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Migration from Eastern Europe to the European Union in the context of visa policyWarsaw, January 26th, 2010While visa-free entry for nationals of Eastern EU neighbours had long been thought of as unrealistic, it has recently turned into an official goal of the European Union’s long-term strategy. However there are still strong opponents to the idea . One of the fears associated with visa-free movement is increased inflow of migrants from Eastern Neighbourhood countries. Are there fundamental grounds for such concerns? How can current migration from Eastern Europe to the EU be characterized? These were issues approached during the meeting. In seminar took part: Introduction: Olga Wasilewska (Stefan Batory Foundation) Session 1. Characteristics of migration from Eastern Europe to the EU. Izabela Grabowska-Lusińska (Center of Migration Research, University of Warsaw), presentation: 15 minutes [MP3 8 MB] Session 2. What kind of impact might the visa waving have on migration from Eastern European countries to the EU? Paweł Kaczmarczyk (Center for Migration Research, University of Warsaw), presentation: 25 minutes [MP3 8 MB] Report from the meetingIn the opening speech Izabela Grabowska-Lusińska speculated to what extent the “new” Member States of the EU (Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary) are attractive for migrants from Eastern Europe and why they could potentially be perceived as final destination countries. According to Grabowska-Lusińska the transformation of systems in these countries favours migration inflows, particularly because of the noticeable shortage of workers in some sectors of the economy (e.g. seasonal agricultural workers or construction workers). Thus, a so-called dual labour market is established, which happens to be typical for developed countries. The greatest need for migrant work, occurs in the secondary sector of the economy. More often local employees do not want to perform jobs connected with this sector due to their poor stability and lack of appropriate employee benefits. Grabowska-Lusińska pointed out that each of the mentioned countries implements a different migration policy, which consequently impacts the character of migration streams and their patterns. As far as the scale of registered migration is concerned, in the case of Poland it is incomparably lower than in the Czech Republic or Hungary. Little above 15,000 work permits are given to migrants in Poland each year, meaning that the percentage of migrant employment in reference to whole national economy calculates to 1% – which is in the margin of statistical error – in the Czech Republic this figure is roughly 5.7%. Furthermore, Grabowska-Lusińska mentioned that despite this fact, the actual presence of unregistered migrants within the Polish labour market is far greater and oscillates, according to estimates, between 50,000 and 300,000 people. The characteristics of migration in those countries is also different: “in the Czech Republic there are mostly long-term migrants, settlers who want to live and work (…) however in Poland more common are short-term migrants” commuting between their country of citizenship and their place of employment abroad. Grabowska-Lusińska stated that this short-term, circular migration “will not turn Poland into an immigration state in the traditional sense.” Only in the case of the Czech Republic it can be said that it is a state of early immigration, whereas Hungary is in the early stage of becoming an immigration country. As far as Poland is concerned the key question is: if the categories used for describing an immigration country are suitable for Polish reality. According to Grabowska-Lusińska – not entirely. While characterizing the migration inflows to the Mediterranean countries (Spain and Italy) Claudia Finotelli reiterated that illegal migration from North Africa was what these countries had feared for a long time. Indeed, these fears turned out to be valid to some extent but not to the degree assumed due to carried migration policy which included the tightening up of the visa requirements. According to Finotelli, the increasing migration from South Eastern Europe also had an impact on the lower number of migrants from North Africa. In 1992 migrants from Africa were the largest migrant group living in Italy. This tendency was expected to last in the following years, but the statistics for 2007 showed that African immigrants in Italy make up merely 25% of foreigners, while almost 50% are migrants from South Eastern Europe (mostly Albania, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine). During this period (1992-2007) the number of all foreigners in Italy has increased five fold. The situation in Spain is slightly different, statistics for 1996 showed that most of the inhabitant foreigners were of European origin. This state of affairs is presently still relevant – 42% of foreigners living in Spain come from European countries (statistics for 2007). However, during this period the number of all foreigners in Spain has increased eight fold, the most noticeable increase is amongst the Ukrainian and Romanian community. Finotelli said that the growth of Romanian immigrants has been observed since the middle of 2002, which corresponds with the period since Romania received visa-free movement to the EU. On the other hand members of the audience pointed out that although for the Ukraine visas were still obligatory, the growth of Ukrainian migration was comparable to that of the Romanian level. Therefore it was suggested that this change is an effect of Spanish migration policy and economic growth over the last few years, which resulted in a higher demand for manpower, particularly in sectors such as the construction industry. Finotelli stated that the migration intensity of Ukrainian nationals to Spain and Italy could be a result of the characteristically liberal German visa policy during 2001-2004 and the similar policies applied by the “new” member states which joined the European Union in 2004. She admitted however, that this is only one of the many factors which influences migration. Moreover, statistics