European policy on immigration

European policy on immigration Carlota Solé* E Summary This article deals with European immigration control and integration policies as public polic...
Author: Dorothy Perkins
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European policy on immigration Carlota Solé*

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Summary This article deals with European immigration control and integration policies as public policies. Control and integration are the two main drivers of immigration policy. From a comparative perspective, the distinction between economic and political migration is made and the occupational and labour situation for northern and southern European countries is presented. Some of the differences between European countries in the interplay of control and integration policies are analysed in relation to transnationalism and the construction of a European identity.

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Sommaire Cet article traite du contrôle de l’immigration européenne et des politiques d’intégration en tant que politiques publiques. Le contrôle et l’intégration constituent les deux principaux piliers de la politique d’immigration. D’un point de vue comparatif, l’auteur présente une distinction entre immigration économique et immigration pour des raisons politiques et la situation au niveau de l’emploi dans les pays de l’Europe du Nord et de l’Europe méridionale. Certaines différences entre les pays européens dans l’interaction entre le contrôle et les politiques d’intégration sont analysées sous l’angle du transnationalisme et de la construction d’une identité européenne.

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Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit europäischen Einwanderungskontroll- und Integrationspolitiken als öffentlichen Politiken. Kontrolle und Integration sind die beiden Hauptmotoren der Einwanderungspolitik. Der Unterschied zwischen wirtschaftlicher und politischer Migration und die Beschäftigungs- und Arbeitssituation für nord- und südeuropäische Länder werden unter einem vergleichenden Gesichtspunkt dargestellt. Einige der Unterschiede zwischen europäischen Ländern beim Zusammenspiel von Kontroll- und Integrationspolitiken werden im Hinblick auf Transnationalismus und den Aufbau einer europäischen Identität analysiert. ❖❖❖

* Professor of Sociology, Department of Sociology, Autonomous University of Barcelona TRANSFER 3/03

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Introduction In Spain, immigration policies considered as public policies, in other words as government action programmes together with the actions and measures that are implemented in society as a consequence of them, follow two clear directions: the control of immigrants on the one hand, and their integration on the other. This article concentrates on economic immigrants from countries outside the European Union rather than non-economic immigrants from within the EU (people retiring abroad or moving abroad for lifestyle reasons, etc). The article also adopts the distinction drawn by Reyneri (1994) between legal and illegal immigrants on the basis of whether or not they have entered the country legally and are legal residents, and between regular and irregular immigrants on the basis of whether or not they work in the formal sector of the economy. Policies aimed at controlling immigration are understood to be preventive and repressive public actions at state, regional or municipal level. Policies aimed at integration are social policies which in western European societies are closely linked to the welfare state. These involve sectoral actions (labour policy, public health, social welfare, housing, etc) and their ultimate goal is to integrate the human and cultural elements of immigration with those of the host society in order to maintain social cohesion and prevent conflict from the ethnocentric and insiderist perspective of the host society (Solé 1981: 14-16). Policies aimed at control can be divided into two main types: policing policies, i.e. border control policy, and policies aimed at legalising or controlling illegal and/or irregular immigrants. Integration policies are much less developed in the countries of the European Union, including Spain. They are geared towards helping immigrants find work in the host country’s labour market and within its occupational structure, and they use grass-roots organisations as an intermediate system for representing immigrants’ interests in order to promote and, up to a point, ensure their inclusion in participative and political institutions. Social immigration policies aimed at integration are designed to avoid the exclusion of particular social groups.

Immigration in Europe Migration is a historical phenomenon, and throughout history population movements have been driven by the desire of human beings to have a good or better life. Nevertheless, in today’s world such movements are more transnational and global than ever before (Pries 1999). Networks comprising several different countries form units of production and redistribution on a worldwide scale and in real time (Castells 1997). At the same time this causes suspicion, uncertainty and indeed outright rejection on the part of the people living in these countries. The phenomenon, which is linked with conflict, and, in public opinion, with crime, both globally and nationally, is causing concern among the governments of many Western countries. The ‘negative’ impact of immigration on the host societies is magnified by its coverage in the media, and this, together with the institutional framework and actual circumstances in these countries, reinforces the subordination of immigrants in the labour market and their social exclusion (Solé et al. 2001). 402

