[lg policy] New European Immigration Policy Trend

[Harold Schiffman]

New European Immigration Policy Trend



Between 1950 and 1975, the average annual rate of population growth in
Europe was 8.4 per 1,000 inhabitants, a rate that has decreased to 2.9
per 1,000 inhabitants in the subsequent quarter-century. Statistics
issued by the Council of Europe show a concerning population decrease
in 17 European countries in 2000. In this trajectory, by 2050 half of
the European population will be older than 50 years, and the share of
the population aged 65 and older will spike up from 14 percent in 2000
to 30 percent. In the absence of considerable immigration flows, the
populations of the EU-27 and the United States are likely to converge
beyond 2050.

The population of the EU increased by an annual average of 2.7 million
between 1950 and 1975, by 1.3 million between 1975 and 2000, and is
expected to shrink by one million per annum in the first half of the
twenty-first century. This phenomenon is exacerbated by the fact that
out of the eight central European countries that joined the EU in
2004, five showed negative population growth, with the exceptions of
the smallest EU Member States, such as Slovakia, Slovenia, and
Estonia.

In a report published by the United Nations in 2000, it becomes clear
that the EU has to tackle the issue of demographics and define a
medium-term strategy for the admission of third country nationals. The
report, entitled "Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining
and Ageing Population?," states that a significant increase of
immigration flows becomes a necessity if EU member-states wish to
maintain the constant size of the working population.

The obvious next step for the technocrats of the European Union based
in Brussels is to seriously consider the incorporation of Turkey. The
conservatism of European baby boomers coupled with the unfounded fear
of accepting a new Member State with a Muslim majority are two drivers
that condition a positive outcome for Turkey. In the absence of
incentives for EU-citizens to increase the fertility rates, and if the
current reluctance on a future Turkish incorporation continues, the
European Union's immigration policies could target skilled workers
from developing countries.

The thirst to attract skilled migration in the European Union (EU)
stems from low fertility rates that are leading to shrinking
populations, particularly in Western and Eastern Europe. As Paul
Demeny, Distinguished Scholar at the Population Council, points out:

Oswald Spengler's prophecy may turn out to be correct after all:
depopulation may be slow, rather than precipitous; it could indeed
last for centuries. If Europe would prefer a different future for its
descendants, corrective action cannot be delayed.
Much has to be done in the EU in the first half of the twenty-first
century if it is to cope with the expectations established in the
summit of Lisbon of March 2000 and in view of the failed referenda in
France, the Netherlands, and Ireland to approve the revision of the EU
Treaty framework which culminated in the entry into force of the
Lisbon Treaty in December 2009. The European Union faces increasingly
poor demographics that put it on the verge of economic stagnation,
compounded by a potential inability to sustain its own welfare.

The EU Lisbon summit of 2000 established an ambitious goal of economic
growth beyond the three percent mark. Average growth in the EU has
been on average lower than three percent ever since. Economists agree
that only a higher immigration rate can help the EU grow faster in
terms of GDP, and the Lisbon target could only be reached if
immigration inflows reach an unlikely three million individuals per
year. Notwithstanding the need for foreign workers, the last decade
marked a sharp turn away from the liberal ideology in citizenship and
residence matters in Europe. The majority of EU Member States
introduced even more restrictive naturalization policies and gave the
misconceived idea of what they term as "integration of migrants" a
priority. As a result of the new policies, becoming a fully-fledged
member of society through naturalization, or, in some cases, even
simply entering the territory with a purpose of establishing residence
is made more difficult than ever.

This is not only due to the increasing costs of all the (un)necessary
procedures and the sophistication of the language testing (which
includes the languages irrelevant for the successful functioning of
the migrants in the Union, such as Latvian, Dutch, or Luxembourgian),
but also because of the fundamental shift from the multi-cultural
vision of European societies to the mono-cultural fantasies. In
practice, such shift means that not only naturalization, but also
taking up residence in a number of European states has been made
conditional upon the successful completion of "integration" tests.

Ironically, some governments, following the Dutch, which first
introduced such approach, feel that becoming part of their society
'mentally' speaking should precede the very act of moving into their
territory. Besides the misconception with regard to the nature of what
society and culture naturally constitute, such governments,
notwithstanding abundant evidence to the contrary, dismiss any idea of
social learning through simple interactions by building one's life and
social connections in the new environment. EU Member States came to
regard new migrants willing to enter the Union as socially-incapable
and generally uninterested human beings possessing inferior if not
dangerous non-culture which is unable to enrich any of the European
societies and has to be combated. In the EU we are currently facing a
general trend towards the bureaucratization of prejudice.

The policies in question are clearly racially biased, targeting
migrants from the most economically vulnerable parts of the world,
people who also happen to look different from a popular ideal of what
a European should be. While an American or an Australian would be
presumed good enough to take up residence in Europe without any
"culture integration tests" the same does not apply to a Malagasy, a
Kenyan or even an Argentinean, whose culture is presumably not white
enough to be possibly accommodated by the European societies without
any purification rituals.

