PACT FOR IMMIGRATION
France, which takes over the EU presidency on July 1st, has, according to the Figaro 30/5/08, said its "sujet prioritaire qu’est l’immigration". Bruce Hortefeux, who is the responsible minister and who is ‘proche de Nicholas Sarkozy’, has proposed a ‘pacte pour l’immigration’. So we need to take notice of what the French Presidency is prioritizing.
As with the pronouncements by the EU Council of Ministers and the EU Commission on the subject of migration, Hortefeux’s proposal does not bother with the most cursory analysis of the main effects of population change, which are asking who would be the likely immigrants and the prospects of integration which will vary according to their cultural difference and other reasons, nor does it engage with the arguments against the touted benefits of immigration to the host population. These arguments were, of course, contained in the report by the National Academy of Sciences to the US Congress in 1997 and have been reiterated by the recent report of the House of Lords’ Economic Affairs Committee.
These two distinguished bodies found that, in total, there was virtually no benefit to the existing population in income. There are also considerable costs in capital requirements funded by the native population as Hazel Blears is finding out in her recent announcements of government handouts. The House of Lords also rejected the ‘skills shortage’ argument and the argument that immigration is needed to pay the pensions of the existing population in quite scathing terms.
It should be noted that neither the National Academy of Sciences nor the House of Lords’ Committee was charged with looking into the cultural consequences of population change. They purely looked at the economics. The default position of the EU. almost indeed its principal aim, is, of course, that populations are – or shortly are - interchangeable, have no cultural baggage and can be treated as the deltas and epsilons of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World – and moved around at will.
This is, of course in contrast with the guiding sacred principles of liberal thought from, say, the days of Mazzini to Attlee. The focus of liberal political aspiration from 1850 to 1950, from the reunification of Italy and Germany, through the break-up of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, through the territorial and population rearrangements of the Treaties of Versailles, Trianon and Lausanne, right through to the mass movement of population endorsed by the Potsdam Declaration, was that nations were good, national history and culture was important and that populations should, as far as possible, live in political nations without restive minorities. This is why the international body set up in San Francisco was entitled the United Nations as a successor to the League of Nations. Those who signed it were well aware that Nazism had been defeated by nations not by transnational organizations.
This is no longer the guiding star of the western democracies. National history and culture, and the social capital provided by them, are to be disregarded. The dangers of restive minorities are said no longer to exist. Freedom of movement within the EU is the goal.
There is a reversion to the eighteenth century where an international class, often speaking a different language to its subjects, ruled over a polyglot population from Ostend eastwards.
Hortefeux, therefore, takes immigration as a necessary economic phenomenon, whose cultural problems can be overcome and which does not cause depreciation of social capital.
Of course, his proposal is that migration must be regulated as "Europe(sic) does not have the means to welcome with dignity all those who see it as an eldorado". While this is certainly a reason to oppose mass immigration, it is hardly the pre-eminent one – which is the break up of the cultural nations created by the democratic nationalism of 1850-1950 with the creation of ‘restive minorities’.
So, Hortefeux says “Le flux migration doit imperativement s’adopter aux capacities d’accueil de L’Europe(sic), sur le plan du marche du travail, du logement des services sanitaires, scolaires et sociaux”. Well, Hortefeux must know that there are no spare houses, schools, hospitals, etc. looking for clients in the EU, so even on his own analysis, the migratory flux should be nil.
Of course, Hortefeux’s plan does include a distinction with unwanted immigrants to be kept out. He proposes no more amnesties for illegal immigrants, more effective deportation of illegal s and commercial and diplomatic pressures to press for proper reception by sending counties of their deported migrants. Frontex is to be elevated to becoming a 'police europeenne de la frontiere exterieure'.
But there are two areas where Hortefeux welcomes migrants. One is to “batir une Europe de l’asile”, in other words to encourage asylum seeking. The other is to promote legal immigration of professionals, the so-called ‘highly qualified migrants’. Who are these people and why they are needed is not explained but an EU ‘blue card’ is presented as the way forward and just in case it leads to ‘restive minorities’, there will be attached an integration contract to learn European languages, national identities and European values. The immense potential cost and poor likelihood of success, based on previous experience, is not discussed.
From 2010 it is proposed there will be common guarantees on asylum and a uniform law on refugees (Britain has signed up for much of these despite its general opt out on immigration matters), later there will be common criteria for asylum seekers who will be able to file new requests outside the EU with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. This could well accelerate the number of asylum seekers to ‘L’Europe d’asile’.
