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REGIONAL POPULATION MEETING |
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| (Budapest, 7-9 December 1998) |
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| Location: Statistical Division, Regional Population Meeting | |
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| STATISTICAL COMMISSION and ECONOMIC COMMISSION FOR EUROPE CONFERENCE OF EUROPEAN STATISTICIANS | GOVERNMENT OF HUNGARY | UNITED NATIONS POPULATION FUND (UNFPA) |
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GENERAL CES/PAU/1998/8 9 November 1998 English only Regional Population Meeting Budapest (Hungary), 7-9 December 1998 INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION IN THE UNECE REGION: PATTERNS, TRENDS, POLICIES by John Salt Migration Research Unit, Department of Geography University College London London, United Kingdom Unedited version prepared by John Salt for the Regional Population Meeting (Budapest, 7-9 December 1998). The views expressed in the paper are those of the author and do not imply the expression of any opinion on the part of the Government of Hungary, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, or the United Nations Population Fund. Any data provided under the heading "Yugoslavia" relate to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia which, in accordance with the General Assembly Resolutions 47/1 and 47/229, cannot continue automatically the membership of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia TABLE OF CONTENTS NOTE INTRODUCTION 1. MIGRATION AND POPULATION CHANGE IN EUROPE 2. THE NATURE OF MIGRATION 3. MIGRATION IN WESTERN EUROPE 3.1 Data problems 3.2 Trends in stocks of foreign population in Western Europe 3.3 Nationalities of the foreign population in Western Europe 3.4 Stocks of foreign labour in Western Europe 3.5 Flows of migrants into Western Europe 3.6 Europe’s migration fields 3.7 Flows of labour into Western Europe 3.8 Trends in numbers of asylum applications 4. EASTERN EUROPE 4.1 General characteristics of migration 4.2 Permanent immigration 4.3 Temporary immigration 4.4 Asylum seeking in Eastern Europe 4.5 The migration of the former Soviet Union 4.6 East-West ‘brain drain’ in Europe 5. IRREGULAR MIGRATION 5.1 Overall patterns 5.2 Trafficking: its importance, size and scale 5.3 Trafficking and the new geography of migration 6. NORTH AMERICA 6.1 Stock of Foreign Born Immigrant Population. 6.2 Composition of the foreign-born immigrant population by country of birth 6.3 Immigration to Canada and the US 6.3.1 Canada 6.3.2 United States 6.4 Temporary Foreign Workers 6.5 Emigration flows from Canada and the US 6.6 Refugees and Asylum Seekers 6.7 Undocumented immigration 6. POLICY DEVELOPMENTS 6.1 Dissatisfaction with existing policy regimes 6.2 A new Migration Management Strategy FINAL COMMENTS References Tables The 1990s has been a turbulent decade for international migration in the UNECE region. When the Iron Curtain lifted there were widely voiced expectations of large scale shifts in population, and the term "mass migration" came into common parlance. It is now generally agreed that movements occurred on nothing like the scale of the direst forebodings. Recorded migrations in Europe seem to have peaked around 1992-3. A "stay-at-home" philosophy in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe combined with more stringent immigration controls in the West to create an effective prevention strategy. Since 1994 a number of trends have manifested themselves in the region. Europe remains an undoubted zone of immigration, but with generally falling levels of recorded inflows. Three interrelated but distinct migration regions have developed: Western Europe; Central and Eastern Europe excluding the CIS countries; the CIS. Each of these has a degree of self-containment, though all of them are clearly enmeshed in a global pattern of migration. Major political-military perturbations have affected the flow regimes, notably in former Yugoslavia and in several parts of the CIS. These have created human rights difficulties and injected major uncertainties into the policy-making process. While recorded movements have generally declined in the last few years, major questions surround the frequency of unrecorded and irregular migrations. A commonly held view is that such moves have increased, are increasing, and will continue to do so. Unfortunately, evidence to substantiate such views is hard to come by. As a problem is felt, and measures are developed to counteract it, so its statistical presence becomes more open. It is then a short step to it becoming "an increasing problem". What does seem clear is that, in Central and Eastern Europe particularly, there has been growing amount of short-term, short-distance movement across state boundaries. Most of this is for the purposes of gaining a livelihood, and is associated with the early phase of development of a market economy. It has taken advantage of the openness of the informal sector, involving petty trading, labour tourism and other novel forms of migration. There also appears to have been a steady growth in the migration of the highly skilled across Europe as a whole. While the bulk of this movement is still westwards, the continent is now seeing an increasingly complex pattern of "brain exchange", akin to that long existing among the Western market economies. On the horizon, however, are the rich sources of expertise in the developing world, and increasing flows of highly skilled between there and Europe can be expected. Economic globalisation is already indicating the way forward. The debates about immigration in North America adopt a different starting point from those in Europe. In the former, the main thrust of immigration has long been towards permanent settlement, whereas in Europe most migration has, initially at any rate, been temporary, albeit frequently leading to settled immigrant communities. In the 1990s immigration debates in Canada and the US seem (at least to a European observer) to have increasing echoes of those across the Atlantic. Especially in the US the "immigration ethos" is increasingly questioned. The contribution of migrants to economic development is more likely to be stressed, as is their impact on the jobs of indigenous North Americans. If anything, the New World debate and that in the Old World have moved closer together. Greater government control (management?) of entry seems to be more fashionable than a move towards a more liberal approach. How far this feeling is driven by the perception that irregular migration is causing governments to lose control of their borders is a matter of conjecture. In the remainder of this paper these issues are elaborated indirectly, through an attempt to identify what is actually happening. How important is migration? What are the patterns and trends in stocks and flows? How significant are new and unrecorded types of flows? What dilemmas are presented to the managers of the UNECE migration systems? 1. MIGRATION AND POPULATION CHANGE IN EUROPE The world’s population looks set to continue its rapid growth, rising to around 9.4 billion by 2050 (Table 1). Europe’s share will be increasingly modest, halving between 1995 and 2050, while North America’s will also fall. Only a small proportion of the world’s population migrates in any one year, mostly within their own countries. There are no reliable statistics on the total numbers of people who move to another country during any given period, but estimates of numbers of people living outside their own country vary from 50-100 million. What is striking about these numbers is not how many people choose to live in another country, but how few. European countries have experienced differing patterns of population change during the 1990s, as indicated in Table 2. Of 44 countries listed (excluding Azerbaijan and Bosnia, for which only two years’ data are available), 30 experienced an overall increase in population between 1990 and 1997, although only in four small countries did the average growth rate exceed one per cent per annum (Andorra, San Marino, Cyprus and Liechtenstein). Thirteen countries experienced an overall decrease in their populations, with only one having an average rate of decline exceeding one per cent per annum (Latvia). The Czech Republic’s rate of change overall was nil. In summary, average rates of population change in European countries over the last