will come back but you can see if they are married, they have a pension, they have children in Morocco, they own a house, something that allows for saying that they have some sorts of ties in Morocco.

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Unlike Béatrice, Josué regularly gives a negative opinion on the applications of old parents and emails them to the Aliens Office. He states, ‘an elderly person and a young unmarried unoccupied are two kinds of profiles I don’t like.’ Josué is firm in his mission of stemming undesirable migration, despite the Aliens Office. The idea of illicitness and the abuses convey meaning to decisionmaking. Thus, these officers’ action is aimed at redressing the balance within the domain of the rights of foreigners. The visa section attempts at managing the risk of lawful settlement and the acquisition of rights in the Belgian society. Their fight against pseudo-legal migration is substantiated by showing evidence of past uses of rights, although that is lawful. The Management of the Risk of Contestation: The Aliens Office In the modern building of the Aliens Office in Brussels-North, in an open space—the workplace of officers examining visa applications from many parts of the world—François and Jamila examine negatively categorized visa applications from Casablanca. The workload is high and concerns mainly applications for family visit visas. During our first conversations, the issues at stake in deciding upon ‘Moroccan visas’ emerge: factual grounds and jurisprudence. François and Jamila not only show their decisions to me but also provide explanations on the logic underlying them. Compared to the consulate visa section, the Aliens Office is not concerned with the fight against the so-called pseudo-legal migration. Officers are embedded in the actual Belgian context rather than an imagined one. Therefore, their suspicions toward the migratory intentions of Moroccan applicants are mitigated. François immediately makes me aware of the Aliens Litigation Council (Conseil du Contentieux des Étrangers), the administrative jurisdiction that responds to appeals against decisions concerning the enforcement of the law on access to the territory, residence, establishment, and removal of aliens from December 15, 1980.6 The Aliens Office is the institution held accountable for denied visas. Appeals are filed against the Aliens Office rather than the consulate visa section. Thus, the Aliens Office adjusts to the jurisprudence of the Aliens Litigation Council:

6 Loi du 15 décembre 1980 sur l’accès au territoire, le séjour, l’établissement et l’éloignement des étrangers (MB 31 December 1980).

190  F. INFANTINO We are well aware of the Council so we detail our motivations. The Council checks whether the applicant understands the decision. If we say that the ability to pay for the stay is insufficient, the Council will say why, especially if the documentation includes bank account statements. We need to explain why they are not sufficient.

Factual grounds are key, and the fact-finding process systematizes decision-making. From that viewpoint, the Visa Code is interpreted according to the impact it might have on the facts that legitimize visa refusal. The impact is enormous since it shifts the burden of proof to applicants. The applicant must provide some ‘guarantees of returning,’ i.e., information that enables the assessment of the applicant’s intention to leave the territory before the expiry of the visa applied for. Article 14 of the Visa Code provides for the list of supporting documents including ‘information enabling an assessment of the applicant’s intention to leave the territory of the Member States before the expiry of the visa applied for’ (article 14(d)). The interpretation of this rule is that the applicant bears the burden of proof with regard to the intention to leave the territory. For the Aliens Office, the lack of such proof represents a factual ground for refusal. That is the main implication of the entry into force of the Visa Code on François’s daily job: The Visa Code is much more precise. It includes well-defined criteria. The Code specifies that the person must provide guarantees regarding return. This is key for our everyday routines.

According to the Belgian interpretation, the Visa Code has enlarged the set of factual grounds for denying visas. Jamila explains that before the Visa Code, the denial of brothers’ or sisters’ visa applications was harder to defend in case legal appeals were filed at the Aliens Litigation Council: Very often, we deny visas because of the lack of guarantees regarding return. Since the entry into force of the Visa Code, we are authorized. Before that was difficult for Belgium. The Council could break our decision especially in cases of family visits of first degree, second-degree relatives. We used to deny visas, but most people did not file any appeal. However, those who filed an appeal had our decisions invalidated by the Council. Now, we have a legal basis.

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The features that fall into negative categories are socioeconomic: being young, unmarried, and unemployed. However, the features that do matter, as they represent facts to justify the denial, are those indicating that there exist forms of ties to the home country. If the person is young, unmarried, unoccupied, has no ties in the home country, comes from a highly problematic region regarding migration, these are the criteria and then the history of the application, whether the person tried to come as a student or through family reunification. The concern is guarantees regarding return.

The Subjectivity of Facts: Empirical Examples The examples of decision-making on visa applications proposed here are particularly effective in showing the features that visa agents in the consulate put forward to substantiate their negative categorization and the elements that affect Jamila’s and François’s final decisions. From Casablanca to Brussels, the same facts are interpreted differently. The assessment of consulate visa agents can be compared to that of the Aliens Office. Jamila and François read the applications as they appear in VisaNet, with descriptions, opinions, and comments of visa agents. Then, they make their own assessment and make the decision. They show me the printed screen of VisaNet and discuss their judgment. The first example concerns an applicant visiting his brother. The information and comments given by visa agents go beyond the information that François deems necessary to make his assessment. The visa agent writes: Family visit, unoccupied, wants to visit his brother, supposed overstaying, risk of settlement: lack of revenues in Morocco, none well-defined family ties, none guarantees regarding return, applicant’s ability to pay for the stay is not proven. Imprecise travel purpose: nothing justifies a multiple entry visa, unoccupied, financially dependent on the family in Belgium. The guarantor’s ability to pay for the stay: temporary worker.

François focuses on the guarantor’s ability to pay. He immediately comments on that: To be assessed as “able to pay for the stay”, the guarantor must have a permanent job. In this case, we tell him that he is not able to pay for the stay because we don’t know if he will have a job tomorrow.

192  F. INFANTINO

The factual ground that allows for validating the negative categorization is established. Unlike the visa agent, François does not put forward the risk of settlement, substantiated by the lack of revenues or family ties in Morocco. He focuses on the element that can be mobilized to legitimately justify the denial, i.e., the inability to pay for the stay of the guarantor. In the case of another similar application, family visit of one brother, Jamila categorizes it positively whereas the visa agent would have denied it. However, she validates the negative decision because the guarantor’s and the applicant’s abilities to pay are not proven. The visa agent puts forward several facts to engender the denial of the Aliens Office. First, the inability to pay for the stay: The applicant does not provide any proof of income, credit cards, the guarantor is unable to pay for the stay, in the light of the elements he provides, he does not prove the origins of his revenues in his bank account, field leasing contract dated XXX, he declares he is a farmer.

Jamila understands the visa agent’s unwritten reasoning, ‘I’m surprised that the field leasing contract is very recent and he applies for a visa now.’ We continue to read the visa agent input: ‘Unmarried, high migratory risk.’ Jamila seems to acknowledge the local expertise when she claims: ‘the posts have field experience.’ However, when she reads: ‘Reported on suspicion about fake marriage,’ she is irritated and states: I have just checked his file and that is not true, he has been issued a visa and he came back in 2008. This is not a bad application. I will, however, deny the visa because the guarantor is unable to pay for the stay otherwise he has complied with his visa before, in these cases we only check the ability to pay for the stay.

The visa agent’s knowledge about Morocco does not take into account the informal economy in which farmers operate that might explain the lack of both a leasing contract for the field and traces of payments in his bank account. However, Jamila denies the visa on the lack of a factual requirement. Although the visa agent puts forward other kinds of facts that should establish the reliability of the guarantor and the lack of guarantees regarding return, Jamila will issue the visa if all factual requirements are met, meaning that the applicant and/or the guarantor

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are able to pay for the stay, and the applicant proves the family tie and the guarantees regarding return. That is the case for one family visit visa of a cousin to whom Jamila issues the visa, although the visa agent sees him as a risk of settlement. All elements are positive. Jamila reads: ‘Cousin, proven by the birth certificate, Ministry of Agriculture’s professional certificate, property certificate, leasing contract, applicant’s bank account, the guarantor is able to pay for the stay, risk of settlement.’ Jamila explains to me why a list of positive elements leads to the risk of settlement, ‘this means that the consular post assesses the risk of settlement because they say he is unmarried and lacks ties to the home country.’ In the unstructured comments designated space, the visa agent adds: ‘Ties to Morocco: unmarried.’ In the guarantor’s composition of the household, I see one daughter, one brother, and one sister, all of them financially dependent on the guarantor. Jamila explains, ‘that means we have to take account of them (for the calculation of the ability to pay for the stay). However, he is able to pay for the stay.’ Then, she continues to read: ‘We don’t know since when these two people live in Belgium. The guarantor proves that he has welfare benefits for his three children and in 2002 one student was financially dependent on him.’ Finally, Jamila states: I don’t know how we could deny this. He proves the family tie, so you know why the person is coming, it’s to visit his cousin, and he proves that he has a job in the home country. According to the post, that is not enough. They wrote that he doesn’t have enough ties because he is unmarried. He showed his bank account, he has regular income. I can’t tell him, I deny the visa because you are unmarried.

The Aliens Office officers assess elements as guarantees of return whereas consulate visa agents overlook these same elements; visa agents put forward facts that Jamila and François often consider as weak and ineffective basis on which to ground negative decisions, such as facts like being unmarried, a widow, or even supposed past behaviors of the applicant’s network. Visa agents put forward these as facts to make the Aliens Office validate their negative categorizations. The Aliens Office validates the negative categorization in case crucial factual requirements are missing, such as the proof of the family tie or of the applicant’s and the guarantor’s ability to pay for the stay.

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In the Aliens Office, for a specific profile of applicants—parents visiting their children—the requirement of factual grounds concerning the guarantees of returning is less strictly enforced. Parents denied of the opportunity to visit their children are more likely to file an appeal. Also, their chance of success is very high. Jamila explains: If you are a mother who wants to visit your son and if your son is Belgian and has sufficient revenues, we will find it difficult, however, I will find it difficult to deny that kind of application, especially if it’s a Belgian or a European, considered all the Directives that surround us! I’m telling you, first degree, second-degree relatives, a mother. We are much more flexible.

Jamila is referring to the so-called Free Movement Directive (Directive 2004/38/EC7) that an internal instruction considers to be applied to EU citizens but not to Belgians, although the fact that such an interpretation provokes discrimination vis-à-vis Belgian nationals, who do not enjoy certain favorable conditions when applying for family reunification in their country, unlike other Europeans. Moreover, parents visiting their children are viewed as a less risky profile: Visa agents see the risk of settlement whereas Jamila and François do not. Jamila and François raise other kinds of considerations concerning the belief that old parents prefer living in their home country and visit their children once in a while rather than settling in Belgium. Being embedded in actual Belgian society modifies their representation of Moroccan parents. For the case of a mother born in 1937 in Nador, the visa agent writes, ‘The reference person in Belgium is his son-in-law, unoccupied, been issued a Schengen visa from Belgium, insurance, applicant’s ability to pay for the stay: proofs of bank transfers from Belgium since 2008. Guarantor’s ability to pay for the stay: able. Ties in Morocco: widow. Risk of settlement: financially dependent on her family in Belgium, risk of procedure circumventing.’ François explains: Given that she is dependent on her family in Belgium, she could apply for a residence permit in Belgium if she wants. (…) They would like to deny the visa for the bank transfers proving her financial dependency.

7 DIRECTIVE 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States (OJ L 158).

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The visa is issued. For visa agents, the fact that a parent is dependent on the relatives in Belgium is undoubtedly a fact supporting the suspicion of the risk of settlement, while for the Aliens Office, this is a fact proving the applicant’s intention to go back to Morocco: The fact that the applicant meets the legal requirements to apply for family reunification is considered to be an element supporting the idea that the applicant’s intention is mobility and not migration, otherwise she would directly apply for a family reunification visa. François states: If it’s a mum visiting her children, we are not going to block her! So, the tie is proven, the guarantor is able to pay for the stay, it is true that she doesn’t provide proofs of guarantees regarding return but it’s the mother, she has been issued a visa, she returned to Morocco. She meets the requirements to apply for a residence permit but we are not denying the visa on the factual ground that she is a widow. The consular agent says she does not provide guarantees regarding return but she complied with her visa in 1999. Often, when they leave in their home country I guess somebody is taking care of them otherwise she would have applied for a family reunification visa. She could and she would obtain it. So, if she is applying for a family visit visa, she probably wants to go back. Elderly Moroccan people, at least those that I know, usually do not want to stay here; they’d rather live in the sun. We have no reason to stop her even though we could, but she would apply for family reunification and she would obtain it.

Jamila and François never ground their decisions on the possibility of receiving health treatments. They do not even mention that topic. For a mother born in 1931 in Tangier, the visa agent put forward the following facts: ‘Widow, unoccupied, wishes to visit her son who pays for her stay, local letter attesting that Mr X takes care of her, first visa application denied (because of) lack of birth certificates.’ According to Jamila, the family tie is proven, because it has been proven in the former visa application and the former denial was due to the lack of the guarantor’s ability to pay. The visa agent’s negative opinion is justified as follows: ‘Widow, no personal financial resources. Risk of settlement.’ Jamila puts forward a very different set of considerations to substantiate her decision to issue the visa: The applicant does not provide any proofs of guarantees regarding return but since it’s the mum visiting her son, the visa is issued. The family tie is proven, the guarantor is able to pay for the stay, somebody is signing a

196  F. INFANTINO letter, so the person is saying, ‘this mother lives in Morocco’. We adjust to the reality of the country. In some countries, the pension doesn’t exist. We are not going to blame old parents for this. (…) It depends on how you look at the application. (…) We look at the application in the light of the reality of the country. She was born in 1931, she lives in Morocco, they tend to come back. Elderly people who have their house and somebody who takes care of them, those are sufficient guarantees regarding return. These are persons who apply for a visa every year during the summer to look after their grandchildren. They are coming back. An unoccupied young person is more likely to find one job here rather than an elderly person who lives in the country with a part of her family.

Knowledge about the pension system in Morocco is mobilized in Brussels rather than in Casablanca. Thus, the understanding of reality is contrasted. The so-called knowledge about the reality of the foreign country as well as knowledge about the home country bypasses the need for guarantees regarding return. Visa agents imagine Belgian society, but they do not live it, whereas officers in the Aliens Office are embedded in it.

At the Front Line of French Migration Control From the French visa section, I have the impression that migratory desires to France permeate Moroccan visa applicants. The perception of the appropriateness of the migratory risk for France is widely shared among officers as it is also sustained and conveyed by the consul general, an actor actively engaged in the visa implementation process. ‘My officers are at the front line of migration control and they know it,’ the consul general says in reply of my request to describe the visa section in Casablanca. The colonial past of France in Morocco certainly underlines such an understanding of this local bureaucracy. History confers the perception of appropriateness of the migratory risk for France. Vincent, one of the expatriate officers, is stating the obvious when he tells me: In a former protectorate, there is migratory pressure.