Hortefeux’s plans are, of course, welcomed by the European Parliament. Meanwhile the poverty of the argument in France is illustrated by the comments in the Figaro which says “notre Europe vieillissante ne peut se passer d’immigration. Ce point n’est pas plus conteste”. Actually it is contested, not only by the House of Lords and by the UK government actuary, in reports by the Council of Europe, the OECD, the UN, etc., but also in the USA by such diverse American figures as Alan Greenspan or the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to take a few commentators at random. All have pointed out that immigrants will grow old in their turn and the idea of importing them to pay for the pensions of existing populations is a chimera.
It is interesting that the idea of immigration as a panacea for an ageing society was also rejected by the UK government in its evidence to the House of Lords’ enquiry. “On pensions, the Government’s position is clearly that we do not think that solving the pensions problem or addressing the issue of the long-term sustainability of pensions, is the objective of migration policy. Nevertheless, it is fact that some level of positive net migration does ease the long-term financing constraints for the pension system and, in that respect, makes a positive contribution, although that is clearly not a driver of policy in itself.” (Jonathan Portes, Chief Economist, Department of Work and Pensions, to the House of Lords Committee, 15/1/08) In fact, the arrival of young migrant workers eases the short-term financing constraints but accentuates long-term financing constraints as eventually these immigrants to grow old and add to the pension burden.
As far as the UK is concerned, even if it is not signed up to the common immigration policy, it is pursuing almost identical policies which can be summed up as welcoming the ‘highly qualified’ migrants.
Why the most advanced countries in the world cannot supply their own skilled labour force and have alleged skill shortages and have to import such skills from Africa and Asia, is not addressed. If you examine the criteria for ‘highly skilled migrants’, they are pitiful and indeed can be qualified for by salaries as low as £5,000 p.a. in countries such as India, coupled with university degrees which, as the Indian press constantly reports, can be obtained in some parts of India by bribery or threats. The lower level of ‘skilled migrants’ also to be welcomed into the UK, have even lower qualifications but are to be allowed in under an immense bureaucratic programme which from month to month will examine thousands of job categories and pronounce on which ones in that particular month are short of native applicants. In other words, it directly goes against a free market where the existence of vacancies bids up the price of labour and causes labour to move to different occupations. This is the policy of fossilization on a gigantic scale.
The consequences of careless government and massive issues, as well as unthinking assumption of long term liabilities is causing financial and social strain. The arguments of the European political class for rejecting the principle of the nation and importing ‘restive minorities’ must be corrected and shown to be the sham arguments they are. The rigorous report issued by the House of Lords’ Economic Committee is a first step in restoring some kind of intellectual sanity. With Spain now proposing to pay immigrants to go home, next door Hortefeux is constructing his grand plans based on more immigration.
FUTURUS/27 June 2008
As with the pronouncements by the EU Council of Ministers and the EU Commission on the subject of migration, Hortefeux’s proposal does not bother with the most cursory analysis of the main effects of population change, which are asking who would be the likely immigrants and the prospects of integration which will vary according to their cultural difference and other reasons, nor does it engage with the arguments against the touted benefits of immigration to the host population. These arguments were, of course, contained in the report by the National Academy of Sciences to the US Congress in 1997 and have been reiterated by the recent report of the House of Lords’ Economic Affairs Committee.
These two distinguished bodies found that, in total, there was virtually no benefit to the existing population in income. There are also considerable costs in capital requirements funded by the native population as Hazel Blears is finding out in her recent announcements of government handouts. The House of Lords also rejected the ‘skills shortage’ argument and the argument that immigration is needed to pay the pensions of the existing population in quite scathing terms.
It should be noted that neither the National Academy of Sciences nor the House of Lords’ Committee was charged with looking into the cultural consequences of population change. They purely looked at the economics. The default position of the EU. almost indeed its principal aim, is, of course, that populations are – or shortly are - interchangeable, have no cultural baggage and can be treated as the deltas and epsilons of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World – and moved around at will.
This is, of course in contrast with the guiding sacred principles of liberal thought from, say, the days of Mazzini to Attlee. The focus of liberal political aspiration from 1850 to 1950, from the reunification of Italy and Germany, through the break-up of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans, through the territorial and population rearrangements of the Treaties of Versailles, Trianon and Lausanne, right through to the mass movement of population endorsed by the Potsdam Declaration, was that nations were good, national history and culture was important and that populations should, as far as possible, live in political nations without restive minorities. This is why the international body set up in San Francisco was entitled the United Nations as a successor to the League of Nations. Those who signed it were well aware that Nazism had been defeated by nations not by transnational organizations.
This is no longer the guiding star of the western democracies. National history and culture, and the social capital provided by them, are to be disregarded. The dangers of restive minorities are said no longer to exist. Freedom of movement within the EU is the goal.
There is a reversion to the eighteenth century where an international class, often speaking a different language to its subjects, ruled over a polyglot population from Ostend eastwards.