Guillermo de la Dehesa, Chairman of the Center for Economic policy
Research, summarizes the main economic and demographic challenges
faced by the EU in his book Europe at the Crossroads. De la Dehesa
heads the European think-tank, the Centre for Economic Policy
Research. For De la Dehesa, the following underlying motives represent
a concerning evidence of a worsening economic environment:

• Age dependency ratio will more than double between 2000 and 2050,
spiking up from 24 percent to 49 percent.
• A majority of the new member states coming from Eastern Europe are
bringing lower than average fertility rates, contrary to what has
historically happened with previous expansions (Greece, Portugal, and
Spain).
• De la Dehesa states, that "the The likelihood of a big population
increase in the fully enlarged EU is much lower than in the United
States unless the EU sees a massive influx of African immigrants."
• Life expectancies in the EU have been increasing and are only likely
to improve, pushing up dependency ratios even further and putting
pressure on the welfare state, that which relies on pay-as-you-go
pension schemes in a majority of member states, except perhaps for the
United Kingdom.

A solution for the EU would be to become more immigrant-friendly and
aspire to replicate the successful model of Canada, Australia, or the
United States, all of which have and are expected to have lower
dependency ratios. Instead, the wave of restrictive regulation has
been rising in recent years, demonstrating a definitive turn towards
right-wing populism on (inter alia) the immigration matters in a large
number of the Member States of the European Union. The idea of a
multi-cultural society is announced "to have failed" in a situation
where discrimination against those who fail to sound white and
Christian on the phone is overwhelmingly strong. Instead of showing an
example of openness and reason to the rest of the world, the EU, which
is by far the largest economy and one of the richest spots on Earth is
moving towards upgrading its "fortress Europe" idea in the most ugly
of all possible ways: by denying those from 'outside' (with an
exception of a handful of the citizens of other richest countries)
their culture and humanity, should they be willing to come to the EU.

As already mentioned above, this move is particularly illogical in the
situation when the European population is aging at an increasing pace
and when plenty of sectors of our economy are bound to suffer from the
shortages of work-force in the nearest future, making the retreat into
the shell of nationalism particularly harmful for all possible
interests concerned. Besides long-term interests that are clearly
undermined by the new neo-racist policies of pre-entry purification,
the social cohesion within EU Member States flirting with nationalist
ideas of mono-culture is bound to be severely harmed. Already now we
witness cars burning in the banlieues and 'migrant revolts' in
Southern Italy. Until the latest turn to the right acquired its shape
those from 'the inferior world,' although constantly discriminated
against, were at least tolerated rhetorically. Now the situation has
changed: the new times moved the threshold of generally accepted
intolerance to previously unimaginable heights. Legal immigration to
the EU is made virtually impossible in a situation when illegal
immigration is increasingly getting criminalized.

The latter is a highly debated topic and one of the main concerns in
the industrialized world. The current income gap and the increasing
inequality between developed and developing nations allows for the
intensification of human flows between adjacent, yet dissimilar
regions in the United States and Europe. Yet while there is a regime
of regular migration in North America, the European Union fosters the
accumulation and residence of foreigners in an irregular situation.
Accordingly, the debate in the developed nations has shifted gears and
now focuses on illegal immigration, illegal workers, and their impact
and consequences. In the current discourse being foreign (i.e. coming
from a country which is not a Member State of the Union) is often
marked by a presumption of illegality.

Leading representatives acknowledge the need to focus a greater deal
of effort on immigration. Britain's home secretary at the time, John
Reid, was reported in the Economist saying that managing immigration
is now "the greatest challenge facing all European governments."
Former French President Jacques Chirac said to listeners of the 2006
Bastille Day address, "Africans will flood the world and we have an
immense problem, which is that of development".

Illegal immigration is viewed from an angle of concern from Europe
towards North Africa and beyond. The poor integration of some
immigrant communities and the turmoil caused by the terrorist attacks
of September 11, 2001, in New York, March 11, 2004, in Madrid, and
July 7, 2005, in London, have exacerbated the problem of illegal
immigration. This should not, however, undermine Europe's commitment
to human rights and refugee protection.

In this lack of political consensus on the issue, policies within
countries vary significantly depending on what party -- either right
or left -- rules the government. The absence of a continental
regulation leads to the absurd scenario of different approaches
undertaken by any two nations in the European Union. Populist messages
are thus turning popular among an aging European population that needs
migration (whether legal or illegal) to sustain an economic growth
able to feed its retirees.

Populist messages are increasingly frequent in Europe. As a matter of
fact, 2007 polls showed how a quarter of Denmark's voters support the
anti-immigration Danish People's Party; the Swiss gave 29 percent of
their votes to the xenophobic Swiss People's Party; Norway's second
political force is anti-foreigner; and a fifth of Belgium's Flemish
population now votes for the far-right Vlaams Belang. In June 2010
general elections 15.5 percent of Dutch voters gave their support to
PVV -- the party of notorious Geert Wilders.