The migratory risk for France is salient in Morocco as in every other former French colony or protectorate. French state actors depict Moroccan applicants as ‘demanding’ because they say that populations of ex-colonies, most notably those pertaining to the Maghreb region, think of having a privileged relationship with France that somehow entitles them to

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travel or migrate to France. Suspicion is generalized. Didier, the expatriate officer who examines short-stay visa applications, considers his task difficult because it has to rely on statements of suspect applicants. He says he can only reduce the risks at a minimum: We never know whether the applicant is telling the truth. We should interrogate them, but we can’t do that. When we issue a visa, we are facing a risk. The risk can be from 1 to 20. It must be an acceptable risk.

The fight against the historically derived ‘migratory pressure’ has a specific impact on decision-making. Simply being Moroccan is a feature that falls in the negative category of the migratory risk. The problem of the migratory risk that ex-colonies in the Maghreb region represent is not novel. There existed instructions concerning the issuance of family visit visas that imply that consular posts were required to filter out travelers who might settle in France: Instructions indicate the examining of the ties in the home country to assess the probabilities of return and suggest providing information on the absence of legal mechanisms that allow for regularizations in France (see the chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third-Country’ but Three National Contexts”). Nowadays, the consular post is aimed at assessing the risk of settlement. Migration control has been constrained by foreign affairs concerns since the 1980s. The history of the attempts at introducing administrative tools to stem undesired migration, most notably the migration of relatives traveling for family visits, shows the extent to which bilateral relations matter. Nowadays, the management of the visa application process materializes the concern of ensuring a smooth bilateral relation. The economic and political interests of France in Morocco underline special treatments of special applicants (see the chapter “The Politics of Management”). As a result, to compare examining practices between the case of Belgium, France, and Italy, I focus on the Grand Public sector that handles the mass of ordinary short-stay visa applicants. Inside the ‘Assembly Line’ The Grand Public sector is nicknamed La Chaine, the assembly line, precisely because they receive a large number of applications (up to 180 per day in low season) and decisions must be made in 48 hours. The consulate of France is ‘hurried.’ It is committed to a rapid and efficient implementation explained by France’s foreign affairs concerns. Deciding

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upon Grand Public sector applications is not considered to be a complicated task. The less-reputed expatriate officers are appointed to it. Those are Didier and Hélène. Other expatriate officers, like Vincent, support Didier and Hélène ad hoc. Furthermore, Hélène does not like to examine applications and tries to delegate that task to Didier. Didier relies heavily on Alice’s suggestions, the most appreciated locally employed worker. Alice works at the window. So, a large number of applications are examined by a very limited number of workers: from three to four. Categorization and routine of decisions are the practical means to cope with heavy caseloads. The consul general’s instructions systematize and facilitate decision-making. In the rush of having to take decisions, the consul general’s instructions confer appropriateness and define the shared patterns of response to the problem of making decisions on actual applications. Didier mentions the consul general. He says, The boss said that we have to issue more visas but with a “return check”.8

The decision-making process is split into two stages: documentation intake and verbal probing at the window, and final decision and justification of decision in case of denial. In the section Grand Public, window-clerks fill in a form that is transmitted to the officer who makes the decision. The form summarizes the relevant information to categorize the application. Often, Alice completes it with a clear suggestion of the decision to be made. It is an essential tool also to understand the features that matter for the organization to establish risks. From the form, on which I will return hereafter, it is possible to understand that information is used to establish the so-called risk of circumventing the purpose of the visa (risque DOV, Détournement de l’Objet du Visa, in the administrative language). That is the key notion in French visa sections as it sets the objective of organizational action that pre-existed the entry into force of the Visa Code. I discover this essential information on the first day of my fieldwork when I ask the head of the French visa section how to assess short-stay visa applications: 8 As mentioned in the chapter “Policy Work in Visa Sections,” the visite retour (return check) is a paper given to the applicant who has obtained a visa that dictates to the applicant to go to the consulate and return the paper signed as a proof of return to Morocco. This paper has no legal value. It should work as a deterrent of settlement and can be used as a proof of non-return in the event of a following application.

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We look at the risk of circumventing the purpose of the visa: tourism but actually they receive health treatments; family or private visit, but actually they marry someone. Then, we look at the migratory risk: the person who is going to settle.

I realize later how precise is that reply. The examining practices display a particular concern regarding the risk of receiving health treatments, a habit somehow legitimated by the colonial past. Moroccans cannot expect to receive health treatments in France anymore. The consulate regularly denies visa applications for health treatments provided that the same treatment exists in Morocco. Therefore, the consular officers were attentive at checking whether some visa applications for other travel purposes were aimed at receiving health treatments. Another key aspect of visa examining is the assessment of the risk of marriage. The examining practices reveal that the head of visa section did not mention another important concern; i.e., the risk of applying for residence permits most notably in the case of ancestors (parents and grandparents). Finally, the head of the visa section defines the operational meaning of the migratory risk as the risk of settlement, an idea that is not novel. Such an idea was already included in the notion of circumventing the purpose of the visa. In the case of France, the Visa Code introduces novelty in another aspect of visa policy that impacts profoundly the daily life in visa sections. The Visa Code obliges to notify and motivate refusals as well as to provide information on the procedure to appeal. The head of the visa section considers those tasks to be burdensome. The head has to check the motivations of denied applications. One year after the entry into force of the Visa Code, appeals skyrocketed (154% increase of appeals filed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Commission for appeals, see the chapter “The National Sense Making of EU Visa Policy”). Moreover, officers have to learn the ways in which they should use the motivations included in the Annex VI of the Visa Code, ‘Standard form for notifying and motivating refusal, annulment or revocation of a visa.’ Officers have always used a confidential form for refusals (fiche confidentielle de refus). Now, they have to learn how to translate the real motivations into the standard motivations. They tend to use motivations number 3 and 8 that read as follows:

200  F. INFANTINO 3. You have not provided proof of sufficient means of subsistence, for the duration of the intended stay, or for the return to the country of residence, or for the transit into a third country into which you are certain to be admitted, or you are not in a position of acquiring such means lawfully. 8. The information submitted regarding the justification for the purpose and conditions of the intended stay was not reliable.

The form reproduced below (Fig. 1) includes the pieces of information that are relevant to categorize applications, make, and motivate decisions. The form structures the routine of questions at the window and systematizes the features that matter to categorize applications: The applicant’s socio-economic situation (points 2 to 9); Information concerning the certificate of board and lodging (attestation d’accueil) (point 10). It aims at establishing the tie with the hosting person. In case the hosting person is a friend, to assess the risk of marriage, more precise questions inspect the nature of the relationship and how the relationship started, whether a third person initiated the relationship, where it started, how, etc.

For parents or grandparents, supplementary pieces of information are required. Information concerning their economic situation aims at establishing whether parents fall in the category of the non-dependent relative in the ascending line of a French citizen (ascendant non à charge—ANC) or the dependent relative in the ascending line of a French citizen (ascendant à charge—AAC). That is the case of point 9, the formal obligation in Morocco (prise en charge au Maroc), i.e., the documentation proving the applicants’ revenues and/or the documentation proving that somebody, most of the time a relative, supports the applicant financially in Morocco. For the case of parents and grandparents, the formal obligation also indicates that these applicants are not isolated in Morocco. The consulate seeks that kind of evidence because a non-dependent relative in the ascending line does not meet the legal requirements to apply for a residence permit in France. That is a criterion to assess the risk and a proof to be used in case those applicants apply and obtain a residence permit on the basis of family reunification. However, the non-dependent relatives in the ascending line are required to lodge a specific document: a paper in which they declare that they will not apply for any residence permit (attestation de non dépôt de carte de séjour, point 12). That document is not legally binding; it does not imply that

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Fig. 1  Relevant information to examine Grand Public short-stay visas applications

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one can legitimately be prosecuted if one applies for a residence permit. Its value lies in the expected effect of threatening and dissuading the applicant from applying for a residence permit. Didier explains: The ANC [non-dependent relative in the ascending line] must provide a statement saying they won’t apply for a residence permit. It has no legal value.

Assessing the risk of settling in France is the main organizational concern. The assessment starts at the window. During the stage of documentation intake and verbal probing, a specific question aims at investigating the ‘real’ purpose of the journey, just traveling or settling in France. For parents or grandparents visiting a relative in France, a routine question concerns the place of residence of each child of the applicant (point 4 of the form). ‘To have an idea about the travel purpose, I ask questions about the children and the family,’ Alice explains. One negative feature is the fact that all children leave abroad. Vincent rejects an application on that basis: All children in France, this gets our attention. Rejection.

Unlike other window-clerks, Alice uses to ask whether parents travel alone because ‘that could help officers to know whether she is going to settle in France,’ she says. Two kinds of profiles attract much attention, old parents most notably old widows and the young unmarried notably good-looking women. According to Didier, those are the riskiest profiles: The first application, young girl, good-looking, I don’t trust her because she could marry somebody. [I don’t trust also] a widow whose entire family is in France.

Didier puts a large number of applications in the negative category of the risk of settlement. However, he issues visas whenever he sees facts such as the applicant’s income that cannot establish a legitimate ground to deny the visa. In the case of an old couple visiting a relative in France, Didier makes explicit his reasoning: [I look at] the photograph, although we shouldn’t take it into account. They are not going to the hotel. They have a hosting certificate. The children’s school is Lyautey [a French private high school in Casablanca], they pay €800 per month. Even though she wears a headscarf, we see that she

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is somebody different. They say they have three children and they prove it. The risk is the migratory risk. They have money [he checks the bank account], it’s OK, one month [the length of the visa delivered] out of one month [the duration of the visa demanded].

The headscarf is a characteristic leading to the generalization that an applicant belongs to a lower social class: Didier re-examines this generalization as he realizes that the children of the woman wearing the headscarf go to the French private high school in Casablanca. Likewise, in the case of another old couple visiting a friend, the visa is issued although they had a visa denial. France rejected them both. I am going to check why. [He checks the real motivation of the previous refusal in the database]. The motivation says ‘empty application’. Now, the application is full. 500,000 Moroccan Dirhams [approximately €50,000 on the bank account] are too much to reject them.

That is a telling example of wealthy applicants who do not like to send copies of their bank account statement. They do not want to show their wealth in particular to any Moroccan employee in consulates. The consulate of France understands that strategy. In another case of one previously denied application, the visa is non-issued. The application concerns a retired woman. Didier explains: Family visit visa for a retired woman whose application has been rejected previously. The migratory risk is more significant because she is retired. She applies for a three-month visa. I can’t issue the visa for three months because this is the first time that she asks for that unless she gives me a bank account with many zeroes. According to her revenues, she is not able to pay for her stay over three months. Three bank transfers on her bank account. Suspicious bank transfers. She is circumventing the motivation of her last application. Last time she didn’t have any money, now she is saying, ‘I have money.’

Didier writes ‘suspicious bank transfers’ on the ‘confidential form for refusals’ and uses motivation number 8. Thanks to that example, one can observe that visa applicants understand that the denial is linked to revenues. They boost their bank account, but that is considered to be suspicious. The first application, elderly woman wearing a headscarf, seven children, renting her house, no revenues, the husband earns 400 dirhams, rejection. Motivation 3.

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The negative categorizations of these applicants are rooted in features beyond income: first visa application, age, and appearance due to the wearing of a headscarf. But the facts that are used to establish grounds for refusal are insufficient or unreliable income or both. Insufficient unreliable income objectivizes the decision that is made following other sorts of considerations. From those practices, it emerges that parents with low-income or retired are less likely to visit their relatives. Time-consuming, doubts-provoking applications are undoubtedly those of young unmarried women. They fall in negative categories mostly because they are young and unmarried, but have salaries that the accepted practices of the visa section consider as sufficient (5000 dirhams minimum) and reliable because they prove those salaries. Didier reveals: These kinds of applications are time-consuming. A young lady, 26 years old, she works and earns 7,000 Moroccan Dirhams, family visit to her sister, she is a trainer so she has a future. She has an American visa. If my American colleagues take risks, I will too. Visa issued plus return check.

Didier is more suspicious of young female applicants. In another case, he clearly states, ‘application of a girl, good-looking, unmarried, 24 years. The first application, she earns 5,500 Moroccan Dirhams.’ He has some doubts. He says, ‘his application must inspire me. Let’s check how she spends her money…Jawal [Moroccan telecommunication firm]…she is always on the phone. Very difficult, I have a positive idea. I issue the visa but with a return check.’ The assessment of the stability of her economic situation is based on knowledge about the Moroccan work sector that plays a crucial role in assessing the probabilities of risk that the applicant poses. In the case of another application of a young woman who visits a friend, Didier removes all doubts. That woman works for a serious company. Therefore, she does not represent a migratory risk.

Uncertainty in Action: The Italian Case The expatriate officers appointed to the examination of Schengen visas are the most well-reputed officers (Massimo and Mario), as the most difficult task for this consulate is migration control. Massimo and Mario have diplomas and passed the entry examination test to be employed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Nevertheless, they are inexperienced and rely on the locally employed window-clerks to carry out

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decision-making: Soufiane and Rafik. The lack of supervisory authority is a source of supplementary uncertainty for the Italian officers. One head of the visa section is appointed because Massimo and Mario make pressure on the consul general who is reluctant instead. The consul general did not want to show to his hierarchy that he needed more human resources. Even when a head is appointed that person is not eager at having a say in visa decisions. Massimo and Mario rely widely on each other to confer appropriateness to their implementation practices. They are preoccupied for their career prospects. They have been posted in a consulate that is well known for scandals linked to visas during its recent history. Massimo and Mario wish to mark a difference vis-à-vis the rest of the expatriate officers. They come to terms with the humanitarian logic that were previously governing the issuance of visas most notably in cases of parents visiting their children or traveling to assist with a new birth. In the Italian visa section, organizational notions of risk like those found in the visa sections of Belgium and France (the risk of procedure circumventing and the risk of circumventing the purpose of the visa) are absent. Massimo and Mario are uncertain about the right way to perform risk analysis. Uncertainty is an incentive to seek for lessons. Thus, they look at the outer world and look for guidelines most notably the circulars. Pursuant to the Circular of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, consulate officers shall assess that the applicant does not represent a risk for security and for illegal immigration. The Circular specifies that a person could be considered a migratory risk if he or she is suspected of entering the Schengen States to commit crimes or to practice illegal activities and if this person does not offer sufficient guarantees regarding return to his home country.9 The migratory risk is overtly related to crime as if the risks related to migration were criminal activities. In the Italian context, the increase of criminality is often connected to immigration. That specific understanding is coupled with the meaning

9 Circolare n°14 del 24 ottobre 2011: La Rappresentanza valuta (…) assenza di pericolo per la sicurezza e di rischi d’immigrazione illegale. La Rappresentanza é tenuta in particolare ad accertare, in base agli elementi forniti, che il richiedente non sia da considerare un elemento a rischio migratorio, indipendentemente dai controlli di sicurezza. É da considerarsi a rischio migratorio chiunque risulti ragionevolmente sospetto di voler fare ingresso nel territorio degli Stati Schengen allo scopo di commettere reati e/o permanervi esercitando attività illegali. É altresí da considerarsi a rischio migratorio chiunque non offra garanzie sufficienti di ritorno nel Paese di provenienza.

