Cecilia Malmström, the Commissioner for Home Affairs of the European Union held a lecture in Lund University on Monday where she talked about European immigration policy.
A tough road lies ahead for Cecilia Malmström as the EU commissioner dealing with European immigration policy, especially in a very difficult political climate with European Parliament election coming up in May, 2014. “Never since the Second World War, have we had so many right wing extreme parties elected in different political assemblies as we have today,” she told in the lecture.
She mentioned external pressure as well as internal pressure on European immigration policy, such as wars and world conflicts. She referred to UN estimation that there will be about 3,000,000 refugees escaping from war in Syria by the end of the year. Although only around 55,000 of those have arrived to Europe, the external borders of Europe have been impacted by a continuous influx of asylum seekers.
The existing common rules on a joint European asylum system had been problematic enough to cause different interpretation among the member states. This led to unfairness in the rights and condition of asylum seekers. Thus, European Union had been trying to set a genuine common European asylum system.
In June, an agreement was reached on 6 directives to harmonize the way the member states receive asylum seekers. “This is quite an achievement,” Malmström said with confidence. This will be in place in 1.5 years and the treatment and the qualification grant for asylum seekers should be the same if it works well in practice.
Yet, problems will still remain after the implementation. Due to their geographical proximity to main sending countries, some member states, such as Malta and Greece, are under tremendous pressure. In Bulgaria, the number of asylum seekers overweighs the country’s capacity.
Cecilia Malmström also discussed labor migration.
“Human mobility is the single most important factor for development,” she said. Yet, the path to migrate to Europe from outside is far from easy for various reasons.
There are difficulties even for qualified workers and research students to come to Europe partly because of few legal rights and other limitations, which Malmström raised as a concern. She stressed that the European Union is making efforts facilitating the situation for those people.
However, Cecilia Malmström has seen improvement in soliving the condition of often exploited seasonal workers. Indeed, the European Parliament and Council have recently agreed that the countries in need of temporary labor need to provide social security, insurance, basic salary and proper housing conditions.
It was stressed during the lecture that migrants are an asset to host countries since they help compensate the lack of labor in specific industries. This was also argued from the view that host countries can benefit from the knowledge and experience of migrants.
However, looking at migrants as a mere provider of certain lack in receiving countries can shadow the importance of real integration of those migrant people into society.
People’s tolerance and true understanding about migration should be cultivated towards further integration of migrants. Education can play a great role in this.
“Universities are very well suited to foster tolerance and multicultural views,” Cecilia Malmström told in the private interview.
The number of 26,000,000 unemployed in Europe should not easily be dismissed. It gives a reasonable ground for not only extreme right-wingers but also many people to believe that an active salvation program should be first fixed before opening up for migration.
In the end of lecture, Malmström commented with grief on recent tragedy outside of Lampedusa, where the ship carrying migrants capsized and more than 360 died. She acknowledged the need of an acute action for those who are still trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea despite the estimation that shows around 16 percent of those do not make it. The European Commission is now finalizing the report with a few proposals which will be discussed in European Summit, this December
Cecilia Malmström stressed the importance of new asylum laws to be established in each member state as well as finding legal ways for people to come to Europe. She also noted that resettlement of refugees is a key as a short-term goal.
“As along as there is poverty, dictatorship, inequalities, wars in our neighborhood, people will by different ways try to come to Europe,” Cecilia Malmström said and claimed that there are a lot to be addressed.
Accepting migrants is indeed a way of taking responsible actions for international affairs. However, it should also be noted that many European countries are large arms exporter as Germany as the third followed by France as the fourth in the 2008-2012 ranking of the top 20 arms exporters according to SIPRI. This implies that European countries have directly or indirectly contributed to global conflicts.
This poses us a difficult, yet important ethical question,
“ Should migration policy in European Union compatible with each member state’s self interest?”