eight years have been varied but low. In recent times, migration has become a more important arbiter of change. Table 2 presents the components of population change for the period 1990-7, indicating that migration was the most important component in 20 of the 44 countries. Focusing first on the 30 countries which had an increase in population during the 1990s, 22 had a net gain of people through both natural change and migration, with migration being the most significant factor in about half the cases. Of the remaining eight countries with population increase, one (Germany) had a net loss through natural change, offset by a greater gain through migration; one (Italy) had no change through natural increase but a gain by migration; one (Yugoslavia) had population growth through natural increase but none by migration; and five (Iceland, Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Armenia) had a rate of natural increase that exceeded net loss through migration. Focusing next on the 13 countries which experienced a decrease in population during the 1990s, four (Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia and Romania) had a net loss of people through both natural change and migration, with migration being the more significant factor in the last three cases. Of the remaining nine countries with population decrease, three (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) had a net loss through natural change which exceeded a gain through migration; one (Croatia) had no change through natural increase but a net loss by migration; one (Hungary) had population loss through natural change but none by migration; and four (Albania, Lithuania, Moldova and Georgia) had a net loss through migration which exceeded an increase through natural change. In the case of the Czech Republic which appears from these data to have had nil population growth overall during the period, a small loss through natural change was balanced by a small net gain through migration. Most but not all of the countries which have had population growth since 1990 are situated in Central and Western Europe. This group includes all but one (Croatia) of the constituent parts of former Yugoslavia for which data is available. Three-quarters of countries with a positive growth rate have gained by migration. Only five recorded a net migration loss, three in Western Europe (Iceland, Ireland and Portugal), two in Central and Eastern Europe (Poland and Armenia); in all five, growth occurred because the average rate of natural increase exceeded the rate of migration loss. All of the 13 countries where there has been population decline over the period are situated in Central and Eastern Europe. However, the components of change which have brought about this decline have not been the same for every country. Nine have experienced a net loss by migration but four have not. Three (Russia, Ukraine and Belarus) have gained population through migration but experienced population decline overall through natural decrease. In both Canada (1990-94) and the US (1990-96), natural increase was the main component of change. When we use the term ‘migration’, it is not immediately clear what is meant. Traditionally it has been associated with some notion of permanent settlement, or at least long term sojourn. In reality, it is a sub-category of a more general concept of ‘movement’, embracing a wide variety of types and forms of human mobility each capable of metamorphosing into something else through a set of processes which are increasingly institutionally driven. What we then define as migration is an arbitrary choice, and may be time specific. Let us look at some of these movements. The concept of permanent migration, for example, is epitomised in the idea of new lands of opportunity. But today what we mean by ‘permanent’ is no longer clear; where it occurs for the most part it does so indirectly, as a development of previous temporary migrations, mainly through family reunion and family formation. Indeed, most ‘permanent’ settlement today may be associated with return migration to their home countries by former labour migrants and by certain ethnic and national groups such as German Ausseidler, Ingrian Finns, Bulgarian Turks, Pontian Greeks, and Romanian Magyars. Most voluntary migration in recent decades has featured temporary labour migrants, yet this is an enormously diverse group, including au pairs and domestic servants, agriculture, construction and manufacturing workers, hotel, catering, and cleaning staff. Many of them are seasonal, others are frontier workers, or perhaps they are highly skilled corporate secondees. Transit migrants are a 1990s innovation and predominantly an Eastern European phenomenon, people who enter the territory of a state in order to travel on to another. Many of them, however, are unable to do so and their presence is turning Poland and Hungary from corridors into vestibules. Young people are traditionally mobile. Students are normally admitted for limited time periods, little studied but, as we shall see, very large in number and increasingly touted for their cheque books. Many in their teens and twenties backpack as working holidaymakers, perhaps in pursuit of experience and language training to further their career development. During the last few years asylum seekers have dominated policy attention. Some of them, are accepted as genuine refugees, others on humanitarian grounds, such as Exceptional Leave to Remain in the UK, or given some form of temporary protected status, as with many fleeing from former Yugoslavia. Possibly growing in number are migrants who have placed themselves in an illegal position, mostly after entering the host country legally, though frequently clandestinely where there are extensive land borders or long and difficult coastlines close to sources of potential immigrants. Many have placed their destinies in the hands of traffickers. There are numerous other international movers, whose status easily blends into that of migrant: cross-border commuters, labour tourists and petty traders, perhaps engaged in incomplete migration, a state of being in which most of their livelihood is derived from frequent short-term visits to other countries. The new migration space in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union is replete with such novelties. Finally, the mobility spectrum must take some account of the vast numbers of tourists and business travellers . Not only may they take on the characteristics of temporary migrants, but in sustaining a global network of travel infrastructure they help reduce the friction of distance which ultimately makes migration for everyone easier. For many of them, brief trips abroad are fact-finding missions which ultimately lead to longer term moves; for others, business travel is a substitute for two or three year corporate secondment. I have dwelt at some length on these diverse groups because it is important that they are not seen as discrete, since one type of migration or journey may be transposed into another. For example, an overseas student may marry and stay on; an asylum seeker be given leave to remain; or a landed immigrant fail and go home. Indeed, some authors now suggest that the distinction between forced and voluntary movement may have become too blurred to provide a sound basis for dichotomisation. It does not therefore make sense to think in terms of rigid categories, nor to place ‘migration’ at some defined point on the mobility continuum. Migration streams, seen as mobility streams, are dynamic and pliant, involve different types of people and motivations, have different roles and methods of insertion into host societies, and are influenced and managed by different agencies and institutions. 