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of the migratory risk as the risk of non-return that the Visa Code conveys. In the consulate and the Centro Visti in Rome, I talk to the pre-Schengen generation of senior officers who were assigned to visa-issuing posts in the 1990s. Those interviews reveal that decision-making on visa applications has previously consisted in checking lists of banned travelers and asking for the authorization of central ministries in the case of particular foreign countries. Decision-making shifts from the assessment of security threats linked to public order or political reasons, toward criminal activities of individual migrants and intentions to leave the territory. The very idea of the migratory risk is a novelty for Italian visa sections. Still nowadays, in the Italian visa section the problem of migration is hardly connected to visas. Massimo reveals: We will never have any weight on illegal immigration. Before that we can fill up a boat! Even if they don’t come back, numbers are much fewer. 20,000 people have arrived lately in Lampedusa.

Massimo does not connect the problem of migration, which he understands as the problem of undocumented migrants, with visa overstaying. He is concerned with the most visible aspect of undocumented migration, the “barconi”, the ships of migrants arriving on the island of Lampedusa. Thus, Massimo and Mario are asked to make judgments over an issue—the migratory risk—that they are attempting at understanding. Reading instructions imparts values about the role to be played and defines the objective of their action. But Massimo and Mario still need to learn the appropriate way of assessing the migratory risk. The case of Italy is particularly interesting because it shows continuities and discontinuities with established patterns of action, contextual categories of risk and some out-of-national-context categories of risk. Maintaining and Making New Routines The visa-examining process relies on the information gathered through documentation and verbal probing at the window. The process is paperbased rather than computer-based. The information is not stored in any national database, although databases exist. And it is transmitted from the window to the officers’ desk on a piece of paper attached to the application folder reproduced in Fig. 2.

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Fig. 2  Relevant information to process Schengen visa applications

The required information is: Relative of a European citizen; Previous Schengen visa; Travel document; Accommodation; Personal income or fidejussione (bank guarantees that an amount of money up to 40,000 Moroccan dirhams exists in an account); Occupation; Income; Health insurance; The type of visa applied for and requested duration of the visa. In regard to the applicant socioeconomic condition, the information required is similar to the other consulates. However, pieces of information are fewer and less sophisticated. The question concerning familial ties with a relative of a European citizen is very important because locally employed workers and officers say that in those cases the visa is their right. Soufiane and Rafik fill in the piece of paper and, given their expertise, suggest the decision to be made by writing a code on the file application. The codes for denial are A4 or A2. To keep the energy high while carrying out repetitive tasks, they make jokes at the window. A4 and A2 are also the names of two Audi cars. Thus, they make comments

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about the negative applications by saying, ‘many Audi cars this morning.’ The features to search are indicative of the categories that matter. Supplementary questions, which are not listed in the form (Fig. 2), aim at categorizing applicants, most notably old parents, according to the risk of settlement and the risk for the welfare state. Massimo and Mario are making the effort of assessing the migratory risk and differentiating themselves from the ways in which the assessment used to be carried out before. They ask Soufiane and Rafik to inquire about the applicants’ intention of applying for a residence permit in Italy. While I am sitting next to Rafik at the window, Mario comes close to listen what Rafik has to say about the couple of parents he is dealing with. Rafik states: I have asked them the question as you told me and they replied that they asked for information about family reunification and realized that it is not allowed.

To assess the intention of applying for a residence permit, Rafik and Soufiane are asked to verify applicants’ knowledge or will to know about the procedure concerning family reunification. For example, Soufiane notes on the file of an old couple applying for tourism visas that they have asked some information on the procedure to apply for family reunification with their son. He writes: ‘they want to reunify with their son.’ And he puts the code for denial on the application. When another tourism visa application is denied, the written motivation on the file says, ‘documentation seems to be intended for family reunification.’ The negative category of the risk of parents’ applying for a residence permit does not stem from any empirical case. Even the legal mechanisms that should underline the practice are unknown. When I ask Mario how parents obtain residence permits, he replies: I don’t know, I must inform myself, I only know that they arrive in Italy and they get papers.

Similarly, assumptions are made on the risk of receiving health treatments, a concern that Rafik and Soufiane do not share. When a pregnant woman makes a telephone call to the consulate to ask why the visa of her old mother has been denied, Soufiane clearly shows to me his disapproval. After the telephone call, Soufiane tells me what he really thinks:

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The visa has been denied because they [Massimo and Mario] think she will receive health treatments that she cannot afford in Morocco.

Alessandro, the administrative commissioner, make sense of the routine: From a human point of view, I might understand those who travel to receive medical treatments. But it is not possible to pay the health services bill.

Another feature-finding process suggests another novel concern: the risk of marriage. Applicants who lodge a letter of invitation or a host declaration are questioned about the identity of the person signing this document. The question aims at understanding the ‘real’ purpose of travel by identifying the nature of the relationship between the applicant and the hosting person. A specific profile arises suspicion: a young unmarried person who is invited by somebody in Italy of the opposite sex. That is the case of a young employee of an Italian NGO who files an application with a letter of invitation signed by a woman. Massimo would like to deny the application although the Italian ambassador in Rabat is supporting it. The ambassador makes a telephone call to bring the appointment forward for the interview. The applicant provides two letters from the Italian NGO for which the applicant has been working as a consultant for two months, one work contract for the next four years from a well-known foundation, one bank statement from the previous two months testifying to a monthly salary of 7000 Moroccan dirhams (approximately €600). Because of the ambassador’s intervention, Massimo consults with the consul general. Massimo tells him: This case is almost a textbook example. He has done this on purpose; he has taken these salaries only to apply for the visa. He wishes to live with this woman. Consul, look, do you see the signature of a person in charge [of the NGO] on this document? I only see the stamp of the NGO.

The consul attempts to find a factual element to deny the visa. He asks: ‘When did he lodge the application?’ Massimo checks the date on the application form, and it is the sixth of that same month. The consul states: ‘How could he have the bank statement if he lodged the application on the sixth? So this is a forged document, and we have the proof!’ Because I personally met a person working for this Italian NGO beforehand, I asked her for some information on this story. She tells me that

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the applicant’s girlfriend lives in Morocco and they want to travel to Italy for the summer. He has no intention at all of living in Italy because he is particularly proud of his contract to work for a prestigious foundation for the next four years. When the applicant comes to the consulate for the interview, Soufiane speaks to him in darija (Moroccan Arabic), but he replies in French. Soufiane asks who is the person signing the letter of invitation. He replies: ‘It is my fiancé’s mother.’ The visa will be issued on that same day. Soufiane explains to me: ‘The ambassador is sponsoring him and, furthermore, he has a letter from a very important person in Italy.’ Later, Soufiane tells Massimo: ‘I asked who is the person signing the letter of invitation and it’s his fiancé’s mother.’ At this point, Massimo raises his eyebrow. Massimo tells Alessandro, ‘Imagine that he was an A4 [the code for migratory risk], we issued a seven-day visa, he applied for a fifteen-day visa.’ Also, the guarantees regarding return are a novel element systematizing decision-making. Mario and Massimo search for professional or familial motivations to come back. Massimo examines the application of a 33-year-old married man employed by a Moroccan telecommunications firm. Massimo states: This is a hard assessment. He is going to his cousin’s house for tourism, his wife is also applying (…) they could leave together forever. They have a son. Let’s issue the visa with a return check.

In another case, the professional motivation to come back is a key factor for the issuance of the visa. The knowledge of locally employed staff is crucial, like in the following example in which Mario asks Rafik about the job of an applicant. Rafik reassures Mario: Don’t worry, this one does not represent a migratory ‘risk’, do you know what his job is? He works for the Office Chérifien des Phosphates [the phosphate industry]. Apart from their salary they get a bonus every three months, this person is coming back.

Sometimes, they create the guarantees regarding return by not issuing the visa to important relatives like children. Mario and Massimo consult each other about an application of a mother who would like to travel to Italy with her sons for her sister’s wedding. They issue the visa for the mother only. Massimo states:

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Oh yes, you would like to bring them all to Italy!

In the Italian consulate, the risk that Moroccan applicants represent is the risk that every ‘third-world country’ would represent. They understand Moroccans as populations that would obviously like to move to ‘the West.’ That is precisely what Mario says to an Italian citizen who makes a telephone call to the consulate to enquire about a visa refusal. He says: Listen, I understand and can justify it as a human being, everybody would like to go to the West, but as a representative of the state I cannot. If you really care about her, I suggest you marry her or apply for a work visa.

Mario explains the procedures that permit the regular settlement of the applicant in front of several colleagues and me. He is not concerned with the inappropriateness of such behavior. At the Belgian and French visa section, officers would call that ‘procedure circumventing’ or ‘circumventing the purpose of the visa.’ That case relates to a negative contextual category: young applicants invited by Italians at risk of finding a job. The category is generalized from empirical examples that officers learn in interaction with Italian sponsors who make telephone calls like in the above-mentioned case. The person on the phone explains to Mario that the girl has some relatives in Italy and that he has the opportunity to find her a job and an apartment. During another similar phone conversation, Mario explains to the person on the phone: The socio-economic conditions were not met, the invitation is not sufficient. Otherwise all Moroccans would be in Italy. Who tells me that this person is not going to work in the north-east [of Italy]?

Besides that contextual negative category, a less contested and well-established negative category is that of ‘undeserving poor applicants.’ A poor economic condition is an indisputable feature that results in the denial of a visa. Massimo maintains: If a person earns 1,500 dirhams in a bakery, it’s not even worthwhile opening the file.

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When questioned about day-to-day assessment, Mario points to the overall financial situation not just to support their stay: Mario: First of all we check if they have enough money. I: How much is enough? Mario: By law, it is €30 per day, but we look at the overall situation. Then, we check if the person is enlisted with the CNSS [Caisse Nationale de la Sécurité Sociale, in order to verify whether the documentation proving the salary is forged or valid]. I know that looking at someone’s salary is discrimination based on class.

Although Mario considers taking salaries into account as an inequitable practice, this is the feature that allows for decision-making. Once dismissed the humanitarian logic that could bypass the negative categorization, little contestation or debate about decisions is left for those cases. Rafik and Soufiane still express humanitarian concerns. However, they know that Mario and Massimo would not accept decisions based on those criteria. On one file, Soufiane writes, ‘the daughter has just given birth, she [the applicant] doesn’t work and her husband earns very little.’ The visa is denied. In another case, Soufiane is at the window with an old woman who wants to visit her daughter who is going to deliver soon. Soufiane tells me: ‘she has nothing, and she wants to go to Italy!’ During another interaction, Soufiane is dealing with a young woman who wants to visit her brother who is detained in an Italian jail. Soufiane tells me: ‘You see, I would like to help this one but she has nothing.’ To take a load off of his chest, Rafik tells me once: ‘I’m sorry for those who are polite but don’t deserve it.’ I ask, ‘What do you mean by “don’t deserve it”?’ ‘They don’t deserve it because they don’t have any money,’ Rafik replies. The notion of merit the consulate’s officers entertain is unconventional: Applicants are not deserving because they tell the truth, they are cooperative, or because of their efforts in education. Merit stems from the applicant’s economic and professional situation. Considerations about the risk posed by poor applicants do not inform decision-making. The belief is that poor individuals have no legitimate reasons to travel to Italy, such as tourism or business. This way of naming the logic at stake in delivering visas reaffirms this bureaucracy’s monopoly of power. Applicants must have an economic and professional situation allowing them to deserve access to Italian territory. The notion of merit relates back to morals rather than to management as the logic of risk does (deservingness, literature).

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Conclusion Rather than being based in legal texts that are vague or on an individual’s initiatives, the operational meaning of migratory risks is rooted in organizational categorizations. Categories are informally socialized among colleagues. This process sustains the making of routines of decisions. The comparison of Belgium, France, and Italy shows that for a country like Italy, the notion of migratory risk is novel. Rather than in an analysis of the risk an applicant may pose, the decision-making is informed by the logic of merit based on that applicant’s economic and professional situation that underlines the distinction between deserving and undeserving applicants. At the consulates of France and Belgium, a criterion that guides the examination of applications is the assessment of the ‘risk of circumventing the purpose of the visa’ and the ‘risk of procedure circumventing,’ respectively. Both notions refer to the idea that the applicant uses a travel purpose as a pretext while his real intention is settling in the country. These notions reflect the notion of migratory risk as the risk of non-return that originated in the Schengen process and it is reaffirmed in the Visa Code and the Handbook for the processing of visa applications through the definition of the objective of consular action as the assessment of the applicant’s intention to leave the territory before the expiry of the visa applied for (see the chapter “Schengen Visa Policy-Making: Shifting Competence While Authorizing Discretion”). The common visa policy model derives from the original Schengen States. While this objective is novel for Italy, it is included in preexisting notions of risk for Belgium and France. The convergence occurs because Italy incorporates the objective. The convergence that occurs on the objective of visa policy—assessing migratory risk considered in its broadest sense as the lack of an applicant’s intention to leave the territory—does not determine the convergence of categorizations that form the basis for decision-making. State-bound negative and positive categorizations persist and diverge while out-ofcontext categorizations of risk converge. From the point of view of implementers, the notion of migratory risk remains to be translated into concrete cases of risk, i.e., the operational meaning of migratory risk. The assessment of the applicants’ intention to leave the territory rests on the discretionary power of officers on the ground. The categorization of applicants deemed to pose a risk is still constructed locally, that is in the context of Morocco. In light of this, it is particularly interesting to observe that some of

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the negative categorizations of the consulate of Italy in which specific applicants fall are similar to the negative categorizations of other consulates: Old parents are at risk of applying for residence permits, young applicants are a risk for marriage, and old parents are a risk in the sense of receiving medical treatments. These negative categorizations converge despite the organizational settings, concerns, purposes, and problems of the three local bureaucracies diverge. Some practical meanings of the migratory risk are not specific to one national context: The risk of obtaining a residence permit once visa holders arrive in the national territory and the risk of marriage embody the generic risk of regular migration to Europe. Those are ‘acontextual generalizations’ (Schauer 2003, 21) of the migratory risk. They establish uniform negative categorizations and the features that fall within them. Therefore, family ties fall into the negative category of the risk of settlement, young persons visiting friends fall into the category of the risk of marriage, and so on. Out-of-context definitions of risks and the factors which support suspicion foster the convergence of decision-making. Despite cross-national divergences, parents visiting their children and young applicants with ties in the country become groups at migratory risk, which ensures that they are targets of filtering organizational action. Italy adopts a novel objective of visa policy and out-of-context categorizations of risk. One crucial element remains to be questioned: the processes whereby the transfer of out-of-context definitions of risk and the know-how to detect risky travelers occurs. That is the topic I turn on in the next chapter.

