Letting some of them in

The Economist, Oct 2nd 2008

The European Union’s immigration pact offers a promise of tighter controls but may have little real effect

IMMIGRATION has Europe in a pickle. With ageing populations and low birth rates, the European Union needs more people. But EU countries are already taking in plenty of foreigners (see chart), and many struggle to integrate. Popular resentment of immigration is increasing, and may rise further as economies slow and unemployment climbs. Meanwhile hundreds of illegal migrants risk life and limb on leaky boats to get to Europe every week.

France’s Nicolas Sarkozy has made immigration a centrepiece of the French EU presidency. As interior minister he took a hard line on immigration, which helped win him votes in the 2007 presidential election. The new “pact” on immigration and asylum, due to be adopted by an EU summit in mid-October, is his idea.

Its main justification is that, given free movement of people around the EU, different national policies no longer make sense, especially in the passport-free Schengen area. The pact suggests common approaches: immigration should be more selective (a “blue card” modelled on America’s green card will try to lure highly skilled migrants); and illegal immigration should be tightly controlled, with more returns and beefed-up border controls.

The main new idea is to scrap mass amnesties for illegal immigrants, such as Spain’s in 2005, on the ground that these simply lure in more people. Denmark won support for tough language that seeks to stop laws on freedom of movement from encouraging illegal immigration. To Malta’s relief, countries receiving large numbers of asylum-seekers will be able to share the burden (and cost) with others.

Asylum and immigration have fallen within the EU’s competence since the Amsterdam treaty in 1997. Five-year work plans were agreed in Tampere in 1999 and The Hague in 2004; a third is due to be adopted under the Swedish EU presidency next year. Is the new pact a sign of French dissatisfaction with this process? Eurocrats hope it will create new impetus. But it also puts more stress on direct co-operation between governments, cutting out Brussels.

Will the pact make much practical difference? Bureaucrats are poor at guessing future labour-market needs. Europe is in a global competition to attract talent, but most EU members are disadvantaged by language: English is the new lingua franca. The blue card is less generous than others, notes a forthcoming report from Bruegel, a Brussels-based think-tank. It covers a shorter period than the green card, for instance.

The pact invokes the concept of circular migration to argue that immigration can benefit both sending and receiving countries. Unlike previous guest-worker schemes, the pact suggests, improved technology will mean that more people really will go home. But some will not. And an OECD report suggests it can be inefficient for employers to retrain staff rather than retain experienced workers for longer.

The pact’s proposed sanctions on employers of illegal immigrants are also controversial. Businessmen complain that the red tape for employers who want to hire third-country nationals is already onerous, and that their role is not to act as government snoopers for illegal migrants.

Enforcing departures, the ultimate sanction, remains slow and costly. Estimates of illegal immigrants in the EU range from 4m to 8m, with half a million more arriving every year. Yet even hawkish France sent back only 25,000 in 2007. A new directive on returns, criticised by some developing-country governments, may ensure that more are sent back.

So far this year, patrols have stopped 20,000 people trying to cross the Mediterranean. But they may just displace migrants to other, easier routes. The EU’s southern and eastern borders remain porous. And suggestions that more avenues for legal migration might reduce demand for the illegal variety seem wrong. Rapid population growth and high unemployment in Europe’s near-abroad, plus a huge income gap, all argue otherwise.

If the goal were to strengthen links between immigration and development, the answer would be to make a case for more open borders. But that goes far beyond what politicians think voters will stomach. For now, the illusion of tighter immigration controls confers domestic political benefits, even as its failings are ignored.