Most likely, after the wreck in Greece with more than 500 dead and missing, we will return to “normalcy”.
Without a worthy refugee-immigration policy, with the paper kingdom of the E.U. to be full of “solutions” that are not implemented, the governments of its member countries to gain time so as not to lose votes and the political parties to maneuver, no matter how difficult it is to deal with the refugee-immigrant issue, we must look for solutions because with over time the problems grow.
Features the main points of the latest World Bank report (“Migrants, Refugees and Societies“) on the subject:
1. Massive movements
The report emphasizes that cross-border movements of populations have different characteristics. There is no “typical” immigrant or “typical” country of origin or destination. Migrants differ in their reasons for moving, their specialties and demographics, their legal status, and their circumstances and outlook.
As World Bank experts point out, there are countries of origin and countries of destination at all income levels, and in practice many countries are both countries of origin and destination. The examples of Mexico, Nigeria and the United Kingdom are typical.
According to the definition given by the World Bank, there are 184 million immigrants worldwide, 2.3% of the total population. These 184 million include 37 million refugees.
40% of the total (64 million economic migrants and 10 million refugees) live in high-income countries belonging to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
These include scientists, skilled and unskilled workers and their families, people aiming to settle permanently, temporary migrants, students, as well as undocumented migrants and people seeking international protection. These numbers include 11 million EU citizens. who live in other EU countries and generally have reserved rights.
About 17% of all immigrants (31 million) live in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Almost all are temporary workers on renewable visas and in most cases eking out a living in extremely difficult conditions. Together they account for roughly half the population of the Gulf countries.
About 43% of migrants (52 million economic migrants and 27 million refugees) live in middle- or low-income countries. This shows that migration is not limited to movements from South to North but is slightly greater in the global South, in countries with much more limited possibilities. Migrants from the global South move mainly in search of work, to reunite with family or to claim international protection.
As the World Bank report points out, the share of immigrants in the world’s population has remained relatively stable since the 1960s. But it is underlined in the report that this stability is apparent because the demographic growth is uneven at the global level. Global migration grew three times faster than population in high-income countries and at half the speed of population growth in low-income countries.
This also explains the different reactions in the North and the South. The high-income countries of the North feel oppressed by large refugee-immigrant flows. Conversely, the countries of the South, with low income, feel oppressed because the immigrant-refugee outflow from them cannot keep up with the pace of their population growth.
Another development that makes the problem more difficult to manage is that the number of refugees has doubled over the last decade. The course of the planet is from bad to worse with civil strife, persecution of minorities, ethnic cleansing, wars, international political tensions, with the result that the number of those claiming international protection is constantly increasing.
2. The necessity of immigration
World Bank experts describe the necessity of global migration in the following way:
“Immigration is the reaction to various shocks and global imbalances, such as the huge gap in incomes and living standards between different countries. A driver of economic migration is the prospect of higher wages and access to better services. In 2020, about 84% of immigrants lived in countries that were richer than their countries of origin. But commuting has costs that the poorest cannot afford. Most immigrants come from middle-income countries and do not belong to the richest or poorest in their countries of origin.
Demographic changes have caused an escalating global competition for workers and talent. Consider three countries. Italy, with a population of 59 million, is estimated to shrink by about half to 32 million by 2100. The proportion of over 65s is projected to increase from 24% to 38% of the total population. Mexico, traditionally a country of immigration, is seeing its fertility rate drop to near-replacement levels. On a different path is Nigeria which is projected to increase its population from 213 million to 791 million by the end of the century and thus become the country with the second largest population after India.
These trends have deeper implications as they change the countries and regions that need workers and those in which they can be found. Regardless of policy, wealthier countries will need foreign workers to support their economies and honor their social commitments to older citizens. Many middle-income countries, which have traditionally been the main sources of immigration, will soon have to compete for foreign workers, and many are already doing so. Low-income countries have large numbers of unemployed and underemployed young people but many of them have not acquired qualifications in demand in the global labor market.
Climate change makes economic incentives for migration more complex. About 40% of the world’s population – 3.5 billion – live in areas with high exposure to the consequences of climate change.
Water scarcity, drought, unusually high temperatures, rising sea levels and extreme events such as floods and tropical cyclones. Economic opportunities are reduced in the affected areas making societies more vulnerable and increasing the pressure for migration. The effects of climate change threaten to render uninhabitable entire regions in places as diverse as the Sahel (Sub-Saharan Africa), the lower reaches of Bangladesh and the Mekong Delta.”
3. Africa’s impasse
In the European Parliament, all these issues raised by the World Bank report are being discussed, in search of a common effective strategy.
It is extremely difficult to achieve the desired result for a number of reasons. The E.U. it is not a political union that could impose discipline, in these matters, on the member states. The latest immigration-refugee policy plan that was approved gives more freedom of movement to the member states, as far as the implementation of the measures it provides is concerned.
The member states of the E.U. they have different capabilities and traditions when it comes to asylum and immigration policy. For example, Germany is seen as highly capable of matching the specialties of immigrants with the needs of its economy and intervening, where necessary, to strengthen the productive dimension of immigration. The experts of the World Bank point out that the “marriage” of professional capabilities of immigrants with the needs of the economy of the host countries is of great importance. It depends on whether immigration will pay off economically and whether the social pressures and tensions associated with it will be reduced. If Germany is close to the best in this regard, other countries such as Greece are well below the base.
Even the historical past of the EU member states. plays a role in migration-refugee flows. France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal have – for example – developed close ties with Africa since colonial times.
A common finding among the European Parliament’s committees dealing with the issue is that the biggest challenge will come from Africa.
Many of its countries have traditional ties with European countries, there is relative proximity, Africa is in a phase of demographic explosion, while Europe is in a phase of demographic contraction. Poverty and exclusion have reached enormous proportions in the Black Continent, the consequences of climate change and many civil conflicts and wars strengthen the refugee-immigrant stream.
Libya, followed by Tunisia, are the countries through which refugees and migrants try to reach Europe, crossing the Mediterranean in extremely difficult to inhumane conditions.
Since 2014, an estimated 27,000 have died trying to cross the Mediterranean. The recent maritime tragedy off the coast of Peloponnese (Greece) must be the second largest, with over 500 dead and missing. The record has a similar maritime tragedy in 2015 with 800 dead and missing.
The E.U. is in desperate search of a creative strategy against Africa in order to reduce the flows. The colonial past, the wounds of colonialism, the worsening economic and social problems in most African countries, the strengthening of China’s economic presence and Russia’s military presence are constantly raising the degree of difficulty.