References Bigo, D., & Guild, E. (2003). La mise à l’écart des étrangers: la logique du visa Schengen. Paris: L’Harmattan. Brodkin, E. Z. (1986). The False Promise of Administrative Reform: Implementing Quality Control in Welfare. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Emerson, R. (1983). Holistic Effects in Social Control Decision-Making. Law and Society Review, 17, 425–455. Gilboy, J. A. (1991). Deciding Who Gets In: Decisionmaking by Immigration Inspectors. Law and Society Review, 25(3), 571–599. Massey, D. (1999). Why Does Immigration Occur? A Theoretical Synthesis. In C. Hirchman, P. Kasinitz, & J. De Wind (Eds.), The Handbook of

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International Migration: The American Experience (pp. 34–52). New York: Russel Sage. Schauer, F. F. (2003). Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Spire, A. (2008). Accueillir ou reconduire. Enquête sur les guichets de l’immigration. Paris: Raisons d’Agir, Seuil.

Transnational Policy-Making from Below

The chapters of this book have highlighted cross-national differences in EU visa policy implementation although a legally binding and self-executing legal framework exists. The EU legal framework does not dictate how policy should be put in action, notably with respect to decision-making, as regulations are vague—they do not detail the ways in which they should be enforced—and also because implementation adjusts to local contexts. The implementation of EU visa policy in the consulates of Belgium, France, and Italy in Morocco is dependent upon national institutional and organizational structures and on legacies of national visa policies that pre-exist the communitarization. Those include the sense attributed to visa policy, notably in Morocco, the different uses of visa policy as an external mechanism of immigration control, the distinct history of migratory movements between these Schengen States and Morocco, and the history of the bilateral relations with Morocco. National institutional and organizational structures, unmodified by the EU legal framework, differentiate the ways in which policy is put into action. However, the street-level, comparative view of EU visa policy implementation sheds light on striking similarities in visa policy implementation practices most notably in understandings and operational meanings of migratory ‘risks,’ know-how and tricks of the trade. How to explain counterintuitive similarities? This chapter focuses on the process that accounts for the transfer of policy practice namely the informal exchange © The Author(s) 2019 F. Infantino, Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8_8

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among consular staff that the implementation of EU visa policy has transformed into a ‘community of practice’ (Wenger 1998). The chapter starts with a discussion on the birth of a local community of practice by focusing on the concerns that underline the seeking of colleagues from other national consulates to solve problems linked to the day-to-day implementation also in a domain of national legislation notably the control of ‘fake’ marriages. Then, the chapter continues with a discussion about the relevance of informal settings rather than formal meetings of local Schengen cooperation. Finally, I discuss the contribution of the street-level perspective to policy transfer and policy change through the notion of ‘transnational policy-making from below’ that is intended to describe the link between the knowledge sharing of practitioners and the transfer of policy practice.

The Birth of a Local Community of Practice National consulates confer with other nations to enact their own sovereignty. We have seen that in visa sections, officers look for colleagues to develop the knowledge and skills to carry out their daily implementation tasks. However, expatriate officers and consuls also look for other colleagues working in other national consulates. Two specific concerns, linked to putting EU visa policy into action, attract the greatest number of interactions: the management of visa policy implementation and the decision-making on visa applications. Let us start by addressing the reasons for coming together to learn tricks about management. Belgian high-ranking staff wants to know the period during which the French consulate is in peak season. During that period, to avoid the ‘visa shopping’ from the consulate of France, the consulate of Belgium wishes to schedule appointments to lodge applications. Several visa applicants tend to apply to the Belgian consulate, although their destination is France, because applying at the overcrowded consulate of France requires more time. That kind of strategic use of Schengen consulates’ different implementation practices is typical of ‘elite’ applicants, i.e., applicants who pertain to the upper classes of Moroccan society who are used to traveling and consider the Schengen visa to be a sort of entitlement. The consul general of Belgium clearly states that his consulate does not work for the French, although the benefit of the visa fee. Another ordinary reason to interact with Schengen colleagues concerns the recourse to private service providers. It should

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be noted that the adoption of outsourcing to implement Schengen visa policy started as a local practice in India and has been copied locally also to redirect some economic and non-economic burdens stemming from the Visa Code. Private–public cooperation in this policy area is telling about the coming together to coordinate to avoid supranational constraints (a process that I analyzed elsewhere1). High-ranking consular staff aims at exchanging about the advantages or characteristics of the different companies, share experiences, and so on. Before taking the decision of outsourcing to VFSGlobal, Belgian high-ranking staff has engaged in meetings with the high-ranking staff of the consulate of Italy, the first customer of VFSGlobal in Morocco. The greatest efforts at exchanging knowledge with other Europeans go in the direction of border control. One country’s consulate issues the Schengen visa but the visa authorizes entry and circulation not just in that country. Thus, the French consulate, concerned with the migratory risk to France, wants to steer the uses of discretion in other consulates although that is a very touchy and sensitive domain. It can be easily perceived as an intrusion into the sovereignty of another nationstate. We have seen that France is the more active at emailing its border by sending emails to Schengen partners to prevent the issuing of visas to listed applicants (see chapter “The Politics of Management”). The expatriate officers of the different consulates are particularly curious about the ways in which other consulates carry out decision-making. Officers want to know the real motivations of refusals. That kind of situation is neither exceptional nor unusual. Officers make telephone calls to other Schengen consulates whenever they detect a previous refusal from an applicant’s passport displaying the stamp of a consulate without a visa. This type of interaction among consulate officers continues despite the Visa Information System (VIS), which includes information about previous visa applications and the motivation in case of the previous refusal, which is one of the motivations listed in the standard form to notify the refusal of a visa (see Appendix B). Those motivations are broad. They are not meaningful either for visa applicants or for officers. The VIS does not include the real motivation for a refusal, which is the information officers seek. They attempt to understand whether the hidden information that

1 See

Infantino (2016).

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engendered the previous refusal. The unofficial information is useful to consulate officers. Thus, they make telephone calls. Other useful settings to establish personal contacts and exchanging with colleagues are leisure activities such as parties or get-together. The vice-head of the consulate of France’s visa section and the Belgian officer Béatrice met during one party organized by the consulate of the USA. Since then, they have their personal phone numbers and call each other whenever they need to do so. The French officer explains to me the extent to which it is so important to have personal phone numbers and meet informally. That is an effective resource and good practice to carry out her daily job. Officers attach great importance to small social gatherings such as a Tuesday get-together in a restaurant in Casablanca. I have dinner many times with Belgian, French, Italian, and occasionally Spanish officers. Officers chat about Morocco, applicants, differences with other countries and previous experiences. The most telling illustrations come from the case of Italy. In this comparative case study, it is the setting in which the exchange with Schengen colleagues has the most important effects on decision-making, like in the following example: Massimo is processing the tourism visa application of a Congolese who is a legal resident in Morocco and works as an engineer. In the applicant’s passport, he finds the stamp of the consulate of Belgium but no visa in it. He is puzzled and wants to make a telephone call to a Belgian officer. ‘I don’t understand, that is so bizarre. I don’t see any problem with issuing the visa. He works as an engineer, I checked the CNSS (Caisse Nationale de Sécurité Sociale) and he exists and his salary is very high,’ he tells to Mario. Mario speaks on the phone with Josué, the Belgian officer. I stand in front of him during the conversation: ‘ah, he represents a risk of settlement,’ Mario says. Then he asks, ‘so you are opposing the issuance of the visa. (…) May you send an email in which you state that?’ Josué contends that documents are forged, ‘those who prove that he is an engineer?’ asks Mario. Mario does not receive a straight answer. Josué tells him that he denied the visa because this Congolese has relatives in Belgium. Once they receive the email, Massimo and Mario cannot issue the visa anymore. Mario changes his expression; he is sad, disappointed, and worried. He does not stop repeating, ‘Poor guy, I’m so sorry, he is an engineer.’ Massimo tries to comfort him using these words: ‘Don’t worry, if he asks for another passport the refusal won’t appear.’ Some days later, the discussion about the

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case of the Congolese engineer continues in the restaurant. Mario takes the chance of talking to Béatrice and discuss about the risk of settlement substantiated by the applicants’ relatives in Belgium. The day after Béatrice tells me: ‘Mario said that he feels bad. He doesn’t understand that we say no!’ The example shows, on the one hand, the conflicting frames of Belgian and Italian officers—risk of settlement and deservingness—while revealing the exchange of understandings. The interactions between the consul general of Italy, the consul general of France, and the deputy-director of VFSGlobal result in the Italian consul adopting the logic of proof in decision-making: The contract with VFSGlobal, the private service provider, is on the verge of expiring. A call for tender is launched but the consular staff and the VFSGlobal employees are certain that VFSGlobal will be awarded the contract. Unexpectedly, TLSContact—a new company—wins the call for tender. The consul general of Italy is looking for something to do to leave his mark. He is young, inexperienced and aims at being appointed to a prestigious consular post after Casablanca, which he perceives as a sort of punishment. He is claiming credit. A new private service provider and a renovated visa application process—one in which the interview with the applicant is withdrawn—are the new elements of that consul general’s leadership. Proposals to withdraw the interview have existed before. They have always been unsuccessful. Thus, I ask the consul general the reasons for changing his mind. He says: I cannot base a visa denial on the interview. If they file an appeal, they will win. So, is the interview useful or not? This is the question you should ask.

The reply is astonishing. The consul general deems the interview useless because it does not provide factual elements for refusals. It is a drastic cut with former logics. The staff in post since the previous consul general says that the interview was maintained, even after the outsourcing of the visa application process, because a representative of the Italian state must see visa applicants. The new consul general is using the logic of proof (on which I will return hereafter). The consul general has met the deputy-director of TLSContact and the consul general of France (an information that I obtain thanks to the vice-head of the visa section). Thus, within the frame of the interactions described above, the consuls and the officers share the tricks of their trade, their knowledge about how to manage the visa application process and what pitfalls to guard

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against. Together they try to make sense of their work and they pick up the unwritten profiles of the migratory risk. Local knowledge is a way of coping with the uncertainty about how to carry out decision-making and solves the problem of implementing visa policy in local settings. As Freeman (2006, 377) noted, ‘solving problems is an embedded, social process as much as a rational, scientific one,’ and within the frame of informal exchange, local implementers learn how others approach their tasks. They engage in organizational learning beyond the boundaries of their organizations. Not just the staff of each national consulate but also the staff of all Schengen consulates together can be therefore characterized as a community of practice (Wenger 1998), i.e., a group of people who share an enterprise and consider interacting with peers a means to develop and learn practical knowledge. It is practice that makes the community and practice ‘exists because people are engaged in actions whose meanings they negotiate with one another’ (Wenger 1998, 73). A community of practice engages people in mutual sense-making. Unlike networks, communities of practice not only share knowledge but also apply it (Freeman 2006). As Duguid (2005) argued, the theory of communities of practice is inherently a social theory, as it locates knowledge and learning within social interactions. In learning how, implementers make sense of the problem of making decisions and the risks that should be managed. Appropriateness is constructed within the community of practice or the community of practice is activated to seek for sources of appropriateness. I follow the lines of the new sociological institutionalism (Powell and DiMaggio 1991, 13), which ‘locates irrationality in the formal structure itself, attributing the diffusion of certain departments and operating procedures to interorganizational influences, conformity, and the persuasiveness of cultural accounts, rather than to the functions they are intended to perform.’ This perspective draws on organization theorists that, according to Powell and DiMaggio (1991, 10) ‘prefer models not of choice but of taken-for-granted expectations, assuming that “actors associate certain actions with certain situations by rules of appropriateness” (March and Olsen 1984, 741) absorbed through socialization, education, on-the-job learning, or acquiescence to conviction.’ Being part of the European Union is an incentive at interacting even for countries that are not traditionally used to do so (Belgians and Italians, Spanish and Belgians, and so on). Concerns, which provide the incentive to seek help from others, stem from three elements in particular: interdependency, the communitarization of all aspects of visa policy,

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the subjective representation of migration as a threat to Europe. First, national consulates issue visas that authorize entry to, and free movement within, both the state they represent and all the other states in the Schengen area, which have lifted their internal frontiers. As a result, with a view to preventing applicants from engaging in so-called visa shopping, namely taking strategic advantage of national inconsistencies, the consulates try to diminish any cross-national differences in visa policy. Because of the interdependency that a common visa creates, interactions with an aim at learning ‘how the others do it’ as well as exchanging ideas and knowledge become a key element of visa policy implementation. Second, the communitarization of all components of EU visa policy—especially conditions and procedures associated with delivering visas and organizing consulates’ visa sections—provides an important incentive to interact with other Schengen States to find ways to coordinate and to present a united front to counterbalance the Commission’s power. The civil servants responsible for implementing visa policy in the Schengen States view EU regulations in the operational domains as intrusive and costly. Finally, within the frame of the construction of the Schengen area, the lifting of interstate frontiers has been implying pooling both sovereignty and the fear of threats from beyond the borders of the European Union, thereby constructing ‘them’ as opposed to ‘us.’ National state actors rely on ‘other Europeans’ to develop and learn knowledge about the most appropriate ways of securing Europe. These state actors do not come together to exchange knowledge about visa issuance, facilitation procedures, or desirable travelers. Those are domains of national competition. I will give an example: the vice-head of the consulate of France explains to me that the consulate of France wants that Saudi living in Morocco travel to France during the sales period. Thus, they are not going to exchange about facilitation to attract Saudis for instance. The common enterprise around which the community gathers is the assessment of risks, the detection of ‘frauds’ and the stemming of migration. Beyond circulation within the local community of practice, there exists further evidence of the development and circulation of practical knowledge that can be characterized as the ‘Schengen stock of practical knowledge.’ Such knowledge travels across locations of EU visa policy policy-making—consular/local, national, and supranational—carried by state actors that circulate across those locations. The clues are similarities in practices that cannot be explained by the common regulations such as the Visa Code—it does not provide that kind of detail—or the

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Handbooks that local implementers do not read. For instance, in the three consulates, officers look at similar factors: the age of an applicant, the kind of ties the applicant has with the person in the destination country, and the sex of these people. One trick of the trade that not just Belgium, Italy, and France but all Schengen consulates share, not just in the context of Morocco, is the return check (visite retour, controllo al rientro), i.e., an instrument to check that the applicant returned to the home country before the expiry of the visa applied for. The visa is delivered with a form indicating that as soon as the applicant returns to Morocco he/she must go to the consulate to sign a paper or mail to the consulate photocopies of the pages of the passport where the entry– exit stamps are located. Its aim is not only monitoring applicants, as an entry–exit system could do, but also and especially dissuading applicants from overstaying their visa. The return check resembles the French disembarkation card (see chapter “Morocco: One ‘Third-Country’ but Three National Contexts”), because it monitors the entry and the exit. But its main practical value is dissuading visa holders from overstaying. Most of the time, applicants do not sign any paper at the consulate upon return. That implies traveling to Casablanca. Even in case an applicant does not sign, it cannot be denied a visa if he applies again. Another application is evidence that he returned. The return check is not included in any regulation, Handbook, or circular. So, I ask the Italian civil servant who attends the visa working group and the visa committee held in Brussels about the origin of the tool: I: I have noticed that similar practices exist in different consulates, the return check for instance, is this something that is shared within working groups? Italian civil servant: [these practices] are exchanged informally in local contexts, we don’t talk about return check in working groups.