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It is possible to draw a distinction between European countries which are traditional destinations for immigrants and countries where the phenomenon is more recent. This distinction is based not only on differences in the point or period in history at which immigration flows have taken place, but also on the different patterns with regard to the numbers, type and country of origin of the immigrants, the way in which they settle in the host country, their sociocultural integration and the extent of their political participation. In general, the traditional immigrant destinations are the countries of northern Europe where workers and refugees from southern Europe and from war zones have been arriving for more than 50 years. The more recent immigrant destinations are the countries of southern Europe which 50 years ago were exporters of labour but have recently turned into a destination for economic migrants. Keeping in mind the semantic and conceptual distinction made by both scholars and public opinion between immigrants (defined in terms of their ethnic group and country of origin, invisible to the local population, and equated with people who are poor and not from the West) and foreigners (who share the same race and culture as the local population and are equated with Westerners), both the traditional and the more recent forms of immigration are opposed for two connected but distinct social reasons: the economic and the political (Criado 2001: 16). As far as the economic rationale is concerned, the scarcity of resources, especially jobs and welfare benefits, means that people are anxious to keep down the demand for these resources. The more competition there is with immigrants for jobs or social services, the more this is the case. It is for this reason that the social groups most vehemently opposed to immigration are the groups which are most directly affected by it in a polarised and segmented labour market (Solé and Parella 2001: 43) and the groups which are least integrated in sociocultural terms. As for the political rationale, in addition to the economic threat posed by immigration, it is important to take into account what it means to be an alien and not to be a citizen of the host country at a symbolic level and in terms of identity (Criado 2001:19).

Economic and political migration Migration flows began to increase after World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a rise both in the flows within European countries and in immigration from former colonies (Algerians migrating to France, Indonesians to the Netherlands and Indians and Pakistanis to Britain, etc). Since the 1980s we have also increasingly seen immigration into the European Union from non-EU countries. In this context, a distinction can be drawn between countries which have received a constant flow of economic and political migrants from southern Europe and war zones since the end of World War II (Germany, France, the UK, Scandinavia and the Netherlands) and southern European countries such as Spain, Italy and Greece, which have gone from being exporters of labour to destinations for immigrants. Portugal is a special case, since it is both a source of immigrants to northern Europe and a destination for immigrants from its former colonies. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the South-North immigration flows from North and West Africa have been supplemented by flows from eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union and its political catchment area. While much of the migration has been from eastern Europe to Germany, TRANSFER 3/03

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other destinations include Austria, Scandinavia and central European countries with emerging economies such as Poland and the Czech Republic. Over the last 12 years, more or less, the ease with which it is possible to leave and re-enter many parts of central Europe has led to circular flows through countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Russia of migrants seeking to earn a living as street traders, itinerant salesmen or beggars (Sassen 1999: 113-177; see also Tonnelli, in this issue). In the 1980s it was relatively easy to distinguish between economic and political migrants in terms of the countries they migrated to and the period during which they did so. Southern Europeans looking for work migrated to countries at the heart of Europe (Germany, France, the UK), whereas Scandinavia was the preferred destination for political refugees or asylumseekers from countries outside what was then the European Economic Community and later became the European Union. However, this distinction is no longer so clear-cut. Economic migrants from outside the European Union are now heading for countries in every part of Europe, irrespective of whether they are in the North, Centre or South. In some countries such as Germany, controls have recently been introduced on the numbers of political immigrants (asylum-seekers) since in many cases requests for asylum in fact disguise what is in reality economic migration. This fact is particularly significant with regard to immigrant employment. While in the 1980s immigrants were thought of as people in transit or ‘guest workers’ (Gastarbeiter), at the start of the new millennium they are seen as potentially permanent residents who intend to enter the host society’s job market for life. This has an impact on the continuity of illegal and irregular immigration. Unlike the traditional immigrant destinations, the migrant flows in countries which have only recently become destinations consist mainly of people without residence or work permits since these can only be obtained once an immigrant has entered the country as a result of frequent legislative initiatives (regularisation initiatives) and ad hoc measures. Huge numbers of this type of immigrant entered Italy in the 1970s, Spain in the 1980s and Greece and Portugal in the 1990s. Bureaucratic inefficiency and a lack of experience with the phenomenon of immigration make it impossible to come up with a realistic figure for the total number of immigrants. Accurate figures are only available for legal immigrants, since new permits are slow to be recorded and in many cases permits which have expired are not removed from the official records. There is also a lack of reliable statistics on the number of deportations of immigrants arrested by the police which have actually been carried out in practice, and on the numbers returned to their country of origin. Furthermore, the statistics do not distinguish between new permits and renewals. Finally, as Baganha and Reyneri point out, ‘ ... in the countries which have only recently become immigrant destinations, workforce surveys are currently of little use, since they only take account of households registered with the local authorities and hence they only cover the few immigrants who are already registered together with their wives and children, while failing to record immigrants who have come to the country on their own and are not registered, even if they have a valid residence permit’ (Baganha and Reyneri 2001: 57-59). Nevertheless, it is possible to estimate the real numbers on the basis of regional and local surveys and qualitative data on the settlements where the majority of immigrants live. 404