3. MIGRATION IN WESTERN EUROPE The measurement of international migration is fraught with problems which also affect the analysis of patterns and trends, identification of causes, and projection of future potential movements. Much of the current debate about actual and potential international migration into Europe, especially from the East and South, has been limited by the patchy availability of up-to-date, unambiguous and consistent data on stocks of foreign population and flows of international migrants. The provision of international data across Europe has undoubtedly improved in recent years, though large gaps and inconsistencies continue to exist. The annual Council of Europe publication Recent Demographic Developments in Europe contains summary statistics on flows for those countries that are able to provide them. The annual SOPEMI report of the OECD Trends in International Migration contains a set of standard comparative tables on most aspects of international migration, as well as tables specific to individual countries. EUROSTAT produces an annual volume Migration Statistics and has extended its data collection exercise, in partnership with UNECE, to Central and Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean countries of Cyprus and Malta, using the same set of definitions as those used in Western Europe. It has also nearly completed a major exercise of standardising data formatting for individual countries for entry into its ACUMEN database, accompanied by the creation of metadata. Although these developments mean that statistical data provision has immeasurably improved, the situation remains far from ideal. Even in Western Europe, the existing data still pose a wide range of problems for the user, arising largely from incompatibility of sources, conceptual and definitional problems. In Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS the problems are compounded by inadequate methods of collection and the lack of well-developed statistical systems. Although considerable strides have been made in some countries in the region, the general picture with regard to data availability is extremely patchy. A growing problem is the complexity of migration. For the most part the concepts of migration used as the basis for collecting statistics do not reflect many of the realities of today’s movements, characterised as they are by new forms and dynamics. Particularly difficult to capture are short-term movements and status changes as well as, most obviously, illegal migrations. The biggest potential source of inaccuracy in the data relates to those living and working illegally. Sometimes they are included in official figures, sometimes not. Numbers of illegal migrants published or circulated are often police estimates which may be based on numbers of deportations or of regularisations. These seriously underestimate total numbers in an illegal situation because of the reluctance of governments in most countries to find, identify and deport those without a right to be there (or even to admit that they exist). Numbers of women in irregular, domestic and service-sector jobs are likely to be under-estimated because they are ‘hidden’ in private accommodation, and employers do not reveal their presence. Where estimates of the illegal population are made, it is not always possible to discover how they are reached and these figures should be treated with caution. Even data from regularisation programmes (amnesties) underestimate the total illegal stock. In the last couple of years, Eurostat and the UNECE have used a similar questionnaire to collect statistics from Central and Eastern Europe to that used for EU and EFTA Member States. This means that the process of harmonisation of statistics that has been going on in Western Europe has now been extended to the new democracies. The main rationale behind this process is the closer integration of states across the whole of Europe. This is manifest in various association agreements, but the exercise also draws potential new members of the EU and EEA into a more harmonised statistical system. However, considerable gaps exist in data availability in the Central and Eastern European countries. The principal reasons are administrative and legal. In some of the countries no collection system exists for some or all of the statistics required. Partly this reflects the inadequacies of the old systems of data collection in the new political environment; but it is also due to conceptual and administrative difficulties in deciding on and implementing new statistical requirements. Further, in some countries the newly emerging legal frameworks for migration are not yet, or are only just in place, and no data collection has yet been instituted. The consequence for users is a partial data series at present, but one which should improve in the next few years. The statistics do begin to allow for the first time a monitoring process for international migration within the region. The development of migration policies needs a solid statistical foundation which is now being laid. It is hoped that the data can be used to provide a more accurate assessment than has hitherto been possible of the migration realities of the 1990s. Never the less, a statistical ‘health warning’ should be borne in mind when considering the data presented in much of this document. 3.2 Trends in stocks of foreign population in Western Europe There seems little doubt that in Western Europe as a whole, stocks of foreign population have increased considerably in recent years. Table 3 suggests that in 1996/7 or thereabouts (using the latest date for which statistics are available) there were around 19.8 million foreign nationals resident in Western Europe, representing over 5% of the total population of the area. In 1988 (1989 for Ireland and 1990 for France), the figure for foreign nationals was 14.9 million. Hence, between 1988 and the present, total foreign national stocks in Western European countries have increased by nearly a third. In addition, in 1996/7 there were perhaps a further half a million in Central and Eastern Europe (Table 16). Although the latest statistics indicate that total stocks are still growing, the overall rate of increase in numbers of foreign nationals in Western Europe appears to have declined significantly since the early ‘nineties. It is essential to scrutinise the experience of different countries to appreciate that there have been, and continue to be, marked differences between countries which cannot be detected from the overall picture. Thus, Germany recorded an exceptionally high rate of increase in foreign nationals between 1990 and 1992, which greatly inflated the overall rate of change in Western Europe at that time. By contrast, Spain recorded a drop in stocks of foreign nationals between 1990 and 1991 and, since then, has experienced its highest rate of increase between 1995 and 1996. For those countries only for which data were available at or around 1981, 1988 and 1995/6, rates of increase of foreign national stocks have been computed. During the period 1981-88 the annual increase averaged 99,100, but rose to 630,400 per annum 1988-95/6. Some 383,500 per annum of this occurred in Germany. Though rates of change at different points in time differed, most of the countries with year-on-year data shown in Table 3 saw an annual increase in their stock of foreign residents in most years between 1980 and 1993 (every year in the case of Denmark and Finland). Only Sweden recorded as many as five years where numbers declined (1981-5). Only in 1983 did as many as five countries record a decline simultaneously. In 1994, the situation appeared to start changing. Five countries recorded a drop in numbers of foreign residents and this increased to six in 1995 (Belgium, Greece, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Sweden). Over the period 1994-6, four countries had a drop in two of the three years (Greece, Norway, Portugal and the UK), while the Netherlands recorded a decline every year. However, it is not yet clear whether we are seeing the beginning of a long-term trend or just a short-term phenomenon. In 1996, only three countries showed a decline in their foreign population stock and one of these, the UK, recorded an increase again in 1997. The Federal Republic of Germany has experienced the largest absolute increase listed, with a foreign population of 7.31 million in 1996 (including the former GDR) compared with 4.45 million (for the old FDR) in 1980, an increase approaching 3 million. Effectively, this increase in Germany has occurred since 1988. Prior to political events from 1989, numbers of foreign nationals in West Germany had fluctuated around the 4.5 million mark. Other large increases over this period include: Italy (796,900), Austria (445,300), UK (382,000), Switzerland (477,900), Spain (357,000) and the Netherlands (159,000). Hence, those countries with already large stocks of foreign population have, with the exception of France, seen substantial increases in absolute numbers. The importance of foreigners in the total population varies considerably, although proportions have been rising generally (Table 4). In 1996/7 (or the latest available date) the largest proportions of foreigners, relative to the total population, were in Luxembourg ( 34.6 per cent of the total population) and Switzerland (19.6 per cent); an intermediate group contains Belgium (8.9 per cent), Austria (9 per cent), Germany (8.9 per cent), France (6.3 per cent - latest data are for 1991), Sweden (5.9 per cent) and the Netherlands (4.3 per cent). In a few countries the percentage has fallen during the latest period for which data are available, notably Belgium, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. Changes in the proportion of foreigners may be for a number of reasons, including rates of acquisition of citizenship by foreigners and updating of statistics. 