Day-to-day implementation practices are known at national and supranational levels, thereby attesting of knowledge circulation across levels of policy-making. Some identical factors arouse suspicion and become grounds for refusal, such as money transferred to an applicant’s bank account sometime before the visa application. Because applicants anticipate that income is a criterion to issue the visa, many of them put an amount of money on their bank account just before the visa application. This is the case for many low-income parents or grandparents. But, if

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somebody has just put an amount of money on the applicant’s bank account, officers will consider that as a factor of suspicion and a strategy to be issued the visa. They will consider that ‘fraud.’ Money transfer becomes an objective ground for visa refusals, a factual element that legitimately justifies a negative decision. As for the debate surrounding the usefulness of the interview with applicants, seeking for factual elements is part of a larger debate about the objectivation of decisions that is related to the novel requirement of notifying and motivating refusals included in the Visa Code. EU visa policy shifts toward objectivation understood as fact-finding processes used to substantiate decisions, which is distinct from features-finding processes with an aim at categorizing applications. The emerging understanding of EU visa policy consists in the juxtaposition of decision-making on Schengen visa applications with the logic of proof. In Brussels, the head of the short-stay visa service, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, justifies the withdrawal of the interview in the wake of the outsourcing because it hinders objectivity, just as the consul of Italy in Casablanca does. He also says that the UK is the model of objectivation: I know the British system pretty well. They outsource everywhere. The personal appearance of the applicant doesn’t matter at all. They think that’s too subjective. Verbal probing at the window and note taking is too subjective to them. It is preferable to use objective elements such as pieces of documentation. Germans stay on the opposite side of the spectrum. I know that Germans consider personal appearance very important.

Evidence of knowledge exchange can be found also in a domain of national legislation, the issuance of family reunification visas for spouses. In search of appropriateness, the Italian high-ranking staff seeks for lessons from those who are considered the experts in migration control most notably in Morocco: France. Shared Know-How for Detecting ‘Fake’ Marriages Although cross-national differences in the national legislations regulating the issuance of certificates authorizing a marriage of a citizen abroad or family reunification visas for spouses, the consulate of Italy adopts some day-to-day practice aimed at controlling the trustworthiness of marriages. At the consulates of Belgium and France, the visa application

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process for spouses is rife with procedural practices of control. Also citizens who marry a Moroccan are investigated as soon as they apply for a certificate required from the Adouls, notaries of Islamic law, to officiate the marriage in Morocco. The aim of the day-to-day practices of control is seeking ‘a proof’ according to the term used in the administrative language that a marriage is one of convenience. The Italian consul general who drastically reorganized the consulate decided to introduce the same practice as the consulate of France despite the fact that regulations do not provide for the establishment of any practice of control. The head of the Italian citizens’ section explains to me that the consul general in post at the moment of the head’s arrival established the questions to be asked to detect whether a marriage is ‘fake.’ In effect, very different consulates like Belgium, Italy, France, and Spain share the understanding of what a ‘fake’ marriage is and the know-how to detect it. Let us proceed with an order. I have documented elsewhere the controlling of marriages and discussed the validity of the notion of ‘proof’ or ‘fake’ marriage (Infantino 2014). Here, I would like to recall the stages of the procedures in which bureaucratic control takes place. Tables 1, 2, and 3 show the stage of the application process in which interviews are organized for Belgium, France, and Italy, respectively. In the cases of Belgium and France, interviews are aimed is seeking ‘proofs,’ i.e., factual elements used to support the denial. Without being able to detail, here the specific contents of every questionnaire, the questions found in the Belgian and French pre-marriage questionnaires focus on: Personal data, what the person knows about the spouse or future spouse, the circumstances of their encounter and the couple’s life plans. In post-marriage, control questions also concern the wedding party since it is a disguised way of asking whether the marriage has been consummated, which is to say, ‘have you had sexual intercourse?’ The first sexual encounter would take place after the marriage. If someone replies that they did not celebrate the marriage, this can be used as ‘proof’ that the marriage is one of convenience. Moroccan employees of private service providers say that is based on a cultural justification, since it is affirmed that it is within Moroccan culture to consummate the marriage after having legally officiated the marriage. Also the consulate of Spain utilizes that as a ‘proof,’ a legitimate ground to deny family reunification visas. The head of Spain’s visa section explains that to me while showing

At the office of the visa section

At the window

Separately, in the citizens’ section office

How and where

Before marriage: lodging Officer of the visa section Future Moroccan spouse At the office of the visa visa application in view of section marriage (short-stay visa)

After marriage: after having lodged the visa application (ad hoc interview)

Moroccan employee of The Moroccan spouse Visabel (private visa application center) Officer of the visa section The Moroccan spouse, according to a list of the Aliens Office

After marriage: lodging the visa application

The two future spouses (Belgian + Moroccan)

Officer of the citizens’ section

Before marriage: CNEM request (for Belgian nationals only)

Who is interviewed

Who conducts the interview

Stage of procedure

Table 1  Interviews to control ‘fake’ marriages (Belgium)

Questionnaire of the Ministry of Justice, adapted to local circumstances by the consular officers Questionnaire of the Ministry of Justice, adapted to local circumstances by the consular officers

Questionnaire of the Ministry of Justice, adapted by the consular officers to local circumstances Form generated by the Immigration Office

Interview content

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Expatriate officer of the visa section

After marriage: audition (ad hoc interview)

The Moroccan spouse, at the discretion of the expatriate officer

Officer of the visa section The Moroccan spouse

The two future spouses

Officer of the citizens’ section

After marriage: lodging the visa application

The two future spouses

Officer of the citizens’ section

Before marriage: CCM request (valid for French nationals and implicitly valid for binationals, French and Moroccan) Before marriage: Audition (audition)

Who is interviewed

Who conducts the interview

Stage of procedure

Table 2  Interviews to control ‘fake’ marriages (France) Interview content

At the window

Separately, at the citizens’ section office, by appointment At the window

Questionnaire made by the officers, based on the citizens’ service one Questionnaire made by the officers, based on the citizen section one

Questionnaire made by the Ministry of Justice

Together, at the citizens’ No questionnaire section office

How and where

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Table 3  Interviews to control ‘fake’ marriages (Italy) Stage of procedure

Who conducts the interview

Before marOfficers of riage: CCM the citizens’ request (for section Italian nationals only)

Who is interviewed

How and where Interview content

The future spouses (Moroccan + Italian)

At the window No questionnaire

the form with standard motivations to notify the refusal of family reunification visas. Specific questions concern details, like the date and the circumstances of their first meeting (family members involved, the role of intermediaries or the Internet, etc.), the date of the engagement and the marriage, the language used to communicate, and the number of times that the spouse came to Morocco. Asking for the date of their first encounter or that of the engagement might seem to make little sense. But looking for details that are difficult to remember, like the date of the first encounter, is supposed to find inconsistencies that build up the set of clues which should prove that the marriage is one of ‘convenience.’ As in police interrogations, looking for inconsistencies is the reason for conducting interviews separately. Tables 1, 2, and 3 show that mandatory practices of control notably in the case of the issuance of family reunification visas do not exist in the case of Italy. The only interview occurs after the request of the certificate to officiate the marriage of an Italian citizen in Morocco. Unlike Belgium and France, circulars do not list any question and ministries do not craft questionnaires. However, the questions are the same. They focus on: the date and circumstance of their first meeting (family members involved, the role of an intermediary, the Internet, etc.), the language used to communicate, and the number of times that the spouse came to Morocco. Italy adopts the practice and day-to-day implementation routines become similar even in the absence of a uniform legally binding regulation. There exist one non-legally binding EU text— the Council Resolution 97/C 382/01 of 4 December 1997—that lists the factors which support the suspicion that a marriage is one of convenience:

230  F. INFANTINO The fact that matrimonial cohabitation is not maintained, the lack of an appropriate contribution to the responsibilities arising from the marriage, the spouses have never met before their marriage, the spouses are inconsistent about their respective personal details (name, address, nationality and job), about the circumstances of their first meeting, or about other important personal information concerning them, the spouses do not speak a language understood by both, a sum of money has been handed over in order for the marriage to be contracted (with the exception of money given in the form of a dowry in the case of nationals of countries where the provision of a dowry is common practice), the past history of one or both of the spouses contains evidence of previous marriages of convenience or residence anomalies.

Like for the Handbooks, a non-legally binding regulation—soft law—is more precise in providing instructions in a context in which some harder forms of regulations could not be established. Although the resolution is more precise, it is not read at the consular level. Real questions in consulates are much more specific and context-oriented than these. They build on practical knowledge specific to Morocco like in the case of the questions about the wedding party. The notion of ‘fake’ marriages and the need for control emerge as a European norm. It stems from the supranational locations of policy-making. It is interesting to note that the consulate of Italy comply with European norms without constraints.

Informality Versus Local Schengen Cooperation The interactions in informal settings are more intimate, relaxed, confabulatory, and familiar than formal meetings. Informal settings such as phone calls, consul general’s informal visits, parties, and dinners are the preferred context for exchanging ideas and knowledge. Whereas both high-ranking staff and officers seek informal exchange with other consulates, they do not use the meetings of local Schengen cooperation. After the Visa Code came into force, one designated representative of EU Delegations abroad chairs the meetings of the local Schengen cooperation to monitor the enforcement of the Visa Code and to draw up common lists of supporting documents. Meetings usually take place in capital cities, Rabat in the case of Morocco. The staff of Schengen consulates in Casablanca uses that as an excuse for non-participating. They do not attend the meetings and consider them to be a waste of time.

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The meetings of local Schengen cooperation achieve the objectives of the Commission rather than those of Schengen consulates, which is Commission-led harmonization from below. Formal local Schengen cooperation is the venue where the representative of the EU Delegation has the opportunity for ‘naming and shaming’ and ranking consulates according to the rules that the Visa Code dictates. Ranking is the most feared notably in the case of Italy, although, ironically, the staff do not see the extent to which they adjust their day-to-day practice to the European model of border control. In the beginning, the consul general of Italy connects even the comparative perspective of my study with the ‘naming and shaming’ means to achieve harmonization. He clearly states: I don’t want this research to result in ranking consulates. They criticize us because they say that we don’t deny enough visas.

Criticisms and EU interference might be costly for consuls and limit discretion in managing the visa application/examining processes. Even the exchange of emails is not used to exchange the kind of information that is listed in the Visa Code (see chapter “The Politics of Management”). That kind of information seems useless: consulates utilize emails to steer the uses of discretion of the other consulates by opposing the issuance of a visa or by providing information about ‘risky’ applicants. The unauthorized uses of formal cooperation respond to the needs of Schengen consulates. For high-ranking consular staff, it is easier to meet informally. However, consuls general and heads of visa sections regret the lack of opportunities for informal meetings of expatriate officers whose daily task is making decisions on visa applications. Such an informal exchange is even suggested during the journée diplomatique agent visa—one-day training for visa agents held in Brussels. The head of the short-stay visa service starts his intervention with the local Schengen cooperation but encourages informal exchange: Local consular cooperation is a very important form of collaboration even if informal, beyond formal contacts.

Informal contacts among officers are effective for exchanging local knowledge about risks represented by applicants, respective know-how to detect risky travelers or ‘fake’ marriages and procedural stratagems.

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Much local knowledge is exchanged among the members of the high-ranking staff who share it with their officers. Consuls talk of the examining routines of other consulates: The Italian head of the visa section talks of the examining routines of the consulate of Spain, the consul of Belgium talks of the French consulate’s uses of the transcription of the certificate of marriage as a procedural filtering practice and so on.

Transnational Policy-Making from Below The sharing of practical knowledge within inter-organizational communities of practitioners triggers policy change from below. Although regulations are broadly worded and day-to-day implementation follows national paths of organizational action, underlined by shifting contexts and understandings of the issues at stake in issuing visas in Morocco, some shared meanings and features of the migratory risk are emerging. That is the risk of lawful settlement, exemplified by the risk of applying for a residence permit, marrying somebody, and enjoying benefits of the welfare state and detected through the same factors: age, sex, levels of income, ties in the home and destination countries. Similar tricks of the trade are used in the different consulates even in a domain of national legislation such as mixed marriages and family reunification of spouses. That kind of practical knowledge is not written down somewhere. It is developed, learnt, and circulated informally. I use the notion of ‘Transnational Policy-Making from Below’ to describe the overlooked link that exists between learning of implementers and transfer of policy practice. The term transnational follows the lines of the departure from methodological nationalism (Wimmer and Glick Schiller 2002)—naturalization of the nation-state and the territorial limitation of objects of study—and is used in a twofold sense. First, it is an analytical perspective. I borrow from the use of the term in the comparative analysis of public policy (Hassenteufel 2005). A transnational comparison is interested in interdependencies between public policies. By building on a sociological stance, transnational comparisons aim at unraveling the ways in which elements of policies are transferred: who are the actors operating the transfer, what the motivations underlining the transfer are, how transferred elements are received and transformed. Second, the term transnational takes into account different levels of policy-making (local, national, and supranational) and all types of interactions between these levels (descendant, ascendant, and horizontal). The

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transnational dimension of public policies is not understood as a supplementary level of policy-making but as a dimension of policy analysis that takes into account the interactions between all levels of policy-making and the ways in which such interactions trigger policy change. I apply those understandings of the term ‘transnational’ to policy-making from below—the stage of the implementation. The factor that accounts for policy change and transnational policy-making from below is the interorganizational knowledge sharing (Lawson et al. 2009), a notion that is intended to describe the outcome of the mechanisms of informal and formal interorganizational socialization. In effect, learning is key both in policy implementation and policy transfer. Policy implementation is a process of ad hoc and collaborative learning (Freeman 2006). Implementing policies entails learning, through social processes, how to solve problems associated with delivering them. The content of learning is specific to the policy implementation and opposite to the kind of knowledge required for policy formulation. To implement policies, the knowledge required is experiential, contextual, and interactively derived. I follow the line of ‘a particular approach to the study of organizational knowing and learning: that which sees them as a form of “social expertise,” a collective knowing developed and learnt in action and interaction in very specific historical, social, and/or cultural contexts’ (Nicolini et al. 2003). The interactive processes that develop the knowledge used by the actors involved in the operational side of public policies are the very factor of the transfer of policy practice. Knowledge is key in policy transfer. According to David Dolowitz and David Marsh (2000, 5), policy transfer is A process by which knowledge about policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in one political system (past or present) is used in the development of policies, administrative arrangements, institutions and ideas in another political system.