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Immigrant settlements are unevenly distributed throughout the countries of southern Europe. Notwithstanding these differences between countries, there are clear similarities between Italy and Greece with regard to the massive influx of Albanians and women from the Philippines in the 1990s, and between Italy and Spain in the case of North African women who migrate to these countries on their own for similar reasons. In Italy and Spain there are a large number of temporary immigrants the majority of whom have migrated with the intention of sending as much money as possible back to their country of origin as soon as they possibly can. There is also a minority of young people who want to live in a less repressive and more modern society, i.e. who are attracted to the Western lifestyle. However, Italy and Spain differ in terms of the percentage of total immigrant numbers coming from North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. In Spain, for example, the proportion of Moroccans is lower than in Italy, and the vast majority are joined by their families once they have settled in Spain. In southern European countries such as Portugal, Italy and Greece, it is highly likely that refugees and asylum-seekers who initially arrive because they are fleeing a war in their country of origin will later turn into economic migrants. As a rule, migration flows into the countries of southern Europe are characterised by being motivated by the economic, social and cultural pull factors advertised through different communication channels, from migration chains to the media. In the case of economic migration, the decision to emigrate is influenced by the image that the immigrants have of the host society, irrespective of whether or not this image is based on fact (Baganha and Reyneri 2001: 105-106).

Job market structure and the informal economy Certain aspects of the structure of the job market in terms of economic sectors and activities are different in traditional European immigrant destinations compared with countries where immigration is a more recent phenomenon. Industrialisation began later in southern Europe than in central and northern Europe and never took root so deeply or spread as widely. The percentage of jobs and people employed in industry is lower, and industrial development did not last for as long. At the same time there has been a decline in the number of people employed in agriculture in southern Europe, whereas in central and northern Europe the percentage of the working population employed in agriculture has remained constant at around 4% for several years, particularly in France. This explains why in the 1990s the service sector grew more rapidly in southern Europe than in the rest of the European Union (Bagahna and Reyneri 2001: 132-134). There are also differences between traditional and more recent immigration destinations in terms of the relationship between employment and social policies aimed at combating exclusion (Rodríguez Cabrero 2002: 115-121). In accordance with the classic model of welfare state regimes described by Esping-Andersen (1990), there are three distinct regimes in the traditional European immigrant destinations: 1) the liberal Anglo-Saxon model (United Kingdom and Ireland), 2) the social democratic or Scandinavian model (Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands) and 3) the corporatist continental model (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg). These regimes differ from what could be described as the TRANSFER 3/03

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fourth or Mediterranean regime which is found in the more recent immigrant destinations in southern Europe (see Parella, in this issue). In these countries, the welfare systems are less developed, although this has started to change since the 1990s, and employment policy is not very active. The institution of the family plays an important role by providing economic and social support in the absence of comprehensive welfare policy measures. With the exception of Portugal, which receives immigrants from African countries where Portuguese is the official language, immigrants are faced with the risk, known to them before they migrate, of repeatedly finding themselves in an illegal situation, either on entering the host country or if they decide to stay there. While in Portugal many immigrants have relations or friends in the host society, this is much less likely to be the case for people migrating to Spain, Italy or Greece which have not been immigrant destinations for as long as Portugal. The risk of becoming an illegal immigrant in these countries is therefore higher, and this has clear repercussions concerning immigrants’ chances of finding a regular job, since none of the recent immigrant destinations allow immigrants to work in the regular labour market as an employee or to be officially registered as self-employed unless they have a residence permit. Furthermore, residence permits are only temporary and need to be renewed periodically in order for the immigrant to be allowed to continue to live and work legally in the host country. Renewal is not automatic and a new permit is only granted if the immigrants have a regular job or can prove that they have a monthly income high enough to support themselves and their family, if they have brought their family with them. Only in exceptional cases are residence permits granted on humanitarian grounds. Even so, having a residence permit is no guarantee that the immigrant will be able to find a regular job. All too often, they are forced to work irregularly despite the fact that they are legally resident in the host country, and they can find themselves repeatedly going backwards and forwards between regular and irregular employment (Baganha and Reyneri 2001: 114-115; see also Calavita, in this issue). Various kinds of political measures have been taken by European countries in response to the phenomenon of illegal immigration: 1) border control measures including deportation of illegal immigrants to their country of origin after they have been arrested, 2) ordinary or special measures to regularise illegal immigrants who meet certain conditions and requirements, 3) imposing penalties on businesses which employ immigrants in the informal sector (Sassen 1999: 104). The difference between traditional and more recent immigrant destinations as far as illegal immigrant numbers are concerned can be put down to the continued existence of a significant informal sector in the more recent destinations, which attracts workers who are prepared to work for any wage and under abominable conditions. Labour market regulation and the minimum level of working conditions considered acceptable by the local population have led to immigrants being employed in labour-intensive sectors where semi-skilled or unskilled workers tend to be employed (textiles, clothing, building, domestic service, etc). The informal sector is particularly attractive to immigrants in economies where unemployment is high. This is especially true of Spain and Italy, where unemployment is relatively high compared to the European average and the traditional immigrant destinations, but also of other countries such as Germany and Portugal, where unemployment is slightly higher than the European average. Disparities in terms of gender and age vary from one country to 406