3.3 Nationalities of the foreign population in Western Europe The composition of the foreign population in Western Europe is a reflection of successive waves of post-war migration associated first with labour shortage, and more recently (especially since the mid-1970s) with family reunion and formation. The dominant foreign groups within each country reflect both the post-war labour recruitment from such areas, and particular historical links and bilateral relations with former colonies. Despite their recent status as immigration countries, the largest foreign national groups continue to be from the traditional labour recruitment countries of Southern Europe (Italy, Portugal, Spain and Greece), plus Turkey and former Yugoslavia, and more recently North Africa. The best available comparative statistics on the national composition of the foreign population are those compiled by Eurostat from national sources. The latest available are for the beginning of 1996 for most countries (dates indicated on Table 5), but the pace of change of composition is slow enough for them to give a reasonable picture of the current situation. Of particular significance is the number of fellow EU and EEA nationals in member states, since these groups have rights of free movement, and are not subject to the same immigration and residence controls as non-EU/EEA citizens. Within the EU and EFTA as a whole, there were 19.18 million foreigners of whom 12.76 million (66.5 per cent) were Europeans. Africans numbered just over 3 million (15.9 per cent) and Asians 1.93 million (10.1 per cent). There were 17.4 million foreign nationals resident in EU states at the beginning of 1996 (Table 5). Almost 5.5 million of these (31.3 per cent) were nationals of other member states. It would appear the relative importance of other EU foreigners in EU states is not increasing, the comparative numbers for the year before being 5.6 million (31.9 per cent). The inclusion of the EEA states plus Switzerland (i.e. EU and EFTA) brings this total to 5.64 million, 32.4 per cent of all foreigners in the EU. Again, both these statistics are slightly smaller than the equivalent for the year before. The data in Table 5 illustrate the considerable diversity of foreign migrant origins that exists in Western Europe. In Luxembourg, Ireland, and Belgium, over half of the foreign population is from other EU countries; for Spain, UK and France and Sweden between a third and a half. Two-thirds of Switzerland’s (not an EEA country) foreign nationals are EU citizens. For most countries, however, the bulk of their foreign national population comes from outside the EEA. The statistics in Table 5 reflect a complex set of geographical locations and migration histories. In the case of the UK, Ireland and Spain proximity to a fellow EU member, together with a long history of population interchange, is clearly important (although this is not the case for Portugal as a destination). The situation in Belgium and Luxembourg reflects their geographical location, surrounded as they are by larger EU neighbours with open borders. The significance of other regions as sources of foreign migrants varies with destination country. Africa is a particularly important source for France and Portugal reflecting earlier colonial ventures, and for Italy and Belgium to a lesser extent. America is important for Portugal and Spain (mainly South America), and also for Greece and Italy. Asia is a major source for the UK, Greece and Italy, though for different reasons and with emphases on different parts of that large and diverse continent. The UK receives Asian immigrants mainly from the Indian sub-continent, largely for settlement purposes; Italy’s Asian contingent is mainly from South East Asia (particularly Filipinos); Greece’s comes from proximate countries in the Middle East region. The dominance of Germany as a destination for foreign nationals from non-EU European countries is also clear: it received over a quarter of EEA (plus Switzerland) foreigners, and almost two-thirds of those from Central and Eastern Europe and from Other Europe. Germany’s Asian numbers are enhanced by Vietnamese recruited to the former GDR. However, African nationals in Germany are comparatively few. Despite the links between Spain and Portugal and the Americas, the UK receives the largest proportion of foreign nationals from that continent (mainly the US) and, not surprisingly, about seven in ten of those from Australasia and Oceania. Analysis of the data in Table 5 with earlier years demonstrates, not unexpectedly, a stable distributional pattern that changes only slowly, as a result of net migration flows. It serves to emphasise that Western European countries may well have sharply divergent perspectives on migration, derived from their different foreign stocks. 3.4 Stocks of foreign labour in Western Europe It is more difficult to obtain accurate and comparable data across Europe for stocks of labour than for the foreign population as a whole. There are problems of knowing who is included, and which sources might be used. In addition, unrecorded workers are almost certainly proportionately more important in the labour market than are unrecorded residents in the total population. The evidence from Table 6 suggests that in Western Europe around 1996 (using the latest data for each country) there were about 7.46 million recorded foreign workers. This represents an increase of about 27 per cent on the 1988 figure (6.2 million) but only 1 per cent on that for 1994. Indeed, it would appear that over the last few years stocks of recorded foreign labour have changed little. This, is in contrast to the situation earlier in the 1990s when West European increased its foreign labour force as the economy went into recession. A longer term perspective may be had by comparing the situation in 1980, 1988 and 1996 for those eight countries in Table 6 for which data are available throughout. In 1980 these countries had 4.63 million foreign workers, but by 1988 this total had fallen slightly to 4.45 million (-3.9 per cent); in 1996 the number had risen to 5.29 million, an increase in eight years of 840,000 (18.9 per cent). For these countries, therefore, all of the increase in the foreign labour force since 1980 occurred after 1988. The period since 1988 has, however, been one of fluctuation. For all countries listed (except Turkey) a comparison of the situation in 1998, 1992 and 1996 (or latest data available) has been made. In 1988 total numbers of recorded foreign workers were 5.9 million; by 1992 these had risen by 23.1 per cent to 7.3 million but rose only 1.6 per cent to 7.4 million in 1996. It would appear therefore that increases in Western Europe’s recorded foreign workers occurred almost entirely in the late 1980s and early 1990s and that since then the numbers have hardly changed. Despite the general increases in the stocks of foreign population between 1980 and 1996, changes in the stocks of foreign labour have varied between the traditional countries of immigration. In 1996 the recorded stock of foreign labour in Germany (2.08 million) was only 3.1 per cent higher than in 1980, despite an increase of 64.2 per cent in the foreign population. These figures do not include ethnic Germans ‘returning’ from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. From 1980 to 1995, Austria’s foreign labour stock increased by 83 per cent (145,000), compared with a 157.5 per cent increase in foreign population. In Austria, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Netherlands, for example, stocks of foreign workers fell during the early 1980s, reflecting the general economic downturn, reached