Reliability instead of ‘number games’: Final results of the EU-funded Research Project CLANDESTINO on Irregular Migration in Europe

Reliable statistics and updated information are key requirements for a better policy on irregular migration in the European Union. This is an important message from  the European research project CLANDESTINO funded by the European Commission within the 6th Framework Programme for Research in the field of Social Sciences. The project coordinator Anna Triandafyllidou (Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, ELIAMEP) warns that low quality estimates on irregular migration promote ‘number games’ and the deliberate use of unjustified numbers to dramatize irregular migration.

CLANDESTINO produced a Database on Irregular Migration which serves to reveal ‘number games’. Aggregating information from the 27 member states of the European Union (EU), researchers estimate that the total number of irregular migrants residing in the EU27 is likely to be in the range of 1.9 million to 3.8 million. Dita Vogel (Hamburg Institute of International Economics, HWWI), scientist responsible for the CLANDESTINO Database, notes that this most recent estimate is based on an improved methodology and should question the estimate of up to 8 million irregular migrants, used until recently in European policy documents (see more in particular the policy brief on size of irregular migration). [More.. »]