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another in line with a country’s ability to create jobs. Unemployment has risen in recent years in both traditional and more recent immigrant destinations, but this does not mean that the local populations are competing with immigrants for jobs. Many local job-seekers are either young people who are able to look for well-paid, skilled work, housewives who can count on the financial support of their husband or the head of their family to pay the bills, or people on state unemployment benefit. Consequently, the overall level of unemployment in a country cannot be taken as an indication of whether or not there is competition for jobs between locals and immigrants (Reyneri 1994: 2-7). Some economists (Gual 2001) have proposed the neoliberal argument that the labour shortage in certain sectors is in fact caused by economic regulation and the institutions of the welfare state. According to them, this is demonstrated by the apparent paradox of high unemployment among local workers being accompanied by a labour shortage in some segments of the labour market. The argument is that those people who are able to claim welfare benefits have no incentive to compete by offering their services on the labour market, since it is easier and pays better simply to live off unemployment benefit. Government intervention in the labour market prevents supply from matching increased demand in sectors where there is a shortage of labour, causing the cost of labour (wages) to rise. This is what causes immigrant workers from outside the EU to be recruited. According to Gual, the shortage of labour and correspondingly higher labour costs can be expected to lead to a lack of competitiveness in low-tech sectors where unit labour costs are more important, such as the various subsectors of the clothing industry, agriculture, etc. This in turn can lead to a change in the structure of a country’s economy, with a move away from labour-intensive sectors where developing countries can be expected to become gradually more competitive in the future. This indirect effect is more pronounced when illegal immigrants are involved and the workers from outside the EU are employed under irregular conditions. This is the case in certain southern European countries such as Italy and Spain where there is a large informal economy which attracts workers from outside the EU who are often unable immediately to get a residence permit and a regular job in the host society (Solé et al. 2001). This has the effect of tending to make labour-intensive sectors even more competitive in these countries, when in fact these sectors should be prospering in the countries or regions that the immigrants originate from (Gual 2001: 30). Seen in this way, one paradoxical effect of labour market inflexibility and excessive state welfare protection is to favour emigration from poor regions to rich regions, at the expense of the endogenous development of labour-intensive sectors in regions from which the migrants originate. Consequently, an immigration policy which has the fundamental aim of integrating immigrants into a modern industrial society should be accompanied by a trade policy which provides for investment in the immigrants’ countries of origin.

Political participation The final differences between the traditional and more recent immigrant destinations are access to the welfare state and to employment, as well as political participation in terms of the right to vote in local elections and immigrants’ ability to obtain citizenship. The idea that TRANSFER 3/03

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immigration poses a threat to the welfare state (Geddes 2000: 152-153) could be countered with the argument that it actually contributes to a society’s ability to maintain welfare benefit levels in the future, once the immigrants have been integrated into the labour market. This view leads to the conclusion that it is necessary for immigrants to participate in the political decisions which affect them in the shape of legislation. There are differences between traditional and more recent immigrant destinations with regard to these issues too. Despite national differences and their different political and cultural histories, in the 1990s countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands saw a shift from immigration control policies towards policies aimed at integration, with the development of social policies in fields such as education, health, housing and town planning. They made it easier for resident immigrants to obtain citizenship and gave them the same basic rights as the local population in areas such as employment, health and education. In some traditional immigrant destinations such as Sweden, immigrants’ political rights are also recognised (the right of association, the right of assembly, the right to demonstrate and the right to vote in local elections). In contrast, the more recent immigrant destinations continue to pursue immigration control policies over and above policies aimed at integration. Furthermore, basic integration measures are only offered to legal immigrants, whereas illegal immigrants only have discretionary access to basic rights such as healthcare and education. Given the current lack of a single EU policy providing for political participation for immigrants and thus recognising their status as permanent residents or denizens (Hammar 1990) rather than purely as workers, the combination of the different historical traditions of Europe’s nation states gives rise to: 1) ‘communitarist’ policies such as those in the Netherlands, which promote immigrants’ political participation via recognition of the various ethno-cultural communities, leading to the development of an ethnic minorities policy which can paradoxically lead to actions which promote segregation and which consequently work against effective integration, 2) ‘compartmentalised inclusion’ policies as seen in Germany, where the welfare state guarantees coverage of immigrants’ material needs such as employment and housing, and immigrants are able to achieve a temporary status as permanent residents, and 3) assimilation (as opposed to integration)1 policies such as those in France, where rights are granted on an individual basis and there is no recognition of the very real discrimination suffered by immigrant groups, particularly illegal immigrants, i.e. those without residence or work permits (Aubarell 2001: 45-46). So much for the situation in some of the traditional immigrant destinations. In the more recent destinations, it is not currently possible to speak of policies aimed at promoting political participation, since the first halting steps towards a process for achieving political participation for immigrants have been the result of individual, private initiatives taken by mixed associations, ethnic organisations, NGOs, etc. As far as the institutions are concerned, immigrants are not allowed to vote in local elections. 1 By assimilation I mean the complete assumption by immigrants of values, norms, practices, etc. of the host society; by integration, I refer to the interplay and interdependence of autochthonous and immigrants’ values, norms, practices, etc., forming a new social structure and culture. The process of integration is sociocultural and has four levels: insertion in the labour market and occupational structure; residency in the receiving society; acceptance and interchange of cultures; and political participation through voting and ethnic and mixed associations (Solé, C. et al. (2002)