a low point in 1984 or 1985, and then recovered to levels well in excess of those at the start of the decade. Increases in the late 1980s and early 1990s thus augmented an already rising trend. In the last few years trends in foreign labour stocks have varied between countries. Germany, Greece and Switzerland recorded falls in numbers; in contrast, Austria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain had relatively large gains. Partly these differences reflect responses to the economic cycle, but they also reflect the statistical capture of foreign workers. In most countries the real numbers of foreign worker stocks are higher because of the presence of illegal workers. The majority of foreign workers in Europe in 1996 - like the majority of the foreign population - were concentrated in the Federal Republic of Germany and France, with a total of over 4.68 million workers. The UK had around 878,000 more. The foreign labour stocks of each country reflect their respective foreign nationality population. The largest groups of foreign workers in Germany are Turks, Yugoslavs and Italians; in France, Portuguese, Algerians and Moroccans; in the UK, Irish. Turks are the largest single foreign worker group in Germany, the Netherlands, and the second largest group in Austria; Yugoslavs are the largest group in Austria, the second largest in Sweden and Switzerland; whilst Italians are the most prominent group in both Switzerland and Belgium. In addition to their numerical importance in France, Moroccans are the second largest group in both Belgium and the Netherlands. 3.5 Flows of migrants into Western Europe The data problems discussed above apply a fortiori to migration flows. Statistics on emigration are particularly problematical; many countries do not collect them, and those that do tend towards underestimation (Salt, Singleton and Hogarth, 1994). Around 1985 a clear change in the trend of in flows occurred (Table 7). Outflows have fluctuated, varying from country to country (Table 8). The countries where data were available for the period 1980-96 (Table 9) saw a net aggregate gain of 7.76 million by migration. Net gains would appear to have fluctuated. In the first half of the 1980s, inflows of foreign population declined, with even net losses indicated for Germany (1982-84), Luxembourg (1982) and Switzerland (1983). From the mid-1980s the data suggest that there have been net gains for most countries (with the exception of Iceland). Since 1994 net gains have, on the whole, tended to fall in those countries for which data are available. For the period 1994-96, for countries for which there are data for all three years, there has been a net gain in foreign population by migration of 1.2 million, notably 526,000 in Germany, 145,600 in the Netherlands and 216,000 in the UK. In 1980 Germany had 52.1 per cent of the gain (in the eight countries for which data are available for the years 1980, -88, -92 and -96), rising to a peak of 68.4 in 1992 and then falling again to 37 per cent in 1996. The Netherlands share fell from 11.9 per cent in 1980 to 6.9 per cent in both 1988 and 1992, then rising to 13.6 per cent in 1996. The UK’s share of the net gain rose from 5.9 per cent in 1980 to 6.2 in 1988 declining sharply to 2.6 per cent in 1992, increasing rapidly in recent years to 12.0 per cent in 1994 then to 21.2 per cent in 1996. These three countries’ shares of foreign population gain in the EU and EFTA have differed throughout the period 1980-96, reflecting both changes in net gains in these countries and in the other countries for any given year. These data do however highlight the decline in Germany’s share matched by a significant growth in the UK’s share, reflecting the effects of a strong UK economy in the last few years. It should nonetheless be noted that these data probably underestimate total net inflows, since for the most part they exclude asylum seekers and some categories of temporary immigrants, many of whom it is known stay illegally. Table 10 is an attempt to measure the degree of self containment within Europe of the migration fields of individual countries, based on the proportion of immigration and emigration flows to and from the regions listed, and using the latest available data for those countries for which appropriate statistics exist. For both flow directions there are considerable differences between countries. With regard to immigration, countries fall into several groups. For those in Central and Eastern Europe for which we have data (notably the Baltic states and Slovenia) the vast majority of immigrants come from elsewhere in Europe, mainly from CEE countries, and with only small proportions from EU and EFTA states. Scandinavian countries also display a relatively high degree of ‘Euro self-containment’, mainly from EU and EFTA states, and from ‘Other Europe’ (largely Turkey and former Yugoslavia) with only small proportions of flows from Central and Eastern Europe. Germany’s immigration field is strongly European, and along with Greece receives a high proportion of its immigrants from Central and Eastern Europe. In contrast, almost a third of the UK’s immigrants come from outside Europe. The Mediterranean countries also tend to look beyond Europe, as does the Netherlands. Emigration data project a stronger picture of regional self-containment (the data for Spain are anomalous, including only Spaniards known to be moving abroad). Most of those leaving the Central and Eastern countries go elsewhere in the region, and only Germany in the west sends a substantial proportion eastwards. Romanian and Slovenian data suggest a strong tendency for movement to EU and EFTA states, though in the case of the former there is some dispersion further afield, especially to North America. It is difficult to generalise from Table 10 because of data interpretation problems for some countries, and the absence of statistics for many others. Three major conclusions may be drawn. First, there is some evidence of regional self-containment, especially for Central and Eastern European countries, in that the majority of exchanges are with elsewhere in Europe as a whole or its constituent parts. Second, there are marked differences in the migration fields of individual countries, reflecting a range of historical (such as post-colonial links) and geographical (especially proximity) processes. Finally, the patterns depicted reinforce the diversity of migration experience across Europe. 3.7 Flows of labour into Western Europe The mid-1980s turning point in total population flows was echoed by inflows of labour, with steady increases in all the countries listed in Table 11 until the early 1990s. Since then there has been a general downturn in labour inflows for those countries for which data are available. In the last couple of years there is evidence of an upward trend in a few countries, notably Austria, Denmark, Luxembourg, Spain and the UK. To some extent the upturn is a response to economic growth, with skilled labour being especially drawn in. However, the statistics underestimate total flows, those for Germany, for example, excluding ethnic Germans. Unfortunately reliable data on outflows of workers are not available, making it impossible to produce net labour flows. Foreign workers enter the complete spectrum of occupations in immigration countries, but are increasingly to be found in tertiary and quaternary sectors rather than manufacturing. Much of the immigrant flow is into highly skilled jobs, and the work permit systems of most countries now select in those with high levels of expertise. However, there is increasing evidence of polarisation, with large numbers of jobs being filled at relatively low skill levels, especially in labour intensive occupations such as catering and cleaning. Many workers finding their way into these jobs are in an irregular situation. 