The situation where virtually no regulation, let alone coordination of
long-term migration and citizenship matters, happens at the Union
level is particularly illogical in the light of the recent
developments which marked the rise of European citizenship as a
meaningful concept. Since an ever increasing number of rights is
enjoyed by the nationals of EU states in their capacity of EU citizens
and comes directly from the Union, the Member States of the EU have
irreparably lost virtually any legal ability to control, let alone to
prohibit the moving in and settlement of EU citizens and their family
members of any nationality. The absence of national borders for
European citizens inside the Union is amplified by a strict
prohibition of discrimination on the basis of a Member State
nationality in the EU. In practice this means that no 'integration' or
'culture' testing can possibly be applied to any EU citizen moving
from one EU Member State to another.

What does this mean in practice? Entirely random divisions have been
created by the rise of European nationalism which distinguish between
those whose culture is 'good enough' and the others, coming from
poorer regions of the world, whose culture is viewed as deficient and
potentially harmful, disqualifying them from settlement until they
pass profoundly arbitrary 'integration' tests at the embassy of the
country they wish to immigrate to in their country of nationality.
Imagine how many Dutch language and culture teachers a Sri-Lankan
capital can boast, allowing any citizen of that country to pass an
arbitrary test to purify herself to become tolerable, her skin-colour
notwithstanding. At least the tests are moderately priced at the level
of several monthly incomes of the locals. Worse still: as a
consequence of the new policies a Moldovan and a Romanian, having
identical socio-cultural background, speaking the same language and
going to the same Church end up in opposing invented categories.

Once branded as an outsider of deficient culture, any newcomer from
outside the EU is most likely to be stigmatized after resettlement,
making the whole process, which involves a cardinal rebuilding of
one's life and is thus potentially damaging per se, even more
difficult to go through. The new nationalist turn, harming the
interests of European economy, social cohesion and obviously
contradicting common sense, is also deeply stigmatizing for the
potential migrants. This is too high a price to pay, for flirting with
the neo-racist sentiments of the huge chunks of EU population. The
perceived need of "cultural integration", even be it before flying to
Europe is an overwhelmingly poor cover up for racist policies relying
on the messianic idea of superiority inherent in European culture,
which any new comer is to be aware of before boarding the plane. This
situation is very wrong but, unfortunately, is unlikely to change in
the near future.

The public opinion in many European countries drifts to undecided on
the debate of how to approach illegal immigration. Different countries
suggest different policies. The package adopted on July 19, 2006, by
the European Commission helps identify the EU's priorities on how to
approach and cope with illegal immigration. Tackling illegal
employment represents the punch line of a joint effort that should
target and help eliminate situations of exploitation of illegal
immigrants who work in poor and unsafe conditions in industries such
as construction, catering, or the textile sector (EurActiv 2006).

Spain's massive legalization process of some 547,000 undocumented
working adults in 2005 triggered a sentiment of discontent in France.
Former French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy blamed the Spanish
Administration for its lax policies on immigration. Spaniards show
most tolerant vis-à-vis immigration among European peers, with 55
percent of respondents believing that immigrants are good for the
economy, whereas only 42 percent of Britons share the same view.

Jesús Caldera (IMM) was Spain's minister of labour and immigration at
the time. How can a country like Spain sustain the millions of
migrants who were losing their jobs in 2009 and provide them with the
same welfare state Spaniards can access in times of economic crisis?
For Caldera, the immigration model he embraced attracts foreign labor
when there is demand and closes the borders to foreign migration when
the demand for labor shrinks, as was the case in 2009. Caldera notes
that immigrants should have the same rights and obligations as
Spaniards. In times of economic bonanza immigrants helped strengthen
Social Security. In times of economic turmoil, immigrants are entitled
to the same rights they earned while they contributed to the
maintenance of the welfare state. It is an approach that dignifies the
country.

On practical grounds, it's all about demographics or in other words:
It's the demographics, stupid. Europe's native-born workforce is
forecast to shrink by 44 million by 2050. As a result, skilled workers
will be in short supply. The continent will therefore become
increasingly dependent on foreign labor. Closed borders are a threat
for Europe's own aging population. A common European policy based on
the restriction of unskilled workers could prove detrimental for
certain countries. Denmark is in strong need of unskilled labor due to
the shrinkage of its population participating in the labor force.
Germany has kept its economy closed to workers from new EU countries
until 2011, but now promotes it due to a skills shortage.

After all, Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Washington-based
Migration Policy Institute, explains, "Illegal immigration is part of
the vital lubricant of our societies. It wouldn't be happening if so
many people's interests were not served by the status quo."


Co-written by Dimitry Kochenov and Jaime Pozuelo-Monfort

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jaime-pozuelomonfort/new-european-immigration_b_635964.html
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