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In Spain, the first law regulating the rights and duties of foreigners was the 1985 Aliens Act. This Act created a vicious circle which was in no way broken by the two subsequent pieces of legislation: Organic Law 4/2000, for which the Implementing Regulation was never passed, and its amendment Organic Law 8/2000 which came into force on 23 January 2001 after the Popular Party’s comprehensive election victory in March 2000 and for which the draft Implementing Regulation was put before Parliament in mid-February 2001. The vicious circle in which immigrants are trapped arises from the fact that employment contracts, work permits and residence permits are all mutually dependent, in other words immigration policy only treats immigrants as a source of labour. They cannot obtain a residence permit if they do not have a work permit, and they cannot obtain a work permit unless they have a residence permit. The result is that the vast majority of immigrants from outside the EU end up in irregular forms of employment, since they can only find work in the informal sector and employers do not wish to give them proper contracts. Furthermore, while the reform is in line with Law 4/2000 of 22 December 1999 in that it seeks to achieve effective integration of immigrants by granting a wide range of rights to people who have lived and worked in Spain for several years, the amendment, despite being called the Organic Law on the Rights and Freedoms of Foreigners and their Social Inclusion, actually only grants these rights to legal immigrants. For example, only foreign residents have the right to non-compulsory education on the same terms as Spanish nationals, and the amended law does not grant everyone personal rights such as the right of assembly, the right of association, the right to legal aid and the right to court protection against discrimination. In addition, it makes it harder to obtain a residence permit by raising the minimum period the immigrant must have lived in Spain from two to five years, and it only allows the holder of a residence permit to be joined in Spain by family members who are economically dependent on him or her. The emphasis of the new legislation is on border control and increased penalties designed to get rid of organised criminal groups responsible for trafficking in human beings. Thus, rather than promoting integration, it actually introduces new obstacles to the entry of immigrants into Spain, an approach which is totally ineffective as has been demonstrated by the constant stream of people from Africa, Asia and Latin America who have been entering the country in recent months.

Immigration control and integration policies in Europe There is no single, all-encompassing definition of integration, nor is there a single universal integration model or ideal mechanism for achieving integration (such as obtaining citizenship) which can be applied to all the countries of Europe. Consequently it is currently all but impossible to develop a single integration policy at European level. Despite the political reality of the European Union, the legislation arising from the various Treaties and Agreements (Maastricht (1992), Schengen (1985), Amsterdam (1997) and Nice (2003)), and the European Councils dealing with the issue (Tampere 1999), there is still no consensus concerning a single European integration policy. This is largely due to the fact that the nation state continues to be regarded as the most important political level, both by governments TRANSFER 3/03

