The increased salience in the 1990s of immigration politics in the European Union has been accompanied by a rise of the scholarly attention for this topic. What most studies leave aside, however, is the question of how European integration impacts on national immigration policies. This paper differentiates between types of European integration and presents empirical evidence from the case of the Netherlands. It analyzes to what extent and how issues related to free movement, asylum and citizenship are affected substantively by European integration. The paper concludes that how Europe impacts on domestic politics depends on the question of why Europe should be involved at all.