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 No Entry
The E.U. wants to discourage migration from the new member states in the east.
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Go Home
European governments are toughening up immigration and asylum policies |
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Moving In?
The Roma are coming ... is it time to panic? |
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End of the Affair? Many people in the membership queue for the E.U. say they just don't want to join |
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They Hear You Knocking Europe agrees on a need for common immigration policy, but hangs tough to satisfy voters |
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E-mail your letter to the editor
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Posted Sunday, February 22, 2004; 15.21GMT
It might be different this time: the economic lure to move is more powerful, since average income, adjusted for purchasing power, among this year's new entrants is about 45% of the existing members'; in the 1980s, the corresponding figure was 65%. There are some groups — like the Roma in Slovakia or Russian minorities in the Baltic states — who may be tempted to mount a substantial exodus. And the countries closest to the new entrants, like Germany, may get a disproportionate share.
But overall, a painstaking analysis for the European Commission by the German Institute for Economic Research concluded that the flow from all the new members to the rest of the E.U. would be a relatively modest 294,000 people in the year after all restrictions are lifted, with a long-term cumulative total of some 3.8 million — about 1% of the recipient countries' existing populations. Much of the movement will be short term: young people getting some foreign exposure, then going home. By 2030, the net flows are expected to reverse. "There will be no floodgates opening after May 1," says Krieger. "This is scaremongering."
Even trade unions, which might be expected to fight new competition for their members, are enthusiastic about workers from the East. "There are labor shortages in the E.U. in both high-skill and low-skill jobs," says John Monks, general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation. "The influx of new workers will have a positive impact in filling them." He thinks if employers can't get the people they need legally in Germany or Italy, they'll get them illegally, or move their factories to Poland or Slovakia — or to Asia.
Given the fairly broad consensus that open migration can be managed, it's not surprising the new entrants resent the denigration implicit in talk of "floods" and "benefit scroungers." Jan Kohout, the Czech Deputy Foreign Minister for European Affairs, says, "There is not the slightest economic or rational reason for this. It's domestic politics, populism, that effectively kills for us the feeling of belonging to Europe." But the political pressures are real, and French Minister for European Affairs, Noëlle Lenoir, is not apologetic. "If you visit schools, businesses and town halls the way I have," she says, "you'll hear that unemployment is easily people's greatest concern." The restrictions on free movement "are a way of showing our public that we are not indifferent" — thus curtailing the appeal of extremists like National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Sriskandarajah turns that argument on its head. By treaty, the restrictions on free movement have to end by 2011, "so it's not a question of if, but when." He'd like Britain to go against the E.U. crowd and impose none. "If we take people in the first wave, we can get the best and the brightest." But that's a hard argument for a politician to make in the face of braying tabloids. Even harder is to admit that keeping Europe competitive may depend on it: that the real choice may be between importing workers or exporting jobs.
With reporting by William Boston/Berlin, Mairéad Carey/Dublin, Bruce Crumley and Terrence Murray/Paris, Joe Kirwin/Brussels, Tadeusz L. Kucharski/Warsaw and Jan Stojaspal/Prague
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Paperwork [June 23, 2003]
The E.U. wants to be bigger, better and stronger. Will its new constitution finally make Europeans care?
Deadly Crossing [Dec. 22, 2003]
TIME tracks a young illegal immigrant's harrowing nine-month journey from Somalia to Italy
Outside Edge [June. 11, 2002]
Immigration takes center stage in the Czech election campaign
Sharp Turn To The Right? [Oct. 12, 2003]
The Swiss People's Party's anti-immigration message could help it win big in next week's elections
Germany's New Recruits [June. 18, 2001]
Indian tech workers are the biggest beneficiaries of expedited work permits to plug the country's skills shortages
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