Abstract

The essay aims at analysing the most recent European regulatory interventions on the immigration field, trying to define the guidelines of the overall project, although they are still hard to find. Like never before this field shows a dramatic ambivalence and fork between the two main branches in which the European competences currently assigned and exercised can be divided: the inclusive-humanitarian one and the defensiverejecting one. Besides, the Lisbon Treaty ratification and the related enhancement of the European competences in this field do not allow avoiding problems and contradictions any longer.