Bureaucrats and private organizations are considered to be actors of transfers: Dolowitz and Marsh (2000) take into account corporate organizations, firms, think tanks; Diane Stone (1999, 55) considers that ‘agents of transfer include individuals, networks and organizations.’ However, by reversing the perspective from policy formulation to policy implementation, it is possible to identify the actors (implementers), the processes (the community of practice), and the effects on the

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policy-making on the ground. By using the notion of transnational policy-making from below, I propose to advance a sociological perspective that looks at configurations of actors, interactions, conflicts, and negotiations, with an aim at studying processes of learning—the communities of practice—that account for the transfer of policy practice and policy change from below. It results in studying interdependencies and continuities in policy implementation among different national context, a question that policy studies have somehow overlooked. The notion of transnational policy-making from below does not treat political systems as separate entities. Transnational policy-making from below is substantially different from studying the implementation as a test to assess the effectiveness of the policy transfer. In a discussion, concerning the multi-level and multidisciplinary perspective for the study of policy transfer, Mark Evans and Jonathan Davies (1999, 379) argue: The study of policy transfer is incomplete without an implementation perspective. Even if a policy is a faithful programmatic copy of the original, it can ultimately only be said to have been transferred if it is carried out. It is by no means certain that those implementing a program will do what was intended or specified by those who formulated it.

While the relevance of studying implementation as a distinct phase of the policy process is acknowledged, that top-down stance obscures the transfer that may occur at the stage of the implementation on which this analysis focuses instead. By putting implementation first, it is possible to analyze actors, processes, and effects of transfer that occurs at that stage of policy-making especially if we take into account the fact that policy on paper might be a source of uncertainty for implementers who have to put into practice competing, ambiguous, or broadly worded objectives. Evans and Davies (1999, 367) also argue that ‘the day-to-day diffusion of knowledge, intentional or otherwise, at the micro-level within organizations [is] better the subject of organizational analysis or management studies.’ Organizational and management studies are key in analyzing the microprocesses. But microprocesses have greater effects. They shape policy outcomes and might change the policy on the ground also independently from change in the formulation of a policy (like in the example of national legislation to control marriages). Thus, the notion of

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‘transnational policy-making from below’ opens directions for research on a relevant policy process that deserves further scrutiny.

Conclusion The informal coming together of implementers, who exchange knowledge and engage in mutual sense-making, triggers change in local policy-making even beyond the domain of EU legislation. Unexpected similarities in practice emerge most notably in the operational meaning of the migratory risk as the risk of lawful settlement. That is the outcome of Italy adopting understandings of the objective of consular action that stem from the original Schengen process as well as negative categories and know-how to detect them. The converging operational meanings are the risk of marriage, the risk for the welfare state, and the risk of applying for residence permits. The risk of non-return as the objective of Schengen consulates day-to-day implementation is the objective suggested in EU regulations. We have seen that such an objective is not novel, as it derives from the original Schengen process (chapter “Schengen Visa Policy-Making: Shifting Competence While Authorizing Discretion”). Officers do not read EU regulations so I cannot affirm that this is why decision-making converges. However, regulations do not specify the ways in which they should be enforced and do not suggest such detailed operational meanings concerning the migratory risk. These profiles and the tricks to detect them are unwritten and circulate informally. Informal settings emerge as the preferred settings for interactions that are more effective than local Schengen cooperation and top-down regulations in fostering similarities in practices. The observation of unexpected similarities in practice as well as the process that account for such a result allows to point to a conclusion that goes beyond this case study. The link between learning from abroad and policy implementation is overlooked although we have seen that it is relevant in shaping policy-making on the ground. I propose the notion of transnational policy-making from below to take into account the transfer of policy practice, which is about the development and use of the specific kind of knowledge pertaining to the implementation stage. In Conclusion, I will discuss the ways in which the notion of transnational policy-making from below might be used for future research.

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References Dolowitz, D. P., & Marsh, D. (2000). Learning from Abroad: The Role of Policy Transfer in Contemporary Policy-Making. Governance, 13(1), 5–24. Duguid, P. (2005). The Art of knowing: Social and Tacit Dimensions of Knowledge and the Limits of the Community of Practice. The Information Society, 21(2), 109–118. Evans, M., & Davies, J. (1999). Understanding Policy Transfer: A Multi-level, Multi-disciplinary Perspective. Public Administration, 77(2), 361–385. Freeman, R. (2006). Learning in Public Policy. In M. Moran & M. Rein (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Public Policy (pp. 367–388). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hassenteufel, P. (2005). De la comparaison internationale à la comparaison transnationale. Les déplacements de la construction d’objets comparatifs en matière de politiques publiques. Revue française de science politique, 55(1), 113–132. Infantino, F. (2014). Bordering ‘Fake’ Marriages? The Everyday Practices of Control at the Consulates of Belgium, France and Italy in Casablanca. Etnografia e ricerca qualitative, 7(1), 27–48. Infantino, F. (2016). Outsourcing Border Control. Politics and Practice of Contracted Visa Policy in Morocco. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lawson, B., Petersen, K. J., Cousins, P. D., & Handfield, R. B. (2009). Knowledge Sharing in Interorganizational Product Development Teams: The Effect of Formal and Informal Socialization Mechanisms. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 26(2), 156–172. March, J. G., & Olsen, J. P. (1984). The New Institutionalism: Organizational Factors in Political Life. American Political Science Review, 78(3), 734–749. Nicolini, D., Gherardi, S., & Yanow, D. (2003). Toward a Practice-Based View of Knowing and Learning in Organizations. In D. Nicolini, S. Gherardi, & D. Yanow (Eds.), Knowing in Organizations. A Practice-Based Approach (pp. 3–31). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Powell, W. W., & DiMaggio, P. J. (1991). Introduction. In W. W. Powell & P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The New Institutional Organizational Analysis (pp. 15–25). Chicago: Chicago University Press. Stone, D. (1999). Learning Lessons and Transferring Policy Across Time, Space and Disciplines. Politics, 19(1), 51–59. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wimmer, A., & Glick Schiller, N. (2002). Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation–State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences. Global Networks, 2(4), 301–334.

Conclusions

Lessons from the ‘Black Box’ The street-level implementation of EU visa policy in comparative ­perspective remained understudied. Observations from the inside of consulates’ visa sections, long-time immersion, the comparative design, and the research strategy that has followed the locations of EU visa policy policy-making certainly make the originality of this study and have also determined the evolving puzzle, the research questions, and the highlighting of findings that contribute to the vast body of literature about Europeanization, border control, and policy transfer. Cross-national differences in the implementation of EU regulations diminish when policy is put into practice and result from the informal and voluntary exchange of implementers rather than from the formal meetings chaired by the commission or the reading of instructions. Rules of appropriateness that guide organizational action might be constructed transnationally, and ‘learning from abroad’ has an impact on policy implementation as well. The operational meaning of the migratory ‘risk’ is the risk of lawful settlement, legal migration rather than undocumented migration. This study has deconstructed policy and unraveled the shared and conflicting meanings that implementing personnel give to EU visa policy as well as the issues of policy debate that characterize the crafting of the legislation. Those appointed to border control do not understand their role to be that of an unencumbered sovereign, but of a very constrained bureaucrat. In light of constraints that derive from organizational conditions, © The Author(s) 2019 F. Infantino, Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8_9

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social limits, perception of appropriateness that also comes from abroad, the border no longer seems exceptional but highly regulated. Uncertainty is an organizing principle of the action of individuals who seek to inscribe their use of discretion in established patterns. Decisionmaking on Schengen visa applications is not regulated by objective criteria. Organizational action tends to find objective grounds to justify decisions. There exists individual bias. However, the use of discretion is rarely arbitrary. The making of decisions is an organizationally grounded process of categorization. Research has the potential to unravel categories and investigate why some categories exist rather than others. In our case of analysis, the problem to be managed is potential lawful settlement. If the aim is to evaluate the EU visa policy implementation, how will that finding be treated? The understanding of the objective of consular action as the risk of non-return stems from the original Schengen process (more familiar to Belgium and France in this case of analysis) and it is transmitted to the EU regulations, although it is not clearly stated as a risk of lawful settlement. The risk of lawful settlement is more clearly seen in the Belgian and French consular practices that pre-exist the Schengen visa. Also, it has been a concern of French state actors discussing the introduction of visa requirements. In light of such a meaning of the migratory risk, a gap cannot be observed between policy-making from above and from below. The Italian state actors adopt the meaning although the historical understandings of visa policy for Italy have little to do with migration control and lawful settlement. Thus, those who execute the policy should not be blamed or held responsible for any controversial issue that might arise during the implementation phase, like translating the assessment of the migratory risk into pre-empting a settlement that is lawful but perceived to be illicit. Assessing the migratory risk according to out-of-context categorizations of risk increases the lack of state-bound empirical appropriateness. Out-of-context categories are generalizations that do not build on exemplary contextual cases. Categorizing is profiling, which is inevitable, given that decisions have to be made and that regulations represent sources for discretion. As Schauer (2003, 23) noted: ‘making such coarse-grained decisions –painting with a broad brush– is thus to make mistakes.’ Decision makers adopt informal unwritten profiles. This know-how sharing and cognitive learning converge the outcomes of visa policy implementation practices. Since Schengen consulates and Schengen officers do not exist, since delivering visas is a discretionary

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activity of Schengen State bureaucracies, since the lifting of internal frontiers has triggered Schengen States’ mistrust, the establishment of local knowledge that includes profiles of risk and convey meaning to the generic notion of migratory risk seems to be the sole means to achieve uniform bordering practices. Whereas the diffusion and adoption of generalizations of the migratory risk out of national context have little to do with the recipients of control, those who experience the consequences of such a form of ‘painting with a broad brush’ are visa applicants. In taking the perspective of visa applicants, one element deserves particular mention. The analysis of decision-making reveals that one of the shared targets of consular action tends to be a specific profile: low-income relatives who travel for family visits. Bordering practices tend to discriminate on the basis of wealth most notably when the visa applicants are parents who are more suspected of traveling for health reasons and/or settling in the country. Related to the findings of the comparative research, it is worth noting that while some European criteria, interpretations, and implementation practices emerge, they are inevitably exclusionary in nature. The community of practice does not gather around the concern of attracting ‘desirable’ travelers such as tourists and businessmen, because that is a domain of competition, or the concern of issuing visas or facilitating application processes. Is the construction of Europe motivated solely by exclusion and fear? In fact, the main influences on actual practices are: – the ‘original sin’ of constructing a Schengen area, namely the association of the removal of interstate frontiers within the European Union with the detriment of internal security; – the linking of migration policy to the fight against terrorism and international crime (Guiraudon 2011; Rea 1999); and – the emergence of a ‘security continuum’ that connects the battle against drug trafficking with the fight against terrorism, illegal migration, and asylum (Bigo 1992). It is difficult to compare my findings with previous work, as visa policy implementation in a comparative perspective and using observations is understudied. In this conclusion, I broaden the discussion to see whether my study on visa policy validates the findings of studies that have focused on welfare policy. Implementation studies are traditionally focused on welfare rather than visa policy. Visa policy is not

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redistributive, the visa does not represent an entitlement, and the policy recipients are all foreigners. This being said, there is something to learn from this impressive literature based on the interaction between streetlevel bureaucrats and those applying for social benefits. One essential issue is whether there is face-to-face interaction and what are the determinants of social interaction. What matters? At the micro-level, it could be the differential in social status, race, and gender. At the mid-level, what matters is the material determinants of the organizational conditions, how they are hired, how much they are paid, and the immaterial determinants such as prestige, the autonomy of the consulates to the state and the local management. At the macro-level, what matters is the narratives implicit or explicit (guidelines) that comes from the national context. These are the macro influences directly on individuals and organizations. This book has looked at the day-to-day implementation of EU regulations which national governments must implement through local consulates in third countries. In that sense, the EU is very similar to the US federal context. While inspired by the US scholarly literature (Pressman and Wildawsky 1973), our goal has been to examine its relevance in the multi-level EU context. While most scholars have studied transpositions of EU directives into national laws, I have focused on the street-level implementation. This term acquires a specific meaning: How decisions at the local level actually take into account national narratives and EU regulations. Drawing on the notion of ‘anthropological locations’ developed by Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson (1997), I have used the term locations across the chapters of the book to take account of the interdependencies and dynamics of interactions that can be observed from one field site. Although this is not a nonlocal ethnography (Feldman 2011), the field site are not territorially limited since from one field site one could observe interdependencies as well as outcomes of horizontal, descendant, and ascendant interactions. The research questions have shifted along the fieldwork research. The comparative research design has determined the initial research questions, but the qualitative methodology has transformed the puzzle. Initially preoccupied for the fieldwork access, I finally realized that it was more difficult to find a theoretical framework. Policy transfer has not considered the implementation as I do but as a ‘test’ to verify the effectiveness of the transfer, and policy implementation literature has not considered dynamics of policy change. At the street-level of the implementation, it has been possible to observe that EU visa policy is made

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in national terms. However, counterintuitive similarities have emerged. In a nutshell, this study has highlighted, on the one hand, sources of divergence that concur with comparative studies focusing on path dependence and institutional limits to change and, on the other hand, particular dynamics of policy transfer at the street-level of policy-making that trigger policy change. History is a crucial factor of differentiation. Contemporary bordering practices have been observed with historical depth because immersion in these fieldwork settings has suggested looking at history to grasp the differentiation of the context in which visa policy is implemented and the differentiation of the collective understandings of what visa policy should do. The representation of Moroccan visa applicants shifts in accordance with the history of bilateral relations and migratory movements. Flows of applicants are differentiated according to their volume, perceived motives for traveling, and subjective representations. The national senses conveyed to Belgian, French, and Italian visa policy in Morocco suggest different purposes to which daily organizational action is bent. National and local authorities assess their bilateral relations with Morocco in light of contemporary interests, which are rooted in history. National visa policies persist although the communitarization of all components of visa policy: The travel purposes to apply for Schengen visas are state-bound and the institutional and organizational structures in which visa policy is implemented are national. The implementation of Schengen visa policy in terms of the ways officers use their discretion and take decisions is affected by three co-existing elements: the dependency on national paths of organizational action, the mixing of elements pertaining to EU visa policy with pre-existing elements, and the ‘learning from abroad’ that occur as responses to everyday implementation problems. I have identified local and practical knowledge sharing rather than expert knowledge sharing as an overlooked factor of policy change at the street-level and defined the transnational policy-making from below as a type of policy transfer specific to the street-level implementation. The theory that catches explanatory power is the theory of the community of practice, as an indisputable consequence of the debordering and re-bordering of the European Union is gathering Schengen States around a common concern, implementing common visa policy in a situation of interdependency. Schengen States gather around a common fear as well. The common target—migration to Europe notably lawful migration—has

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been overlooked by scholars’ analyses that have considered irregular migration instead (Schain 2008; Rea 2009; Bigo and Guild 2003). Fear encourages the pooling of local and practical knowledge. This is a case in which Schengen States actually cooperate. But, only when it comes to defining the rules of the game before the European Commission does so, and with respect to the control of the border. Other domains, like desirable travelers, are not the objects of knowledge sharing because these are domains of competition. The community of practice does not gather around domains of competition. However, knowledge sharing occurs in specific directions. Indeed, it becomes a form of socialization when those who are considered as the bad pupils of migration control, like Italy in this case study, are eager to learn from the old immigration countries. In doing so, the Schengen State whose patterns of organizational action are the most divergent from those of the old immigration countries adopts elements that transform these patterns. The meaning of the migratory risk as the risk of non-return is actually converging. As we have seen in the chapter “Schengen Visa PolicyMaking: Shifting Competence While Authorizing Discretion” students of the Schengen visa legislative policy-making (Bigo and Guild 2003; Guild 2001; Meloni 2006) have highlighted the lack of common criteria for establishing what migration and security risks are. However, local and practical knowledge sharing is making criteria and meanings converge on the ground. This meaning stems from the original Schengen process, and it is translated in administrative language into the ‘risk of circumventing the purpose of the visa’ and ‘procedure circumventing’ for France and Belgium, respectively. Indeed, these notions pre-exist the communitarization of all components of visa policy. The operational meaning of the migratory risk in the context of Morocco is more specific and encompasses the risk of marriage, the risk of applying for residence permits, and the risk of enjoying welfare state benefits. This book calls for renovated scholarly attention to comprehensive and comparative implementation analysis of migration and border control. Local locations of policy-making are less visible than national and supranational one. They are probably also less preferred by some political scientists because they require in-depth fieldwork and a lot of data gathering and are thus deemed costly or unfeasible. The next section indicates perspectives for future research to contribute to implementation studies, comparative policy studies, and migration/border control studies.

