Alezini Loxa is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law, Lund University. Her Ph.D. thesis was awarded the 2024 Oscar II prize for best thesis in the Faculty of Law as well as the 2024 Lund University Agenda 2030 Honourable mention for interdisciplinary research on sustainable development by early career scholars.

• 1. Introduction; Part I. Aligned Paths from the Treaty of Paris to the Single European Act: 2. Migrant workers finding their way into community law; 3. The ambition of extending the scope of protection to all migrants; 4. Special arrangements for migrants whose state of origin is (about to be) implicated in the development project; Part II. Differentiation from the Single European Act to the Failed Constitutional Treaty: 5. Shifting political ambitions and persistent economic considerations in the free movement framework; 6. National contestation over the aspiration of long-term solutions to migration; 7. The uneven evolution of association agreements; Part III. Realization and Paradoxes from the Failed Constitutional Treaty to Lisbon and Beyond: 8. Economic and social sustainability behind the rights of EU migrants; 9. Economic objectives and social demands behind an incoherent system of regulation for TCNs; 10. Conclusion; Bibliography.