Hortefeux, therefore, takes immigration as a necessary economic phenomenon, whose cultural problems can be overcome and which does not cause depreciation of social capital.
Of course, his proposal is that migration must be regulated as "Europe(sic) does not have the means to welcome with dignity all those who see it as an eldorado". While this is certainly a reason to oppose mass immigration, it is hardly the pre-eminent one – which is the break up of the cultural nations created by the democratic nationalism of 1850-1950 with the creation of ‘restive minorities’.
So, Hortefeux says “Le flux migration doit imperativement s’adopter aux capacities d’accueil de L’Europe(sic), sur le plan du marche du travail, du logement des services sanitaires, scolaires et sociaux”. Well, Hortefeux must know that there are no spare houses, schools, hospitals, etc. looking for clients in the EU, so even on his own analysis, the migratory flux should be nil.
Of course, Hortefeux’s plan does include a distinction with unwanted immigrants to be kept out. He proposes no more amnesties for illegal immigrants, more effective deportation of illegal s and commercial and diplomatic pressures to press for proper reception by sending counties of their deported migrants. Frontex is to be elevated to becoming a 'police europeenne de la frontiere exterieure'.
But there are two areas where Hortefeux welcomes migrants. One is to “batir une Europe de l’asile”, in other words to encourage asylum seeking. The other is to promote legal immigration of professionals, the so-called ‘highly qualified migrants’. Who are these people and why they are needed is not explained but an EU ‘blue card’ is presented as the way forward and just in case it leads to ‘restive minorities’, there will be attached an integration contract to learn European languages, national identities and European values. The immense potential cost and poor likelihood of success, based on previous experience, is not discussed.
From 2010 it is proposed there will be common guarantees on asylum and a uniform law on refugees (Britain has signed up for much of these despite its general opt out on immigration matters), later there will be common criteria for asylum seekers who will be able to file new requests outside the EU with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. This could well accelerate the number of asylum seekers to ‘L’Europe d’asile’.
Hortefeux’s plans are, of course, welcomed by the European Parliament. Meanwhile the poverty of the argument in France is illustrated by the comments in the Figaro which says “notre Europe vieillissante ne peut se passer d’immigration. Ce point n’est pas plus conteste”. Actually it is contested, not only by the House of Lords and by the UK government actuary, in reports by the Council of Europe, the OECD, the UN, etc., but also in the USA by such diverse American figures as Alan Greenspan or the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis to take a few commentators at random. All have pointed out that immigrants will grow old in their turn and the idea of importing them to pay for the pensions of existing populations is a chimera.
It is interesting that the idea of immigration as a panacea for an ageing society was also rejected by the UK government in its evidence to the House of Lords’ enquiry. “On pensions, the Government’s position is clearly that we do not think that solving the pensions problem or addressing the issue of the long-term sustainability of pensions, is the objective of migration policy. Nevertheless, it is fact that some level of positive net migration does ease the long-term financing constraints for the pension system and, in that respect, makes a positive contribution, although that is clearly not a driver of policy in itself.” (Jonathan Portes, Chief Economist, Department of Work and Pensions, to the House of Lords Committee, 15/1/08) In fact, the arrival of young migrant workers eases the short-term financing constraints but accentuates long-term financing constraints as eventually these immigrants to grow old and add to the pension burden.
As far as the UK is concerned, even if it is not signed up to the common immigration policy, it is pursuing almost identical policies which can be summed up as welcoming the ‘highly qualified’ migrants.
Why the most advanced countries in the world cannot supply their own skilled labour force and have alleged skill shortages and have to import such skills from Africa and Asia, is not addressed. If you examine the criteria for ‘highly skilled migrants’, they are pitiful and indeed can be qualified for by salaries as low as £5,000 p.a. in countries such as India, coupled with university degrees which, as the Indian press constantly reports, can be obtained in some parts of India by bribery or threats. The lower level of ‘skilled migrants’ also to be welcomed into the UK, have even lower qualifications but are to be allowed in under an immense bureaucratic programme which from month to month will examine thousands of job categories and pronounce on which ones in that particular month are short of native applicants. In other words, it directly goes against a free market where the existence of vacancies bids up the price of labour and causes labour to move to different occupations. This is the policy of fossilization on a gigantic scale.
The consequences of careless government and massive issues, as well as unthinking assumption of long term liabilities is causing financial and social strain. The arguments of the European political class for rejecting the principle of the nation and importing ‘restive minorities’ must be corrected and shown to be the sham arguments they are. The rigorous report issued by the House of Lords’ Economic Committee is a first step in restoring some kind of intellectual sanity. With Spain now proposing to pay immigrants to go home, next door Hortefeux is constructing his grand plans based on more immigration.
FUTURUS/27 June 2008