A mobile Europe: background, future and implications of EU mobility

European mobility has been highly debated in the past couple of years and in many EU countries this debate has come up recently again. Yet the mobility of EU citizens is at the hearth of the EU integration project. In this presentation I will focus on patterns of European mobility and their development over time. Second I focus on the characteristics of European migrants in flow and stocks: Who are the Europeans that are moving around and what background do those residing in another EU country have? Finally I study the effects of European mobility for intergenerational family relations, intermarriage and settlement patterns. Whereas the first part of the presentation will take a comparative European approach, the latter part of the presentation will focus on Belgium. I will draw from official migration statistics and supplement the presentation with new survey data that can shed light on European family relations.