3.8 Trends in numbers of asylum applications A major element in the migration story in recent times has been the growth of asylum seeking, partly reflecting increasing insecurity in many parts of the world, partly an attempt by otherwise economic migrants to exploit asylum provisions in immigration legislation. Following the rapid escalation in numbers of asylum applications in the 1980s and early 1990s, total numbers in Western Europe as a whole fell significantly (Table 12). Thirteen of the 17 countries listed in Table 12 reached a high point in terms of numbers between 1991 and 1994, with applications thereafter dropping back. Two countries (France and Greece) had peaked earlier. Two countries with very small inflows (Ireland and Luxembourg) have reached their highest point in the last two years. Germany has dominated the list of receiving countries over the last decade, in 1992 receiving 438,000 applicants; the fall to 127,000 in 1994 was mainly a result of the new asylum law which came into operation in the middle of 1993. The 1997 figure of 104,000 represented the smallest number since 1989. The decline in asylum applications may reflect a number of procedural changes in the asylum process, including accelerated procedures, more personnel, increased specialisation, computerisation and fingerprinting. The resulting shorter screening periods, along with reduced entitlements and benefits for asylum seekers in many countries, may have had a dissuasive effect on those thinking of leaving origin countries. Safe country declarations may also have played a role in reducing numbers (IGC, 1997). However, looking at the aggregate figures for Western Europe as a whole, it should be noted that the 1997 statistics reveal an apparent upturn in asylum applications following several years of decline. While figures for all countries are not yet obtainable, 10 of the 13 countries where data have been provided show an increase in applications compared to 1996 and total applications already exceed the 1996 figure with four countries’ data missing. In 1983 Western Europe had about 70,000 applications for asylum; in 1992, the peak year, there were nearly 700,000, a ten-fold increase. After that, there was an annual decrease up to 1996, where the total was 245,000. It seems likely that, when figures for every country are included, the total for 1997 will be nearer 260,000. The available data on asylum seekers are, for most countries, total numbers of applications per annum. They do not equate with the total numbers of asylum seekers, as identified in detailed studies of asylum and refugee data for the EU and EFTA countries (Eurostat, 1994a and b). The problems of harmonisation and lack of cross national comparability apply as for all migration data, but are compounded by the specific problems which arise largely from the application procedures. Total numbers of asylum seekers from Central and Eastern Europe rose dramatically in the early 1990s. For the most part, the countries of this region are now regarded as safe, so that the number of asylum claimants from them is minimal. Indeed, most of the former Warsaw Pact countries, especially Hungary, now receive asylum applications. After 1991-92 Yugoslavs came to head the list of origin countries, with Romanians, Turks, Sri Lankans, Somalis, Iranians, Zaireans, Iraqis, Bulgarians, Albanians, Nigerians, Lebanese and Chinese also prominent. By the end of 1993, 4.24 million displaced people from former Yugoslavia received some form of UNHCR assistance. Most of these were in Bosnia Herzegovina. About 819,000 were refugees of some form or another, living abroad. A further 1.63 million were internally displaced, and 1.79 million were assisted war victims. Asylum applications from the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union have been falling. Many of those fleeing former Yugoslavia, particularly Bosnia, do not appear in the asylum statistics, but are given some form of temporary protected status. Numbers have fallen in the last year or so, but overall 836,650 are recorded as having temporary protection in 1997 (Table 13) (OSCE, 1997). In recent years Turkey, former Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Somalia and Sri Lanka have become the major sending countries, all of them having sources of conflict likely to create populations in need of protection. Early evidence for 1997-98 indicates that larger proportions of asylum seekers are qualifying for protection. Statistics on asylum decisions are not readily available for many countries. Table 14 provides incomplete data on twelve West European countries from 1983 to 1986. The aggregate number of decisions taken on asylum applications in these countries appears to have peaked in 1993, declined in 1994 and 1995 but shown a small upturn in 1996. Germany has tended to dominate the statistics on number of decisions made since the late 1980s, constituting more than half of all decisions taken in the countries cited during the years 1993-5. However, the trend in numbers has been steadily downward in Germany since 1993, whereas this is not the case for all countries. Of those countries taking relatively large numbers of decisions, France and Switzerland are the only ones showing year on year decline since 1993. Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK recorded their highest figures for the last three years in 1996. These figures simply represent decisions taken on applications, both positive and negative. Table 14 also shows the percentage of decisions granting full refugee status under the 1951 Geneva Convention. The percentage is generally low. In every country, less than a quarter of applicants considered were granted refugee status in the last three years and in many cases it was less than one in ten. At the same time, some refugees and people with ‘temporary protection’ have been returning to their country of origin following cessation of hostilities. It was calculated in 1997 that some 75,000 Bosnians had already been assisted to return to Bosnia from the EU under organised schemes, with further returns planned. Germany, with nearly 60 per cent of the estimated Bosnian population in the EU, accounted for about 70,000 of these returnees. (Black, Koser and Walsh 1997). Most of the literature on asylum has focused on policy, legislation and procedures. Analyses of how and why asylum seekers choose particular destinations are scarce, though some recent research has shown the importance of traffickers in this regard (Koser, 1998; Morrison, 1998). One study, mainly carried out in the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK, but with reference to the North American literature as well, found that most asylum seekers are not well informed with regard to possible destination countries: indeed, the influence of rumour is strong (Böcker and Havinga, 1998). In the majority of cases the choice of country for asylum is not a conscious, rational choice by the asylum seeker and certainly not based on a comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of various options. The main exceptions relate to a preference among some asylum seekers for Canada and the US. The study identified three interconnected factors which appear to be very important for explaining the patterns of destination for asylum seekers: existing communities of compatriots, colonial bonds and knowledge of the language. Chain migration effects seem important, especially in terms of friendship and kinship networks. Asylum policy and reception vary in importance between countries, but overall, visa policy tends to be more significant. 4.1 General characteristics of migration It is still surprisingly difficult to monitor migration flows involving the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The recording systems developed during Communist times were designed to record only certain types of flows, mainly those regarded as "permanent", and have proved grossly inadequate for assessing most of the flows that have occurred in the region since 1989. Indeed, many of the categories of movement seen there defy most collection systems regarded as "normal". It is clear that the lifting of the Iron Curtain heralded increases in migration flows both within and from the region. One estimate is that in the early 1990s the annual average number of officially recorded net migrations from Central and Eastern European countries to western countries was around 850,000 (Garson, Redor and Lemaitre, 1997), compared with less than half this in the three preceding decades (Frejka, 1996; Okolski, 1998). Most emigration during the Communist period was ethnically based, mainly Jews and Germans. Permanent emigration flows are summarised in Table 15. During the 1990s Central and Eastern Europe as a whole has been characterised by continuing ethnically based migrations, and by several new types of migration, summarised by Okolski (1998). The main ones are
There are also geographically more selective flows, including
