Dans « Challenge Europe », publié sur le site du European Policy Centre, Nigel Harris défend la thèse selon laquelle une politique de l’immigration adaptée constitue un instrument essentiel au service du développement économique de l’Europe, ainsi qu’un facteur potentiellement important dans le cadre de la lutte contre la pauvreté au niveau mondial. Les contrôles trop restrictifs menés dans de nombreux Etats membres de l’Union perturbent les canaux habituels de migration et dissuadent les immigrés de retourner dans leur pays d’origine, faisant ainsi obstacle au transfert de fonds et de qualifications vers les pays en développement et aggravant les tensions au sein des sociétés européennes.
In mid-January, Franco Frattini, the new European Commissioner for Justice and Home Affairs, issued a green paper on immigration. The purpose of the exercise was to initiate a six month long discussion on how to establish conditions and rules – without infringing upon the sovereign prerogatives of Member States – for legal economic migration into Europe “in order to fight illegal immigration.”
It is an attempt to establish some order, equity and transparency governing the expected inflow of workers to the EU over the two decades following 2010. It is now becoming clear what the cost might be of not allowing this type of inflow; projections by the ILO suggest the decline in the native-born workforce could lead to a reduction in European per capita incomes by more than one fifth.
Mr Frattini’s paper is a brave attempt but given its current prospects, it is, like so many efforts to establish common policies in this field, likely to fail. This is a particularly unpromising time since there are, at worst, significant xenophobic tendencies are prevalent in much of Europe and an agonising reappraisal of the benefits and costs of immigration is taking place in many Member States. In such a context, it would be almost electoral suicide for governments to concede any say in determining who should enter their sovereign territory to the European Commission.
Unfortunately, migrants are not just workers needed to strengthen the shrinking domestic labour forces – they are not faceless imports of goods or capital. They are people who may demand, as a condition of their work, acceptance into to the national electorate, thus changing the composition of the population, its supposed culture and the definition of its interests. For some, the very nation itself is threatened, as if immigrants were an invading army. No wonder governments err on the side of caution.
An incoherent governance
However, while politicians delay, events move much faster than the public discussion, and governments are, on a daily basis, making decisions which add up to a regime of governance, a system of migration management, no matter how incoherent or ad hoc it may be. Some are much braver than others.
To read the full text of the article, visit the European Policy Centre website.