Europe’s Immigration Divide: Multi-Dimensional Burden-Sharing as Solution?

Immigration has become a fundamental challenge for the European Union. Deep political divisions within and between member states make it difficult to find a common ground for effective cooperation. A solution could be a model of burden-sharing where countries are allowed to make different kinds of contributions to the collective good of migration governance in the form of sharing norms, money and people. To what extent can such a multi-dimensional approach overcome Europe’s divide on immigration and increase public support for European burden-sharing? Using survey data across all EU member states, this article addresses this question in three steps. First, we map the preferences of European citizens on different dimensions of burden-sharing in European migration policy and identify the nature of the political divide. Second, we theorise and test whether these preferences follow a structural explanation of national interests or a political explanation of individual value orientation. Third, we estimate the level of common public support for different models of European burden-sharing. The results reveal a substantial potential for multi-dimensional burden-sharing in European migration governance and provide insights into how to bridge the EU immigration divide.