Τhe Treaty of Lisbon in 2007, mandate the European institutions to ‘provide incentives and support for the action of Member States with a view to promoting the integration of third-country nationals.’
Accordingly, since the 1999 Treaty of Amsterdam, the EU constantly set priorities and goals through establishing policy and legislation frameworks, as well as funding opportunities for third-country nationals’ integration.
In particular, worth mentioning milestones of those policy frameworks are the following:
- 1999 to 2004: Genesis of a common policy, through the Treaty of Amsterdam (1999) and the Tampere Program (2004)
- 2005 to 2010: Knowledge exchange, through the Common Agenda for Integration
- 2011-2015: Funding for Integration, through the European Agenda for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals
- 2016 – forward: The holistic approach, through the Action Plan on the integration of third country nationals.