A Research Agenda for the Study of Migrants and Minorities in Europe

I. Denitions and Policy RelevanceMigration and minority policy issues are now at the forefront of the political debate in Europe. Both issues denote a dynamic and rapidly changing set of sensitive political, economic and social questions that affect domestic and international policy-making. They have developed a distinctly European and EU dimension, and the parallel processes of EU constitution-making and enlargement have underscored the relevance of these issue areas. The current political context in Europe – between the rst and second round of the EU’s eastward enlargement and at a time when the whole notion of an EU constitu-tion and future enlargement (in particular in the case of Turkey) have been called into question by the French and Dutch rejections of the Constitutional Treaty – makes discussion about minority and migration issues particularly relevant. This special issue places these issues in a set of research trends and tries to dene a new research agenda.The terms ‘migrant’ and ‘minority’ share an underlying denitional impreci-sion that blurs the respective elds of study and policy-making as well as the linkages between the two. Moreover, some countries (e.g. the UK) explicitly refer to migrants as ‘ethnic minorities’, thereby adding to the confusion. This special issue adopts sufciently broad denitions of ‘migrants’ and ‘minori-ties’ to facilitate dialogue beyond narrow specialized circles without, however, glossing over meaningful distinctions. Thus, the term ‘ethnic minorities’ can subsume a range of migrant groups, while the term ‘national minority’ is reserved for established minorities claiming minority rights (e.g. forms of