Superimposed on these patterns of migration is a complex mosaic of relatively short-term movements based on "labour tourism" and petty trading, and comprising a highly intensive shuttling back and forth across international borders in order to make a living. Traditionally not regarded as migration, such movements have forced themselves into the migration lexicon simply as a result of their volume, economic importance and novelty. Okolski (1997) has categorised many of these moves as "incomplete migration", the term describing a situation in which those involved make frequent, short-duration trips abroad to earn a living while maintaining a home in the origin country. "Incomplete migrants" are characterised by a ‘loose’ social status and/or flexible occupational position in the country of origin; irregularity of stay or work in the country of destination; while maintaining a steady residence and household links in the country of origin. Often distance of move is short, perhaps only cross-border. Although individual stays abroad may be measured in days rather than weeks, during the course of a year the majority of the migrant’s time will be spent away from home in a foreign country. Most countries in Central and Eastern Europe have experienced some permanent immigration, much of it return migration, although flows have been modest. Data on stocks of foreign population are only slowly becoming available for Eastern European countries. Those in Table 16 are derived from a variety of sources, concepts and definitions. In so far as they are based on official sources they almost certainly underestimate the real total of foreign population currently living in the countries listed. Transit and other temporary migrants, for example, are excluded. The data indicate a generally rising officially recognised foreign population, especially in the Czech Republic which by 1996 had nearly 200,000. Hungary, too, had a substantial foreign population, though the data here refer only to temporary residence permit holders. Bulgaria has also shown a steady increase in its foreign population, from 24,100 in 1989 to 36,300 in 1996. Registered foreigners represent only small proportions of the total population, mostly around one per cent (Table 17), and well below the figures for Western Europe (Table 4). Slovenia, Hungary and the Czech Republic, among the most economically advanced of the new democracies, have the highest proportions. The situation in the Baltic states is anomalous. Data for 1996 suggested around 2.4 million ethnic Russians, with old USSR passports, resident in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania (National Statistical Offices of the Baltic Countries, 1996). The status of these people is under review in all three Baltic states, and currently they do not appear in the statistics as either nationals of those countries or as foreigners. Most flow data on foreign immigration in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe refer to permanent immigrants; thus they considerably under-record total flows. Numbers are modest and generally not rising (Table 18). Many of those recorded are former citizens who left during the communist period, many becoming naturalised in their new countries. Peak flows were in 1991 or 1992, two or three years after the return to democracy, a pattern consistent with the idea that the relatively small numbers of those who wished to return waited until they were confident that political change was irreversible. Temporary rather than permanent migration, mainly for work purposes, was typical of Eastern Europe and the USSR during the communist period. Principal origins were ‘fraternal’ regimes such as Vietnam, Cuba and Nicaragua. Since then new inflows of workers have occurred, polarised between the highly skilled (mainly from the West) and those finding niches at the bottom end of the labour market (mainly from Romania, Bulgaria and the CIS, and from the Third World). The available statistics on the numbers of foreign workers in Eastern Europe are limited. Those in Table 19 are from official sources, and thus omit the large number of transient and illegal workers. The numbers recorded are low, certainly in comparison with those for Western Europe, and in recent years have fluctuated. Outside Russia, the Czech Republic has been the main destination, numbers there doubling since 1994, although in 1997 there was a small downward trend. Data on inflows of foreign labour are at best only indicative, and there is little evidence of a strong trend (Table 20). 4.4 Asylum seeking in Eastern Europe Data on asylum seeking in Eastern Europe are still very partial, and for the most part the numbers recorded are low. Applications in Hungary have fallen annually since 1989 (Hungarian Academy of Sciences, 1995). Indications for other countries are for fluctuations in numbers of asylum seekers (Table 21), although it is thought that many claimants are really transit migrants wishing eventually to enter Western Europe. There is some recent evidence that asylum seekers are now targeting Central and Eastern European countries for settlement because of their political freedom and economic growth. 4.5 The migration of the former Soviet Union Migration in the former Soviet Union is currently characterised by internal circulation, with some international spillover. The causes of this movement are multiple, and include falling living standards, socio-political instability and a series of armed conflicts. The result is a complex typology of movement, some elements of which may be characterised as ‘normal’ (such as labour migrations), others as the products of a series of emergencies. The data in Table 18 record annual inflows to the Russian Federation, most of them coming from elsewhere in the former Soviet Union (the ‘near abroad’): numbers have clearly fluctuated, but since the peak of 1994 there has been a marked downward trend. The migratory trends and patterns of the CIS states during the 1990s have recently been analysed in a report of the IOM Technical Co-operation Centre for Europe and Central Asia (IOM, 1997b). The situation is summarised in Table 22. The Russian Federation remains the principal migration partner of all the CIS countries, absolutely and relatively. The overall decrease in migratory movements in the region during the period 1989-96 can be attributed mainly to the fall in Russian outmigration. There has also been a fall in the relative significance of ethnic movements in recent years, the pattern of flows in recent years bearing a closer resemblance to that in the Soviet period. The depressingly long list of emergency migrations includes those stemming from conflicts in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Moldova, and Chechnya. It is estimated that around 870,000 persons have been refugees or in refugee-like situations since 1989.A further 1.1 million have been internally displaced, including Armenians (72,000), Azerbaijanis (549,000), Georgians (261,000), Moldovans (51,000) and Chechnyans (149,000) (IOM, 1997a).Since the mid-1980s around three quarters of a million migrants have been forced to resettle owing to environmental degradation (IOM, 1997a), the bulk of them stemming from the disaster at Chernobyl (it has been estimated that up to 3 million more are still living in contaminated areas (Omelyanets and Torbin, 1991; quoted in Shamshur, 1995). Other displacements are in the Aral Sea basin and around the Semipalatinsk nuclear test area in Kazakstan. Other large scale migrants include repatriates within the former Soviet Union, most of them Russians returning to Russia. Causes of these movements are complex, although push factors seem to be dominant. Amongst the earliest repatriates have been those ethnic groups deported by Stalin away from their traditional areas of settlement (such as the Crimean Tatars, about a quarter of a million of whom are estimated to have returned to the Crimea by mid-1995 (Shamshur, 1995)). Overall, an estimated 4.2 million people may be regarded as repatriants, though not all of these are recent: Russian speakers particularly have been repatriating from elsewhere in the CIS since the 1970s. This trend accelerated in the 1980s, and involved increasing numbers of other ethnic groups, particularly those of Central Asia: for example, between 1991 and 1996 an estimated 155,000 Kazaks repatriated from the Russian Federation, Uzbekistan, Mongolia and Iran (IOM, 1997b). A related trend to repatriates is the