Ageing and globalization put legal immigration on EU agenda

By Daniela Schroeder and Shada Islam Mar 25, 2007, 15:31 GMT

Brussels - Once a taboo subject in most European Union capitals, legal immigration has climbed up the agenda as the 27-nation bloc struggles to compensate for an ageing population and to fill labour shortages, especially in the vital information technology sector.

Despite the new focus on seeking out foreign workers, managing migration flows - both through legal and illicit channels - remains one of the EU's biggest challenges.

First and foremost, EU governments are under pressure to curb the uncontrolled influx of mainly African illegal migrants to Europe's southern member states.

The crisis has a tragic human angle since many of the would-be migrants, using rickety boats to make the hazardous sea crossing to Europe, have drowned on the way.

The EU has responded by stepping up border controls, with so-called 'frontline' states, Spain, Italy and Malta, demanding even tougher measures against the illegals.

In addition, faced with labour shortages in key economic sectors, EU governments are for the first time seriously looking at ways of opening up channels for legal immigration.

EU officials say that the bloc must first and foremost try and attract skilled and well-trained migrants to compensate for Europe's falling birth rates and ageing population.

This is also seen as necessary if the EU is to compete successfully with emerging economic powerhouses China and India.

In spite of the recent enlargement, which has brought the total number of people living in the EU to about 500 million, statistics show that given low birth rates and an ageing population, Europe will lose 20 million workers by 2050.

The EU's top immigration official Franco Frattini argues that Europe must match labour supply and demand and has called for 'selective immigration to continue the EU's economic development and rise to the challenge of globalisation.'

Frattini recently sounded the alarm bell, warning that high-skilled workers from poor African countries were moving to the United States and Canada while Europe was facing an influx of less-trained migrants.

His latest ideas to turn Europe into a magnet for foreign smart brains include a European version of the US green card.

Such a scheme could make the bloc more attractive for skilled workers by simplifying bureaucratic procedures, thus allowing foreigners to move freely between EU member states.

The European Commission is currently asking national governments to provide the EU executive with details of their labour shortages.

So-called 'job centres' are planned for African countries. Under the new scheme, foreigners will be given temporary migration opportunities to fill gaps on the EU labour market in areas such as agriculture, construction and tourism.

The centres will also inform would-be migrants about the dangers of illegal migration as well as help African countries create jobs.

The International Organisation for Migration sees the EU move to open up legal opportunities for migrants as a 'constructive step in the right direction.'

But while member states like France, Spain and Italy have signalled support for the commission's drive to coordinate legal immigration at European level, other EU governments are strongly opposed to the plans.

The bloc's new members from central and eastern Europe for instance are demanding that work barriers against their citizens should be removed before any action is taken to boost immigration from outside the EU.

This follows what many eastern Europeans see as discriminatory rules which allow some western European countries to temporarily keep out low-cost workers from former communist states.

National governments' unwillingness to cede control on immigration issues to the European Commission is not surprising since the question touches on the sensitive concepts of citizenship and nationhood.

As a result, national immigration policies are mapped out according to domestic labour market needs, which means that they are not only different, but also often contradictory.

Spain in 2005 angered its EU neighbours by launching a programme granting legal amnesty to up to 800,000 undocumented immigrants. Ireland and Finland are also relatively open on immigration because of their booming economies.

Those with weak economies and high unemployment figures, however, have introduced tougher immigration measures.

'The EU is such a diverse place,' said Hugo Brady, immigration expert at the London-based Centre of European Reform. As such, progress in forging a common EU policy on legal migration would be 'the slowest of all ways to manage migration,' he said.