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Perspectives for Future Research The findings of this research could be used for future research to assess the extent to which local knowledge sharing converges the bordering of Europe abroad by testing this hypothesis systematically by comparing with other Schengen States, old and new immigration countries, and in other third countries. Are these negative out-of-context categorizations of risk to be found in other third countries considered to be a migratory risk and in all Schengen consulates? Is the know-how to detect risky travelers used by other Schengen States and in other third countries? Is there a local knowledge specific to other countries where the objective of migration control merges with tourism and business interests such as China, Russia, or India? This kind of comparison would also allow for assessing whether a part of local knowledge is specific to Morocco, whether it exists in other countries considered as posing the same kinds of risks, and the part of standardized local and practical knowledge. A second perspective of research focuses on what I term as the ‘archeology of the migratory risk.’ The analysis of the Common Consular Instructions, which were drawn up during the original Schengen process, has revealed the origin of the definition of the migratory risk that continues to be adopted in the communitarized process. Thanks to the exceptional archive material included in the Archives Patrick Weil of the Centre d’Histoire de Sciences Po, I could put forward that the actual objective of visa policy in Morocco as pre-empting regular stay is not novel but started with the introduction of visa requirements. France is one of the original Schengen States. In the Dutch context, there exists the notion of vestigingsrisico, which means ‘risk of settlement.’ Through archival research in the original Schengen States and in particular in the archives of the Benelux, an archeology of the migratory risk could be retraced to identify the origin and the development of this notion that sets the objective of EU visa policy. Since the specific domain of my research into visa policy was confined to the consulates of three Schengen signatory states in one foreign country, I know little about other contexts. Therefore, the only way of establishing whether my research findings might have wider applications is to test them in other local settings. Local forms of cooperation might show variations with respect to the ways in which they are organized, allowing investigating whether informal settings are the most relevant for practitioners. Developing and learning local knowledge might happen in

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virtual spaces via the uses of ICT,1 therefore opening avenues for analyzing the extent to which those forms of exchange lacking face-to-face interactions and informal settings can be considered to be communities of practice. Further research should take into account the possibility that a group of actors might include non-state practitioners. In other words, transnational policy-making from below could also come from non-state actors implementing border and migration control on governments’ behalf who need to rely on local knowledge, such as the employees of visa application centers, managers of detention centers, or escorting agents who enforce deportation orders. In fact, some states are delegating more and more of their governmental responsibilities, especially in the area of migration and border controls (Guiraudon 2001), to non-state actors. We need to learn more about how state/non-state communities of practice develop local knowledge and its effect on policy outcomes. Moreover, some transnational corporations providing implementing services are global players.2 Further research should investigate their shaping of policy outcomes and their role in policy change at the street-level by diffusing ‘ways of doing things’ among the multiple governments they work for.3 Finally, it is worth mentioning that in the context of Europe, Christina Boswell (2009) has eloquently analyzed the effects on policy-making of the expert knowledge produced by epistemic communities most notably think tanks and academics. The relation between knowledge of implementing personnel, communities of practice that extend across the boundaries of national organizations and policy-making on the ground remain largely understudied.

1 This is the case of some on-line platforms such as that of the European Network of Asylum Reception Organisations or the Intergovernmental Consultations on Migration, Asylum and Refugees (IGC). 2 Major examples are transnational corporations like G4S, Serco, VFSGlobal, GEO etc. 3 For some examples on this kind of diffusion of practices and work routines notably in the domain of visa policy implementation, see Infantino (2016).

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References Bigo, D. (Ed.) (1992). L’Europe des polices et de la sécurité intérieure. Bruxelles: Ed. Complexe. Bigo, D., & Guild, E. (2003). La mise à l’écart des étrangers: la logique du visa Schengen. Paris: L’Harmattan. Boswell, C. (2009). The Political Uses of Expert Knowledge: Immigration Policy and Social Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Feldman, G. (2011). The Migration Apparatus: Security, Labor, and Policymaking in the European Union. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press. Guild, E. (2001). Moving the Borders of Europe. Leçon inaugurale, University of Nijmegen. Guiraudon, V. (2001). De-Nationalizing Control. Analyzing State Responses to Constraints on Migration Control. In V. Guiraudon & C. Joppke (Eds.), Controlling a New Migration World (pp. 31–64). New York: Routledge. Guiraudon, V. (2011). Schengen: une crise en trompe l’œil. Politique étrangère, 4, 773–784. Gupta, A., & Ferguson, J. (Eds.). (1997). Anthropological Locations: Boundaries and Grounds of a Field Science. Berkeley: University of California Press. Infantino, F. (2016). Outsourcing Border Control. Politics and Practice of Contracted Visa Policy in Morocco. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Meloni, A. (2006). Visa Policy Within the European Union Structure. New York: Springer. Pressman, J. L., & Wildavsky, A. (1973). Implementation: How Great Expectations in Washington Are Dashed in Oakland: Or, Why It’s Amazing That Federal Programs Work at All, This Being a Saga of the Economic Development Administration as Told by Two Sympathetic Observers Who Seek to Build Morals on a Foundation of Ruined Hopes. Oakland: University of California Press. Rea, A. (1999). Immigration, Etat et citoyenneté. La formation de la politique d’intégration des immigrés de la Belgique (PhD dissertation). Université Libre de Bruxelles, Bruxelles. Rea, A. (2009). Laisser circuler, laisser enfermer: les orientations paradoxales d’une politique migratoire débridée en Europe. In C. Kobelinsky & S. Makaremi (Eds.), Enfermés dehors: Enquête sur le confinement des étrangers (pp. 265–280). Paris: Editions du Croquant. Schain, M. (2008). The Politics of Immigration in France, Britain, and the United States: A Comparative Study. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Schauer, F. F. (2003). Profiles, Probabilities, and Stereotypes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Appendix A—Methodological Note

This study compares three cases that are analyzed in-depth by using qualitative methods (interviews, observations, and participant observation). The empirical part of the research was designed to permit the comparison by gathering the same type of data in the same fieldwork setting. Interviews are semi-directive and based on the same kinds of questions for the same kind of actor. Box A shows the empirical fieldwork research that has followed the consular/local, national and supranational venues of EU visa policy policy-making:

Box A  Fieldwork research: Where, what, who Consulate General of Belgium in Casablanca

Interviews 4 out of 5 expatriate officers, 10 out of 12 locally employed workers, head of the visa section (2), head of the citizens service (2), Consul General (2), Consul (2). Observations Visa section: applications processing and examining practices, interviews with applicants. Area around the consulate premises.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 F. Infantino, Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8

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Consulate General of France in Casablanca Interviews 10 out of 11 expatriate officers, 10 out of 14 locally employed workers, head of the visa section, head of the citizens section, Consul General. Observations Visa section: interactions at the windows; applications processing and examining practices; in-depth interviews with applicants. Area around the consulate premises. Consulate General of Italy in Casablanca Interviews 4 out of 5 expatriate officers, 3 out of 6 locally employed workers, head of the visa section, head of the citizens section (2), Consul General, Consul. Observations Visa section: interactions at the windows; applications processing and examining practices; area around the consulate premises. VFSGlobal application centers for Belgium and Italy Interviews Business developer, Manager in Morocco, head of Maghreb region and Pakistan, workers. Observations Interactions at the windows; back office; area around the centers. TLSContact application center for Italy Interviews Vice-president, Manager in Morocco, workers. Observations Interactions at the windows; back office; area around the centers National Ministries Belgium Ministry of the Interior: Office des Étrangers (Aliens Office), service visa court séjour (short-stay visa service), Brussels. Interviews with: head of the short-stay visa service, officers appointed to make decisions on visa applications from Casablanca. Ministry of Foreign Affairs: service visa court séjour (short-stay visa service), Brussels.

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Interviews with: head of service visa court séjour (short-stay visa service), civil servant participating in the visa committee (European Commission) and the visa working group (Council). Observations during the journée diplomatique agents visa, one-day training for visa agents, Brussels. France Ministry of Interior/Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Sous-Direction des Visas, Nantes. Interviews with: Deputy Director of the Sous-Direction des Visas; Director of the Bureau du Contentieux (Office of Litigation); civil servant participating in the visa committee (European Commission) and the visa working group (Council); Director of the Commission pour les recours (Commission for Appeals) against refusal of visas; Director of Service central de l’État civil (Central Civil Registry). Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Mission pour la Politique des visas, (Mission for Visas Policy), Paris. Interviews with: Director of the Mission pour la Politique des visas. Italy Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Centro Visti (Centre for Visas), Rome. Interviews with: Director of the Centro Visti, civil servant in charge of the appeals against the refusal of visas, the head of the Centro operativo (operational office), civil servant participating in the visa committee (European Commission) and the visa working group (Council). Permanent Representations to the European Union of Belgium, Italy, and France Interviews with civil servants in charge of visa policy, Brussels. European Commission Directorate-General, Migration and Home Affairs, Visa Unit Interviews with: Director of the Visa Unit and key Policy-Officer. European Migration Network Observations during the EMN Workshop ‘Development of Study Specifications and Synthesis Reports’ for the study ‘Visa Policy as Migration Channel’.

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Delegation of the European Union to the Kingdom of Morocco Interviews with the Deputy Director of the European Delegation to the Kingdom of Morocco in charge of monitoring the implementation of the Community Code on Visas. The empirical material that I have gathered thanks to this in-depth fieldwork research is larger than that used in the book. Although it is not presented, it has nourished my understanding of these social worlds. Informal settings have been particularly fruitful to that effect. The number of informal conversations is uncountable. I have been in houses, cars, to parties, to the beach. To assess the reliability of data gathered in consulates I was in the same fieldwork setting more than once. Because the staff in consulates rotates, the fieldwork aimed to establish the effect of staff turnover on work routines. The ten months of fieldwork were spread over two years. In visa sections and visa application centers I used to take notes overtly while observing. Also when I was assisting officers in the examination of applications, I used to take notes. It happened twice that a worker asked me to see what I was writing and I showed it without provoking any meaningful reaction. In particularly sensitive situations, i.e. situations in which respondents might feel judged, I avoided taking notes immediately to diminish the feeling of being observed or even controlled. Each time I had to explain my research project, I stated that it was aimed at investigating the day-to-day implementation of common visa policy, notably the decision-making on applications, in a comparative perspective, to unravel the factors of cross-national differences. Because visa issues are associated to secrecy, scandals, and journalists, I have always explained that my interest in what consulates do stem from the fact that studying policy in practice implies to conduct research with the actors engaged in these processes. In the beginning of interviews, I have also always explained that the identity of the person would not be disclosed. To avoid misunderstandings, I have always said, ‘your name won’t be quoted’. For semi-directive interviews I used a recorder whenever the interviewees allowed me to do so. In general, high-ranking staff of consulates, civil servants in central ministries, and the policy officer of the Visa Unit accepted the use of a recorder. Except for the interviews in

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central ministries, I interviewed my respondents at least twice. I translated the excerpts of the interviews and fieldwork journals into English. All names are invented. During my fieldwork in the visa sections and visa application centers, I conducted interviews and observations with almost all members of staff. Coupling observation and interviewing techniques allows the researcher to probe the reasoning and perceptions behind behaviors. During the observations, I have always sought explanations for what I was observing. Most of the time the explanation was directly provided, as it was evident that I was there to understand. Actions and understandings of action are two separate issues. The data gathered through immersion in a social world are very different from the data the researcher can gather only from interviews. Interviews complemented the observations. Observations allowed for an understanding of how actors act and interviews allowed seeing how actors understand their action. I follow the lines of Michael Burawoy’s ‘ethnography unbound’ according to which direct observations of how people act is juxtaposed to how they understand and experience those acts. Observations have been crucial to grasp the work routines, the interactions through which frames emerge, and the representations of Morocco, visa policy and Moroccan visa applicants. In that respect, I also relied on Evelyn Brodkin’s organizational ethnographic approach, which is aimed at unraveling the patterns of organizational practices and make explicit the link between structures, individuals, informal practice and the resulting policy products. Sharing the same space—the office—and sharing the same social world improves the reliability of data. After two years of field research, I became an element of that social world. Long-time immersion changed my identity, from a stranger to an inhabitant of those social worlds. Long-time immersion is crucial to develop relationships based on trust which affects the quality of the data gathered. Furthermore, with time I have accumulated expertise and observed a lot: the degree of familiarity dramatically changed the quality of the data gathered. Also, dividing the fieldwork into separated periods gave me the time to go back and forth from the theory and literature to the empirical research. I had time to think about what I had seen, look at my data in the light of scientific literature, rest, and prepare for the following fieldwork period. In regards to methodological approaches, I have always kept in mind a basic yet crucial lesson that Stéphane Beaud and Florence Weber teach in their valuable guide on field-based inquiries. The scientific character