show a decrease of Latin American migrants, which may be connected with the introducing of a visa regime for Ecuador, Columbia and Bolivia. Claudia Finotelli summarised her speech by drawing attention to the fact that the EU is torn: “On the one hand we deal with a strict visa policy,” she noticed, “on the other hand we have a declared vision of an open society, necessity of EU enlargement as well as a real need of a workforce, which is often of shortage inside the European Union.” Olena Malynovska started her speech with a reminiscence of the recent 20th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Although this event marked for many people the end of a divided Europe, for Ukraine this divide still exists in everyday life. However, Malynovska claimed, independent Ukraine has already experienced the freedom of movement across its western border. According to the research presented by Malynovska most of the Ukrainian citizens were and still are migrating to the post-Soviet states, in most cases to Russia. She admitted that the number of Ukrainians who travel to EU countries has increased from 12% in the early 90’s to 30% nowadays. Visa requirements for Ukrainian citizens was introduced with the accession of neighbouring states to the EU. It resulted in the immediate decrease of mobility on the western border of the country, but Ukrainians have adapted to the new conditions rapidly and after a year the situation has more or less been restored to its previous state. The next breakthrough was December 2007 with the accession of the new Member States to the Schengen area, which in turn had huge impact on the volume of visas issued - for example the number of visas issued by Poland to Ukrainian citizens in 2008 was half of that of the previous year. Malynovska emphasized that although at the beginning of 2008 the visa facilitation agreement came into force there was still no clear criteria which the Ukraine should fulfil in order to negotiate the introduction of visa-free movement. It can be assumed that one of the factors taken into consideration regarding the negotiation between the Ukraine and the EU will be a scale of illegal migration into Ukraine. According to the data published by the media, there are as much as 7 million (illegal) migrants living in the Ukraine. Malynovska said that we can not forget that this number includes 5.3 million Ukrainians who were born outside the current borders of the country, in most cases in Russia, but also in Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and 80% of these people settled in the Ukraine during the period of Soviet Union’s existence and therefore were considered citizens of the same country. She added that nowadays, thanks to a well executed visa policy and border control, the problem of illegal immigration into the Ukraine does not really exist, as the most pessimistic estimates show at most 12,000 illegal immigrants entering each year. Malynovska admitted also that Ukraine itself is a country of origin for many migrants. In this respect a figure of 7 million Ukrainians working abroad is often mentioned. As Malynovska noticed, the research shows that in fact this number is noticeably smaller and amounts to roughly 1.5 million people, half of whom work in Russia while the second half in the EU, mostly in Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. In summary Malynovska said that visa regime will not eliminate economic migration from Ukraine. At most, a visa regime has the potential to make emigration more difficult however the consequences will more than likely strengthen illegal migration as oppose to reducing the actual number of immigrants. In his speech, during the second session of seminar, Paweł Kaczmarczyk tackled the issue of migration from the perspective of the Polish labour market. Kaczmarczyk pointed out that the official statistics on employment of foreigners in Poland do not reflect the realistic situation. Since 1990 Poland has granted a mere 350,000 work permissions for foreigners (little above 15,000 each year). On the other hand we have statistics according to which there is between 100,000 and 500,000 foreigners within the Polish labour market. Kaczmarczyk tried to answer the question: is there any demand for employment of foreigners in Poland? He referred to research which indicated that less than 1% of Polish enterprises have ever employed foreigners (of which 25% were large companies, 10% medium-sized companies and 0.6% small companies). Only 3.3% were interested in employing a foreigner in the future. Kaczmarczyk summarised his argument saying that “de facto”, “Polish companies have very little experience in employing foreigners and even when they have such an experience, the case seemed to be coincidental.” Kaczmarczyk drew attention to the conditions of Polish visa policy after 1989, which he considered to be the most important. He mentioned security issues, Europeanization (the most important factor in his opinion) and good neighbour relations. Furthermore he wondered what kind of factors have an impact on Polish migration policy and providing foreigners with access to Polish labour market. The conclusion is that the Polish migration policy has no long-term strategy and it appears that a short-term perspective prevails - a lot of solutions are created ad hoc, in order to react to the varying demand of labour (e.g. the possibility of employing foreigners on the basis of a declaration). In his speech, Kaczmarczyk approached the question regarding the actual purpose of visas. He emphasized three factors: control over the inflow of foreigners, statistical research on the scale of this inflow and prevention of the so-called ‘migration threat’. While discussing the third factor he admitted that one should pose the question: is migration – using an economic language – created by supply or by demand? The current approach of the EU to this issue is a consequence of the belief that migration streams are directed toward supply and that there is some migration pressure and migration threat. According to Kaczmarczyk this belief is largely unjustified: “a large part of migration processes is generated by a strong work demand, situated in certain places.