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when they are taking decisions on common issues and by the citizens of Europe, who identify more closely with their own nation state than with Europe as a supranational entity. The result is that legislation and government strategy and policies vary from one European country to another in keeping with each country’s geopolitical context, degree of economic development, history as a host society for immigrants, etc. This is why the distinctions between the countries of northern Europe (traditional immigrant destinations with economies that drive the European economy) and southern Europe (traditional exporters of migrants with economies which are lagging behind those of the North) are still valid and continue to be used on a regular basis. National legislation concerning immigration (as opposed to a common EU immigration and asylum policy) can be rendered inneffective by the existence of the 1985 Schengen Agreement which guarantees free movement of people within the EU. The countries that form the EU’s border are forced to act as Europe’s border police by preventing the entry of non-Europeans or immigrants from outside the EU. On the one hand, a Fortress Europe has developed in the face of the ‘invasion’ of foreigners and immigrants from outside the EU, while on the other hand these immigrants are needed to do jobs which are essential for the economy to continue to function normally, and for which there is a labour shortage or which local workers are not interested in doing because they have very high standards concerning what sort of employment they are prepared to accept (Cachón 1995). Until about 1999, immigration control policies were more important to many European governments than integration policies. Furthermore, since the middle of 2002, immigration control policies have once again been tightened in countries which have had relatively relaxed asylum and refugee policies such as Scandinavia and Germany. This change in trend is particularly evident in traditional immigrant destinations such as Germany, the UK, France and the Netherlands, despite national differences and the different political and cultural histories of these countries. In spite of the possible negative effects or distorsions caused by inflexible labour markets and the welfare state in Europe, efforts are being made to try and reduce the tension between the need for migrant workers in order to meet the demands of the market, and the need to integrate these workers into the host society. On the one hand, many small and medium-sized enterprises in sectors in which local workers do not want to work only manage to survive thanks to immigrants. In this respect, immigration helps to make the labour market more flexible. On the other hand, the presence of immigrants in these businesses, living locally and with their children attending local schools, leads to the xenophobic attitudes, racist behaviour and problems with integration which have been experienced by various European countries. European countries’ integration policies are gradually beginning to converge in some respects, either as a result of the pressure that the process of European union has brought to bear on the Member States to bring their immigration policies into line with each other, or because the Member States’ governments have adopted more liberal policies. There are signs of greater efforts to address the situation of non-EU immigrants who are resident in the European Union which go beyond simply focusing on their role as a source of labour and their contribution to the host country’s economy. There is a shared desire to base immigration policy on external border controls and restricting applications for asylum, as 410

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well as tackling the issue of immigrants who are employed without work permits. On the whole, all countries also recognise the right of immigrants to take up permanent residence in the host society and to be joined by their families. This means that there is no longer the assumption that immigrants are guest workers or Gastarbeiter who will definitely return to their country of origin at some point. Several decades of empirical evidence in traditional immigrant destinations such as Germany and France have led to the acceptance of the fact that fluctuations in the demand for labour do not influence either the return of immigrants to their country of origin or the numbers of immigrants entering the host country. Thus, even when there is a recession such as in 19731974, and jobs become scarcer, immigrants do not leave, but rather continue to enter Europe either legally or illegally. This phenomenon can be attributed to the existence of migration networks rather than the push-pull theory. Attempts have been made to tackle the situation by introducing entry quotas in line with the requirements of certain sectors of the economy. For example, rules may be introduced according to which immigrants wishing to enter economically developed countries may be required to possess IT qualifications or have other specialist skills in order to obtain a work permit, as happened in Germany in the spring of 2001. These quotas are accompanied by measures to limit the numbers of immigrants entering the country overall, leading to an increase in irregular workers. In other cases, such as France, at the end of the 1990s measures of this type were complemented by joint development programmes which offered immigrants incentives to return to their country of origin and invest in its financial and human resources. When immigrants are joined in the host society by their families, this has major consequences in terms of housing needs and conditions, the ghettoisation of districts inhabited by large numbers of immigrants, and healthcare and education requirements. In the medium term, this leads to the problem of competition between locals and immigrants for the resources of the welfare state, as well as problems relating to spatial, linguistic, cultural and social integration. This has led to a number of housing schemes in the bigger cities in the UK, France and the Netherlands. In the UK, where the majority of immigrants come from the Commonwealth, integration is not a question of legalising their status but rather of adding cultural and symbolic meaning to their citizenship. Among the measures introduced in the UK are Urban Programmes which are aimed at inner-city dwellers and which have had an indirect effect on the spatial integration of immigrants and on the development of social policies targeting immigrant children of school age and large families (Mahnig and Wimmer 2000: 66). In France, integration policy has concentrated on housing and the social and urban development of local neighbourhoods, and a policy of social housing dispersal has been implemented to combat the proliferation of deprived districts with a mainly immigrant population. In both France and Germany, special grants are provided for school catchment areas where the average performance of all students is brought down because of immigrant students’ lack of familiarity with the language and because the curriculum’s design fails to take into account the long-term presence of these children at local schools. Fear of the emergence of urban ghettos and the gradual acceptance during the 1990s that Germany is a multicultural society and immigrant destination led to the simultaneous introduction of legal restrictions on asylum and measures to make it easier for resident TRANSFER 3/03