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of an inquiry, qualitative or quantitative, lies in the explication of the conditions under which data are produced. Therefore, in what follows I will explain how I obtained research access, how rapports have developed since rapports affect the quality of the data gathered, how my social characteristics (age, sex, ethnic identity) have affected the rapport, and the crucial value of long-time immersion. The challenge of my research was enormous: obtaining access in a field setting characterized by secrecy—the visa sections of three Schengen States. For the comparative aim of this research, the problem of access was threefold. Nevertheless, the comparative perspective represented a resource rather than a problem because it facilitated my access to the field in many ways. Comparing is a trend in the European Union. To obtain access to the visa sections of the consulates of Belgium, France, and Italy I used a strategy of local approach. I have never thought of sending letters to the Ministries but I tried to make contact directly with the consuls general. That strategy is more successful for a series of reason. It is informal. Respondents have the opportunity to know the researcher immediately and directly. Diplomatic staff, who have been living and working abroad for many years, are eager to receive visits from ‘home’. Informal strategies, like mine, are successful. Formal strategies tend to fail. During a workshop held in Morocco, Professor Mohamed Berriane of the University of Agdal in Rabat was astonished about my research access. He said he wrote letters to the consulates but was denied access for ‘national security reasons’, even though the European Union was supporting his research. I identified in the Director of the WallonieBruxelles Delegation in Morocco the person who could schedule the first appointment with the consul of Belgium in Casablanca. I went to the appointment with Andrea Rea, Professor of Sociology at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). For a first meeting, a senior professor represents a more credible and trustful interlocutor. Because I was a doctoral student of a Belgian University, the easiest first contact was the consulate of Belgium. The consul was a former student of the ULB, had a degree in sociology, and was quite excited about visitors from Brussels. The consul put me in contact with the consul general who formally authorized the research and required me to sign an agreement. The agreement specified that all data gathered in the visa section would be used for scientific purposes and, most importantly, that no information would be disclosed to third parties, notably journalists. The high-ranking staff was more worried about journalists than academics and was capable

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of differentiating between these two categories. The consul general was very interested in the comparative perspective of my research because he is a supporter of Europe. He liked my research and I have realized that with time. After several months of fieldwork, he let slip a remark about the fact that the head of the visa section was opposed to the European project. He was the only diplomat in Morocco who helped the European Union delegate with the organization of the meetings of local Schengen cooperation. The consul general of Belgium immediately offered his help to put me in contact with the consul general of France. And that is how I got access to the second fieldwork setting. Andrea Rea accompanied me only to the first meeting with the consul general of France. The consul general of France was even more enthusiastic about my comparative study. He immediately said: ‘I’m proud of my consulate and I want to show it to you!’ In effect, the management of the consulate of France in Casablanca was particularly efficient. I already had access to the consulate of Belgium and I was ‘sponsored’ by the consul general of Belgium, a true diplomat with a very good reputation. Because the consulate of Belgium had opened its doors to me, it would appear suspicious and strange if the consulate of France would not have done the same. The consul general of France obtained a Ph.D. in a French university; therefore, he was sympathetic vis-à-vis a doctoral researcher. The consul general of France actually liked to play the role of the supervisor with me. He insisted that I had to meet the consul general of Spain, because he wanted to show the different attitude of the French and the Spanish visà-vis Moroccans. He claimed that the French are more paternalistic with Moroccans whereas the Spanish are violent. Thanks to the consul-general of France, I actually met and interviewed the consul general of Spain, I interviewed the vice consul and the head of one part of the visa section twice, but Spain is not part of this research because I could not conduct the same kind of fieldwork in the consulate of Spain since I do not speak Spanish. The consul general of France liked the idea of comparing France to the other consulates, because the consulate of France was efficient and because he considered it to be an effective front-line for migration control. The consul general did not realize that I am Italian. I understood that he thought that I was Belgian. This was a very good thing: Italians were scorned as the bad pupils of migration control and considered to be a problem for France because, in the view of French civil servants, Italians know that nobody wants to go to Italy so they do not exercise strict controls and then people go to France.

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The consul general of France’s authorization to conduct my research represented a pivotal moment for the development of what I call ‘prestige capital’. The consul general of France authorized me to conduct observations not only in the visa section but also in the OFII (Office Français de l’Immigration et de l’Intégration) mission and during the test of French language to family reunification visa applicants. Wherever I used to go, I was received with all honors and I was given unlimited access because the consul general of France had authorized me. That was an element of trust for all the members of the high-ranking staff. Thus, interactions were very informal since the beginning. I obtained access to the visa section of the consulate of Italy because I successfully applied for a traineeship. In Italy, there is a traineeship program run by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs dedicated to graduate students of Italian universities. One of these traineeships was offered in the visa section of the consulate of Italy in Casablanca. I wrote in my motivation letter that my interest in the traineeship was due to my doctoral research. Contrary to the other consulates, the comparison seemed to be a huge problem. Surprisingly, my Italian nationality did not facilitate the contact. I had the feeling that my identity was, in their view, too European. I was conducting a Ph.D. in a Belgian University (and after a while also in a French university). I spoke French fluently and better than all the expatriate staff of the consulate, including the consul general. I had contacts and knew about day-to-day work in two other consulates. The consulate of Italy in Casablanca has suffered from a very bad reputation for a long time and was considered almost a shame compared to the Italian consulates abroad. The comparison became an element of mistrust because in that consulate comparing was perceived as dangerous rankings. Because I felt the mistrust, I insisted on scheduling a meeting between me, Professor Andrea Rea and someone from the high-ranking staff. The administrative commissioner accepted but this meeting did not change anything. It was evident that universities and scientific research were not considered as legitimate reasons to establish a contact. However, I did my three-month traineeship in the visa section and the rapport with all of them improved with time. To develop rapports based on trust, it was crucial to communicate clearly that I was there to learn not to judge, or worse, to make an assessment. I always started each interview by saying that I was interested in understanding, which was precisely one of the objectives of doing fieldwork. I also repeated this each time I had the occasion to. But, most

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importantly, I showed my desire to learn in the everyday. Because of my research and my age, I had the positive identity of a student. In effect, many workers used to see me as a student and many times spontaneously called me because they wanted to show me an application, a procedure, or a particular case. With time, I simply became part of the office. It is worth mentioning that at the end of my fieldwork period in the visa section of the consulate of France, the consul general thanked me because with my research I had done something good for the office ambiance. The consul general thanked me because the officers felt very appreciated. The fieldworker has the advantage of being interested in people. In general, everybody likes when somebody’s interested, particularly when these people are at the bottom of an extremely hierarchical system. It is also quite common to observe that after the first interviews and the first days of observations, some workers become jealous and claim the interview, claim that you also observe their work. From this in-depth fieldwork, I learned that the degree of openness of respondents in workplaces depends mainly on the relationship they have with their job. The more they like their job, the more they have a professional ethos and a sense of responsibility, the more they feel competent in their job, the more they like to talk to a researcher. To avoid mistrust of workers who could see me as a ‘spy’, I interviewed the high-ranking staff only in the end of each fieldwork period. The quality of the interviews changed dramatically with time, because with time I gained credibility vis-à-vis these top civil servants. Lacking prestige is a huge disadvantage for the rapport with high-ranking staff. Only with time I accumulated the ‘prestige capital’ that modified the ways in which high-ranking staff represented me. The representation of the fieldworker affects the rapport which in turn affects the quality of data gathered. As mentioned above, for the case of the French consulate, being recommended by the consul general of France in Casablanca improved my relationship with all high-ranking civil servants of French institutions. Being recommended by the consul general was considered as a natural element of trust. As time passed, I developed connections with four consular missions in Casablanca and with two private service providers. I began to know and to be known by many people. The prestige capital I was accumulating made me a more legitimate interlocutor. Furthermore, my respondents began to realize that I had observed quite a lot. Interviewing after having observed was very effective for having a good quality of data. The interviewee knows what you have observed so s/he will be more attentive in the answer

256  Appendix A—Methodological Note

s/he provides. The interviewer has observed, so s/he knows better the right question to ask. Also for the interviews in central ministries, the fact that I had been in the consulates before the interviews improved the representation of the researcher, the quality of my questions, and the quality of the answers. Good interviews depend on knowledge of the subject. I needed the fieldwork to improve my knowledge of the subject, as the implementation practices in national consulates are not the subject of many publications, scientific or not. My deep knowledge was evident in the questions I was asking to civil servants in central ministries. I could see how astonished they were about the exactness of some questions or comments. And this completely changed the quality of the interviews. Time is also crucial to multiply observations and interviews in order to crosscheck information as well as to conduct fieldwork in informal settings. I learned about the reputation of the consulate of Italy, the problems of this consulate, and the story of the consulate during dinners rather than interviews. I learned about the problems in managing the visa application process with visa application centers at the beach with workers of the visa application centers. A crucial setting for all my research was a restaurant where I used to go to each Tuesday. The list is quite long. Informal settings allow for developing trust, connections, gathering answers without asking, and listening to discourses that would never be told in the formal setting of the workplace.

Appendix B—Standard Form for Notifying and Motivating Refusal, Annulment or Revocation of a Visa

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 F. Infantino, Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8

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258  APPENDIX B—STANDARD FORM FOR NOTIFYING …

APPENDIX B—STANDARD FORM FOR NOTIFYING …

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Appendix C—Exchanged E-mails, Local Schengen Cooperation

List of information included in e-mails that Schengen consular posts send to Schengen partners during the same period. The list does not report personal names. The motivations have been translated from French and Spanish. Belgium Opposition: deported. Forged invitation. Forged bank account, Crédit Agricol Berkane. Italy One deported person. A confidential source says he will marry an Italian citizen to circumvent the law. Opposition because of forged documents about a trainee period. Forged documents. Embassy: forged work contract.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 F. Infantino, Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8

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262  Appendix C—Exchanged E-mails, Local Schengen Cooperation

France Opposition to delivery because this person is on an Assisted Voluntary Return Program. Opposition: the person will apply for a visa for medical reason because he needs to be operated. His father is in hospital in France-do not deliver a visa. Her husband is in hospital in France-do not deliver a visa. Opposition: three people because they stayed irregularly within the Schengen area. Opposition: a person who was in charge of a group of students. Another e-mail cancels the opposition because two students came to the consulate to signify their return by signing the control of returning. A woman because her daughter is in the Schengen area irregularly. One complaint for attempt of irregular immigration in Estonia. Irregular stay in Schengen. Several names: forged administrative documents. Not desired (unwanted) on the French territory, pending criminal process. Her Tunisian husband has been living in the X region since the X time. Her husband has been living in Monaco since 36 years. In 2004 and in 2007, his wife delivered a baby in Spain with a French visa. Family reunification application rejected by the Prefecture in France. 150 names for deportation. Forged documents (Marrakech consulate). A man for hospital debt and his wife. He has obtained a residence permit but the Prefecture rejected him in 2009—do not deliver. Father-mother-child: the child has been left in France by the couple under the cover of a short stay visa in 2009. He used to have a residence permit until 2005—do not deliver. Husband studies and lives in France. Two people (one born in 1938, the other one in 1960), risk of circumventing the purpose of the visa for medical reasons. Husband living in France. Mother and father: their son irregular stay in the Schengen area. Non-compliance with the retour visit although we sent a letter. Husband living in France.

Appendix C—Exchanged E-mails, Local Schengen Cooperation

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Applied for a visa for medical reasons. Risk of applying to Schengen partners. Spain Opposition: a man, his wife and his son. Anonymous denunciation of favoring clandestine migration. Opposition: forged documents. His son X stayed in Spain irregularly. His brother X stayed in Spain irregularly. Two people: they stayed in Belgium irregularly. Several names: they didn’t come for the return check. Opposition withdrawal because of a mistake. Consulate in Tangier: Fraud to social security/several names for forged administrative documents. Germany Six people because they didn’t honor their engagement of returning. She is trying to join her husband in Germany by all means. Three rejected applications. Forged documents. False declarations. He has signed a commitment (engagement) for a child who remained in Germany with his parents. He (a child born in 2004) remained with his declared parents in Germany. One child remained in France. His father came back. His minor children remained in France. He didn’t honor his engagement to return. According to a member of his family, he remained in Spain. Switzerland Didn’t come back to Morocco. Portugal He did not honor his return check engagement. The firm denounced the escape of its employee to the Moroccan authorities.

264  Appendix C—Exchanged E-mails, Local Schengen Cooperation

Poland Forged work permit. Forged bank account. Czech Republic Forged passport. Non-show at the return check.

Index

A Administrative Behavior, 9–10 Aliens Office (Belgium), 105–108, 143–145, 148, 178, 181, 189–196 B Becker, Howard, 13 Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 83, 105–106, 139, 169 Benelux Economic Union, 41–42 Bigo, Didier, 2, 3, 11–12, 18, 37–39, 44, 149, 177, 239, 242 Brodkin, Evelyn, 5–7, 8, 179 C Common Consular Instructions, 39–44, 55–58 Community of practice, 19, 25, 218–230, 239, 241

Consulate of Belgium, 113–115, 126–128 Consulate of France, 115–117, 127, 129 Consulate of Italy, 117–119 Consul general of Belgium, 78, 107, 138, 169, 218 Consul general of France, 110–111, 112, 135, 141–146, 161, 172, 198 Consul general of Italy, 117–119, 128, 136, 172, 221, 230 Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement, 38–43 D Databases, 147–149, 187, 203, 204 Decision-making, 55–62, 169–175, 178–181, 191–204, 225, 238 Discretion, 10, 55–63 Dubois, Vincent, 6, 8, 130–132

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 F. Infantino, Schengen Visa Implementation and Transnational Policymaking, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10647-8

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266  Index E Emerson, M. Robert, 8, 10, 180 Europeanization, 3, 4, 11–12, 17 European Parliament, 46–52 European studies. See Europeanization EU Treaties, 37–39, 43–46 F French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 73, 75, 111, 115, 143, 145 G Guild, Elspeth, 11–12, 44, 149, 242 Guiraudon, Virginie, 2–4, 11, 18, 20, 37–40, 51, 126, 239, 244 I Implementation, 4, 239 Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 86, 105, 108–109, 119, 140, 158

P Policy implementation, 7. See also Brodkin, Evelyn; Dubois, Vincent; Implementation; Spire, Alexis; Street-level bureaucracy Policy transfer, 16, 25, 218, 233–234, 237, 240–242 Profiles, Probabilities and Stereotypes, 180, 214, 238 Profiling, 58, 62, 74, 238 S Schengen Agreement. See Convention Implementing the Schengen Agreement Schengen Borders Code, 44 Schengen Information System (SIS), 149 Schengen visa, 2, 11 Spire, Alexis, 6, 12 Street-level bureaucracy, 4–5, 8, 129

L Local Schengen cooperation, 58, 59, 61–63, 151–153, 152, 230–232

T Theories of Migration, 237 Torpey, John, 2 Transnational policy-making, 232–235

M Methodology, 12, 240 Migratory ‘risk’ assessment of, 17–20, 185–189, 196, 198, 206–212, 237, 242 definition of, 56–59, 60–63 Moroccan migration, 14–16, 69–73, 77–81, 83–86

V Visa application process, 45–54, 133–138 Visa Code, 11, 45–53, 55–60, 190, 199 Visa committee, 53–54 Visa examining process, 139–149, 181–184, 199, 206

Index

Visa Information System (VIS), 149–152 Visa officers (Belgium), 157, 159–161, 220–221 Visa officers (France), 145–146, 158, 163–165, 204–206, 220

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Visa officers (Italy), 163–165, 204–206, 221 Visa requirements, 41, 73–77, 86–89 Visa statistics, 23 Visa Unit, DG Migration and Home Affairs, 55–58 Visa working group, 53–54