Future Immigration Concerns Within Europe
In the past few years a major influx of immigration has swept of Europe causing rapid social and economic change. According to a survey about the economic impacts of immigration by Sari and William Kerr, over 27 million people living in EU countries are foreign nationals. The biggest countries that are affected by this wave of immigration are Germany, France, Spain and the UK. These are the biggest economic powerhouses that are able to provide refuge to mass immigration. This overall spike in immigration has allowed many of these countries increase their overall labor force due to a declining population. For many EU member nations, the fertility rate is not sufficient enough to provide a stable workforce for the future.
According to a study by PRB the average fertility rate for European women is 1.4 (Martin 2001). This is drastically low compared to the 2.1 fertility rate that is necessary to provide a stable society and deter from population decline. If the EU continues to remain with open boarders and allow immigrants access to its countries, these immigrants will help retain a stable society as well as help boost the labor force and improve the economy not just in these major countries but for all of Europe.
Back in 1999 the European Union drafted and signed the Amsterdam Treaty which dedicated the EU to developing new policy’s concerning immigration and asylum by the year 2004. This treaty will not only apply to existing EU member countries but to newer member that join the EU across the continent as well. The goal of this treaty is to help manage immigration efficiently as well as defend against illegal smugglers and improve the process of people who request asylum. Through the improvements of the asylum policy and efficiency of the immigration process, the European Union will be able to combat the decline of the labor force as well as help in improve the population rate. However according to a study conducted by the UN Population Division in 1995, in order for the Major 4 European countries to maintain their work force they would have to increase from 237,000 a year to over 677,000 a year (PDP 2001). In 1988, Germany proposed that foreigners who become German citizens be allowed to retain their original nationality. However, they were met with fierce opposition from other members of the German government, they came to the compromise that a person who whose parents were foreigners would retain their dual citizenships until the age of 23, after that they would have a choice to either retain their current German citizenship or maintain their citizenship from their country of origin. This compromise allowed for citizens to retain and provided a solution to this immigration policy conflict.
However, many people fear that immigration has become a platform for terrorism and believe that immigration can lead to more terrorist activity. Due to the 9/11 terrorist attack, scientist have constructed the securitization which states, “That the reaction of western countries was linking the insecurity posed by terrorism migration” (Umansky 2016). Contrary, to the popular belief however, researches have suggested that terrorism and immigration have no correlation with each other. This has allowed for countries in the EU to become more relaxed with their immigration policy and not be so reluctant on becoming more open minded when it comes to foreign immigration policy.
