Australia: The Australian government has sparked criticism after it issued a controversial anti-immigration ad, aimed at discouraging asylum seekers from travelling to the country illegally. Europe: They have made their choice: Open borders. An enlarged European Union has welcomed poorer countries which fully belong to the European project. The resulting dispersion in income levels has been a first challenge to the convergence process. The crisis has then reversed this process across Europe, with states having to launch debt reduction programmes accompanied by structural reforms, and rising unemployment bringing widespread social hardship. European cohesion has failed. Cohesion entails having a common understanding of fairness and showing solidarity. More should be done, with a view to bringing together scarce resources, defending European interests globally and pushing the European agenda. Politicians spent huge sums to control the Eurozone. German industry in general and its exports profited from the initial EU conglomeration. After Germany gave over one trillion euros in bailouts to Italy, Spain, and Greece, Germany’s economic growth slowed down, even in rich parts of Germany like Mainz and the industrialized Rhineland. The European Union is to blame for the massive influx of non Europeans settling on European soil. When the Immigration of low- and high-skilled workers is calculated together with public expenses with which the issue of immigration is connected and with tax gains that immigrants bring, the net economic gain is very low or none. What about humanity? Many asylum seekers have multiple reasons for mobility and it is impossible to completely separate economic and human rights motivations. In the long term such help for immigrants is meaningless, just as any effort to regulate all forms of mass immigration, if we do not fight its causes by means of sustainable development policies in the regions of origin. Supporting mass immigration could then only perpetuate economic inequalities in the world since, as many argued, brain drain intensifies a world of flux, divided families, splintered communities, cultural alienation and ethnic resentments – a world where “those who can, live in the west, while those who cannot live in the rest” ... European governments, and commentators have argued that Europe will have to rely on immigrants in order to maintain its economic growth and maintain presence on highly competitive international markets. The immigrants that are to be especially targeted are highly-skilled persons, capable of filling in well-paid jobs or creating their own small businesses. This is a common state policy in the global competition for talents. But: The EU predominantly attracted those immigrants, who could provide only low or no qualifications. It is expected that the most numerous group among these will be precisely those immigrants who are young and low-skilled, from less developed regions of Asia and Africa (National Intelligence Council, 2008), p. 23). Based on the available data we see that overall net economic gain is very low or none. Furthermore, reasons for assuming that only immigration could tackle the issue of ageing population are mistaken. Political decisions have to be made that need to address these challenges domestically. This is mainly due to the fact that the EU will be unable to simply single out high-skilled migrants from the rest. Mass immigration is mainly fuelled by global economic inequalities and as long as these causes remain unaddressed, it will be mainly migration of refugees and asylum seekers that will continue, together with those unskilled migrants who go to Europe to provide for most basic financial needs. The first theory of the EU, that mass immigration tackles the issue of “pension time bomb”, is misleading for several reasons. The argument ignores the fact immigrants grow old as well and will in time require the same social welfare, healthcare and pensions as the rest of the European population. The argument claiming that immigrants fill in gaps on the labour market does not mention that the same can be achieved by well targeted policies that would regulate the higher education courses in accordance with the demands of the market. If the intake of high-skilled immigrants is not accompanied by above mentioned education policies, immigration does not solve anything. And in turn, when such policies are in place, there is no need for mass immigration. The second theory of the EU noted that mass immigration is beneficial because in general, immigrants will pay more on taxes than they receive from the public expenses. But that this is true only for certain immigrants:highly-skilled and well-paid permanent immigrants, or those immigrants who are planning to establish their own businesses. The EU therefore cannot hope that in the future, it will be somehow able to separate ‘good’ immigration from the “bad” one, unless it tackles the causes of immigration as such, which would also have to involve preventing the brain drain from developing countries. With regard to the argument that the EU will increasingly have to rely on immigrants to preserve its population levels, immigration in fact does not serve as a cure. Only policies specifically targeted at supporting young families with children can help averting the population decline. Similarly the EU should focus on tackling the low amount of the abled citizens in employment, which could be significantly raised and provide the means for the ageing population without reliance on mass immigration.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 11:49:38 +0000