(..) This is the key issue, because if we assume that migration processes are generated by demand factors, and it seems so, it may turn out that neither a visa requirement nor work permissions are necessary.” Kaczmarczyk stated that in the case of Poland post 1989 and the United Kingdom after 2004 seems to prove these assumptions. When Polish citizens no longer required a visa to travel to the EU, a massive scale outflow of migrants from Poland towards the West was predicted. These predictions turned out to be inaccurate. According to Kaczmarczyk it is connected with the lack of visa requirements - Polish migrants had possibility to go to the West, but also were able to return at any given time, which in the past was problematic. Therefore this situation favoured the establishment of a circular migration scheme. In summary Kaczmarski stated that visas are not a necessary instrument of migration policy and the effects of their waiving would be mostly positive. “Although,”, he emphasized, “there’s no doubt that the waiving of visas will not happen in the near future.” Miroslava Keryk looked at the problem from the immigrant’s point of view and tried to remind that there are real people behind the statistics. Keryk emphasized that a foreigner always has the feeling of tentativeness. No matter if a foreigner migrates to work in a company, as a seasonal worker or to study, his or her life depends on the decision of a civil servant, who often lacks qualifications. Keryk noticed that, paradoxically, restrictions of visa policies do not always protect the local labour market. On the contrary, these restrictions may cause the increase in grey market employment, if foreigners go underground. Because of illegal labour each attempt to cross borders is connected with the risk of being deported or being restricted on entering a country or even a group of countries. Therefore, migrants stay as illegal workers and do not attempt the risk of returning to their country of origin. At the same time Keryk stressed that most Ukrainian migrants do not intend on settling abroad as the purpose of migration is, with no doubt, to earn money in order to purchase a house, flat or pay for children’s education. Oleksand Sushko emphasised that while talking about visa policy three different issues should be distinguished: the first being the conditions of entry to the EU, secondly the conditions of residence in the EU and finally the terms of employment in the EU. In this context Sushko argued with the preceding speakers who said that one of the solutions are long-term visas. "One should remember," Sushko stressed, "that this particular visa is for people who want to work or study in a given country, not for those who enter it for a short time, in order to attend a conference, for instance. Their only solution is to obtain the Schengen visa." Sushko stated that changes in the philosophy of EU visa policy is crucial with regard to relations with neighbouring countries. He emphasized that the requirements Ukraine should fulfil to obtain visa-free movement with the EU does not need to be facilitated, but to be defined. "We need to know the criteria that should be met and the ways of assessing the introduced changes," Sushko added. He claims that despite numerous panels of experts and talks concerning the waiving visas, the facts are still missing. As an example he recalled the situation of the Western Balkans. These countries received clear information, what should they so that visa-free movement with the EU was introduced. The visa scheme does not prevent illegal migration, nor crime. Sushko drew attention to a particular paradox – in most cases illegal immigrants or criminals obtain their visas without difficulties, whereas common people have problems. Włodzimierz Zdunowski started his speech saying that Poland is a firm supporter of waiving visas for the countries neighbouring with the EU in the East. He emphasized that the state is trying to manifest this support officially, for example by co-initiating the Eastern Partnership initiative. Zdunowski stated that two notions need to be defined: a visa liberalization policy and visa facilitations. Currently visa facilitations agreements are signed with Ukraine, Moldova and Russia, while further discussions are being undertaken with Georgia and Kazakhstan. It will not lead to the waiving of visas, but the aim is to ease access across EU boarders. Zdunowski indicated that one should remember that the decision about abolishing visas must be made by all EU members not by a single country. In his speech Zdunowski agreed with the proceeding speakers that nowadays one cannot speak about any pose to the labour market when it comes to the countries from Eastern Europe. He noticed, however, that there are some risks and the visa regulations were introduced to eliminate them. Zdunowski also added that visa policy is an integral part of foreign policy and in his opinion reducing it only to a migration policy would be a mistake. While discussing the liberalisation of visa policies, he admitted that what is expected from the EU Eastern neighbors is cooperation in terms of some fundamental issues, for example the regulation of the borders, which has not been cleared for example between Belarus and Ukraine yet, or introduction of the official transcription from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Latin one. At the end of his speech, Zdunowski pointed out that the agreement between Poland and the Ukraine concerning the local border traffic proved to be a success. According to Polish Border Guard data till the middle of January (six months after the agreement came into force), only one case (out of 380,000 border crossings) of zone transgression was recorded. Zdunowski admitted that as it currently stands everyone is very satisfied with local border traffic with the Ukraine. "This is expressive information that we can present in Brussels," he said. Eventually, he stressed again, the waiving of visas would be beneficial for Poland as well as for the entire EU. Copyright © Fundacja Batorego
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