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immigrants to obtain German citizenship. Unlike in France, where the republican tradition places the indivdual above the collective, in the Netherlands independent immigrant organisations played a major role in the development of policies aimed at combating social discrimination against ethnic minorities. This led to an improvement in the legal position of immigrants – they were allowed to become civil servants, the rules governing access to citizenship were made more flexible, and they were granted the right to vote in local elections if they had lived in the country for more than five years. After this integration policy was implemented during the 1980s, the high level of unemployment among immigrants and the lack of incentives for them to try and improve their situation by themselves led to it being amended to create a new policy which concentrates on education and vocational training for ethnic minorities (Mahnig and Wimmer 2000: 70-82). As far as basic rights are concerned (in the fields of employment, healthcare and education), immigrants enjoy the same rights as locals or nationals in Germany, France, the UK and Sweden. They also enjoy political rights such as the right of association, the right of assembly, the right to demonstrate, etc in both Germany and Sweden. The right to vote in local and national elections is only enjoyed by immigrants from other EU countries, except in Sweden where since 1975 foreigners who have been resident in the country for a minimum of three years have the right to vote and stand as candidates in municipal and provincial elections, although not in general elections. In the UK, associations providing protection and assistance to immigrants are their most important form of participation. In more recent immigrant destinations such as Greece, Italy and Spain, immigration control policies have played a more important role than integration policies. During the 1990s, the government approach concentrated on controlling illegal immigration and promoting the integration of immigrants who were living and working legally in these countries. Just like their northern European neighbours, their aim was to allow in enough legal immigrants to meet the needs of the labour market while coordinating integration policies in order to take into account the cultural diversity of both the European host societies and the countries of origin of nonEU immigrants. The same basic rights as the local population are available to immigrants in southern Europe in the fields of employment, healthcare and education, but only if they are legal immigrants. Illegal immigrants, on the other hand, only have discretionary access to these rights either in emergencies or as a favour from people working in the social services. The cultural diversity arising from the different histories and traditions of the societies of northern and southern Europe is manifested in the field of immigration in the different approaches to tackling the political integration of immigrants through citizenship. The legal principles of ius soli and ius sanguinis and, in the case of some of Europe’s former colonial powers, the principle of whether or not an immigrant comes from a former colony, are currently being applied less strictly and often in combination with each other. Thus, in Germany, where the principle of ius sanguinis was traditionally used as the basis for granting citizenship, new legislation came into force in 2000 which combines this principle with the principle of ius soli. In the UK, the distinction between Commonwealth citizens and other non-national foreigners is disappearing and measures are being adopted which apply to all foreign residents. In other countries such as Sweden, the ius soli principle is used as the basis 412

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for granting citizenship, while recognition of the ethnic and cultural diversity of immigrants and their readiness to accept the host society’s way of doing things both socially and politically are also taken into account. Thus, some Scandinavian countries have granted immigrants the right to vote in municipal elections (Sweden since 1975, Norway, Denmark and also the Netherlands since the end of the 1980s) (Pajares 2001). One aspect common to the majority of EU countries is that second generation immigrants have the right to citizenship while at the same time the conditions that have to be met by first generation immigrants are being made less stringent (Aubarell 2001: 45). As far as the transnational aspect of immigration is concerned, there are two main ways in which migrants stay in touch with the people and institutions in their countries of origin: sending money (or occasionally goods) from the host society to their country of origin, and family and community ties as well as ties with the traditions of places outside the nation state to which they have migrated. Permanent links in time and space are created, something which has been made easier since the 1990s thanks to the development of new communications technologies and as a result of the changing economic and political situation in recent years in both countries that export immigrants and the countries that receive them. Among the consequences of this are repercussions for a) the ability of (im)migrants to organise politically, b) the positive perception of emigration in the countries of origin, c) the real impact that sending money has on the local economies and labour markets (Vertovec 2001: 574). As far as this last aspect is concerned, we know that the subsistence of families in many developing countries is heavily dependent on the money and goods sent by their emigrant populations. In the medium term, this economic effect of migration could result in a restructuring of gender relations, a demand for more vocational training and education, the improvement of healthcare systems, etc. In addition to this purely economic kind of transnational link, it is also important to take into account sociocultural links which mainly concentrate on maintaining immigrants’ original identity and building a collective identity (which is very often ethnic in nature) in the host country. The political impact of transnationalism is particularly relevant to the issue of belonging to a group and citizenship. The reality of global migration flows and networks that transcend the borders of the host countries is calling into question the role of the nation state as a closed unit or space within which economic, social and political processes take place (see Pries, in this issue). In the age of globalisation, immigrants are undermining the foundations of the nation state as a political unit (Beck 1999). This suggests the need to redefine citizenship as having multiple levels, i.e. belonging to several superimposed compatible political communities (Bauböck 2002), both in terms of the rights and duties of immigrants as citizens or permanent residents and with regard to the relationship between citizenship and collective identity, or as a tool that can be used to achieve the sociocultural integration of immigrants into a given society (Solé 2002). The key issue continues to be the connection between the existence of transnational migrants and the concept of citizenship that has existed until the present day as meaning belonging to a nation state – in other words the connection between multiple levels of belonging and the strategies of immigrants (and their families) to achieve integration in a specific geopolitical space. Translation from the Spanish by Joaquín Blasco TRANSFER 3/03

