By the end of 2004, low migration flow regulation contributed to a high rate of irregularity and hampered adaptation of foreign labor supplies to the demands of the Spanish labor market, contributing therewith to an increase in irregular workers. The remarkable change came with the change of government in March 2004 and with the approval of the Royal Decree 2393/2004 which established a complex system for managing immigration and was accompanied by the sixth and final regularization process, driven by government, business, and employer organizations in the framework of the Social Dialogue.

In the past 2 years, Greece has experienced its most severe economic crisis of the post-World War II period. While it appeared at first not to have been hit particularly hard by the global economic recession that started in 2008, the effects of the recession and the acute internal crisis of public finances became visible in late 2009.

While public opinion and European governments usually present migrants as an outside threat for European societies, in this article, Danièle Joly and Khursheed Wadia focus on the local level to analyze the issue of migrants, in particular irregular workers, living in the UK.

The promise of democracy enshrined in the "Arab Spring" has been accompanied by significant developments in migration flows across North Africa and to Europe. With political turmoil sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East, hundreds of thousands of persons, mainly from Libya, have been displaced since January 2011.