Europeanisation Without Integration? European Retirement Migration in the Mediterranean

This paper approaches the settlement of retired European citizens in three Mediterranean countries: Spain, Greece and Morocco. Its objective is to contribute to the analysis of how European citizens gain ownership of EU integration by looking at the motivations and consequences of retirement migration flows. It assesses firstly the importance of EU membership in individual migration decisions by comparing migration flows towards the various countries. We hypothesize that the EU provides retired migrants a sort of charted territory by a reduction of social and economic costs related to this migration. Secondly it studies the integration of older migrants into their host society on the basis of four criteria: electoral participation; participation in community life; composition of migrants'' social networks; and linguistic practices. Thirdly, we will test our main hypothesis according to which retired migrants, despite largely opposing integration, are nonetheless affected in their identities by their migration decisions. In particular, we anticipate processes of de- and re- territorialisation, whereby the migrants lose contact with their home country while creating a social environment in their new location, whereas the local community reviews some citizenship, social and political written or unwritten norms. We anticipate that there are ongoing processes of special competition between local communities and retired migrants. The article is informed by quantitative data obtained through a survey in each of these countries.