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References Aubarell, G. (2001) ‘Polítiques d'integració a Europa: Tendències i plantejaments’, Ambits de Política i Societat, 18. Baganha, M. and E. Reyneri (2001) ‘La inmigración en los países del sur de Europa y su inserción en la economía informal, in C. Solé (coord.) El impacto de la inmigración en la economía y en la sociedad receptora, Barcelona: Ed. Anthropos. Bauböck, R. (2002) ‘Political community beyond the sovereign state: supranational federalism and transnational minorities’, in R. Cohen and S. Vertovec (eds.) Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context and Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Beck, U. (1999) ¿Qué es la globalización?, Barcelona: Ed. Piados. Cachón, L. (1995) ‘Marco institucional de la discriminación y tipos de inmigrantes en el mercado de trabajo en España’, Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 69. Castells, M. (1997) La era de la información, vol.1: La sociedad red, Madrid: Alianza Ed. Cohen, R. and S. Vertovec (eds.) (2002) Conceiving Cosmopolitanism: Theory, Context and Practice, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Criado, Mª. J. (2001) La línea quebrada. Historias de vida de migrantes, Madrid: Consejo Económico y Social. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990) The Three Worlds of Welfare State, Cambridge: Polity Press and New Jersey: Princeton University Press. Geddes, A. (2000) Immigration and European integration. Towards fortress Europe?, Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press. Gual, J. (2001) ‘Demografía, mercat de treball i immigració a Europa: després de l’ Euro, què?’, Jornada dels Economistes, Col.legi dels Economistes de Catalunya, Barcelona. Hammar, T. (1990) Democracy and the Nation-State: Aliens, Denizens and Citizens in a World of International Migration, Avebury: Aldershot. Mahning, H. and A. Wimmer (2000) ‘¿Especificidad o convergencia? Una tipología de políticas de inmigración en Europa Occidental’, Migraciones, 8. Oswald, G. (2000) Race and Ethnic Relations in Today’s America, Aldershot: Ashgate. Pajares, M. (2001) Inmigración y ciudadanía en Europa, Madrid: Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs. Pries, R. (1999) Migration and Transnational Social Spaces, Brookfield, USA, Singapore, Sydney: Ashgate. Reyneri, E. (1994) ‘A comparative analysis of the unemployment patterns in European countries’ in E. Gallie (ed.) Process of detachment from the labour market. Final report of the unemployment network, Oxford: Nuffield College. Rodríguez Cabrero, G. (2002) ‘Exclusión social y desigualdad. Debates y políticas en el contexto de la UE’, in J. F. Tezanos (ed.) Clase, estatus y poder en las sociedades emergentes, Madrid: Editorial Sistema. Sagarra, E. (2003) ‘Entrada en vigor del Tratado de Niza’, Dret i Societat. Sassen, S. (1999) Guests and Aliens, New York: The New Press. Solé, C. (1981) La integración sociocultural de los inmigrantes en Cataluña, Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas. 414

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Solé, C. (2001) ‘Ciudadanía y racismo’ in VVAA. Estructura y cambio social, Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas. Solé, C. (ed.) (2001) El impacto de la inmigración en la economía y en la sociedad receptora, Barcelona: Ed. Anthropos. Solé, C. and S. Parella (2001) ‘La inserción de los inmigrantes en el mercado de trabajo. El caso español’ in C. Solé (coord.) (2001) El impacto de la inmigración en la economía y en la sociedad receptora, Barcelona: Ed. Anthropos. Sole, C. et al. (2002) ‘El concepto de integracion en la sociologia de las migraciones’, Migraciones, 12, Madrid. Tezanos, J. F. (ed.) (2002) Clase, estatus y poder en las sociedades emergentes, Madrid: Editorial Sistema. VVAA. (2001) Estructura y cambio social, Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas. Vertovec, S. (2001) ‘Transnationalism and identity’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 27 (4).

Flexicurity (Coordinated by Maria Jepsen, Ute Klammer, Pascale Vieille and Pierre Walthery)

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