return of ethnic groups who were forcibly deported from their historic homelands. Around a million of these have moved since the mid-1980s, including Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans and Meskhetians (IOM, 1997b). The number of ‘normal’ migrants within and from the former Soviet Union is not easy to calculate because of poor statistics. It seems that most labour migrants go to Russia, numbers are high, and most movement is short-term. It is estimated that Russia hosts about 100,000 migrant workers engaged in compliance with intergovernmental agreements, but this may well be a big underestimate (International Herald Tribune, 1994; Shamshur, 1995). Recently, numbers of labour migrants within the CIS have been rising again as a result of changing socio-economic conditions. So far these migrations have been largely contained within the CIS rather than spilling over into the rest of Europe. There is evidence of large scale illegal migration: the Federal Migration Service of Russia reported in 1994 that there were about half a million immigrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East who had entered in violation of passport and visa procedures (IOM, 1994). Belarus reports between one and four hundred thousand illegal entrants in the last two years (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1995). Data on migration exchanges with non-CIS countries are variable in quantity and quality. Emigration from Russia to non-CIS countries is estimated at 96,700 in 1996, down from the peak of 113,900 in 1993, but well above the 47,600 of 1989. The vast majority of emigrants went to Germany (67 per cent), Israel (15 per cent) and the USA (13 per cent) (Table 23). These numbers refer only to those moving for permanent residence: the number going abroad temporarily is unknown but likely to be high. Permanent emigration from Ukraine to non-CIS countries had a similar pattern: 82 per cent of the total of 53,000 from Ukraine went to the same three countries as from Russia. For Belarus permanent emigration to non-CIS countries was running at 8,800 in 1995, slightly higher than 1993-4 (each about 6,900), but well below the peak of 34,000 in 1990. Again, Israel, USA and Germany were the main destinations. 4.6 East-West ‘brain drain’ in Europe During recent years there has been an increasing literature on emigration from Eastern and Central Europe of the highly skilled (see, for example, Studi Emigrazione, 1995). This growing interest has taken place within a vacuum of systematic data. Most of the information is derived from statistics showing: the decline in employment in the scientific sector for several countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; the arrival of scientific personnel from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union in countries of Western Europe; and surveys conducted amongst scientific personnel still in the East concerning their future intentions regarding international migration. These data do not indicate the massive actual and potential brain drain from East to West, with negative impacts upon sending countries, that is sometimes suggested. After the collapse of Communist regimes in the Eastern bloc, their science sectors were relatively overstaffed yet underfinanced. The subsequent reduction of staff in these sectors occurred very quickly. It would appear that the majority of personnel who left the science sector remained within their country but sought employment in alternative work in the private sector. Only in the former Soviet Union does it seem that the collapse and subsequent decline in employment and investment in the scientific sector resulted in increased brain migration. This information should not be used to suggest that the movement of more skilled people from East to West has been inconsequential. For example, the level of education of migrants to and from Russia is noticeably higher than that of Russia’s population (IOM, 1997a). The share of persons with professional qualifications is 1.5 times higher among migrants than in the general population. Ukraine’s experience was similar, with 18 per cent of emigrants having higher education in 1996, and an estimated net migration loss of such educated people totalling 11,000 for the year. Georgia has also experienced a considerable brain drain in recent years at a time when it needs to capitalise on its intelligentsia to rebuild its economy (IOM, 1997a). The migration of highly skilled staff has not been one way. As the economies of the region have become more internationalised, so there has been a substantial west-east flow of corporate staff, consultants, educationists and others (Hillmann, 1997). This process seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future. 5. IRREGULAR MIGRATION There are enormous difficulties in assessing the scale of irregular/illegal immigration. According to International Labour Office estimates, in 1991 there were an estimated 2.6 million non-nationals in Europe in an irregular or undocumented situation, the figure including seasonal workers and those asylum seekers whose applications have been turned down but have not left. In the last few years many countries have recorded increases in illegal immigration and working. Using data from border control authorities on apprehensions, illegal trespassing, detentions etc., the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) estimated that in 1993 illegal inflows in Western Europe totalled around 350,000 (Widgren, 1994). This still remains the most widely quoted estimate. The concept of illegality is difficult to apply in Eastern European countries because of the absence of legislation controlling entry and settlement. There is growing evidence that large numbers of foreigners are entering the labour market without appropriate permissions, and whose situation may be deemed irregular in some way. Evidence of increasing illegal migration is to be found on the streets of most cities in Eastern Europe, in the form of informal job markets and clandestine employment. In Prague, for example, in addition to the estimated 53,000 foreigners residing legally in 1995 there were thought to be 20,000 Chinese, 20,000 Ukrainians and about 10,000 transit migrants illegally in the city, with a further 25-40,000 North Americans and West Europeans working in predominantly skilled occupations but not registered (ICMPD, 1997; UNECE, 1996). In Romania, most foreigners work illegally, only 3,500 work permits being granted 1990-93, mainly to men from Arab countries, Turkey and Asia. Official sources estimated 20,000 illegal migrants at the end of 1995 (Gheorgiu, 1996). Bulgarian sources suggest rising numbers of illegal immigrants. In 1993 there were an estimated 15,000 illegal stayers, a substantial proportion of whom undertook work of some sort (Bobeva, 1994a); current estimates are 30-50,000 (ICMPD, 1997). These do not include the large numbers who have crossed the Bulgarian border illegally, mainly from the Balkans and Middle East. Although there is no way of confirming these numbers, the trend seems to be upward. For most countries of Central and Eastern Europe it is likely that ‘irregular’ immigration is characteristic, and that most foreign workers are in some way illegal. 5.2 Trafficking: its importance, size and scale There is a strong feeling that increasing amounts of irregular migration are associated with the growth of trafficking, although hard evidence one way or the other is difficult to find. The illegal trafficking of migrants is widely recognised to be a major international problem. In addition to security issues the problem of trafficking is also one of human rights. Migrants who are trafficked may be exploited by: being charged extortionate prices for their journey; having their money and belongings stolen; having their identities stolen (passports and other travel documents, identity cards etc.); and being trapped into debt bondage. They may also be subject to inhuman conditions and to physical abuse, sometimes resulting in death. It is uncertain how large a business trafficking is, how much money it generates, and how many people it employs. Nevertheless it is on its way to becoming an established branch of well organised international gangster syndicates, according to one estimate bringing in an annual income of about US$5 to US$7 billion, and perhaps as profitable as drug-smuggling (Widgren, 1994). To individual migrants the costs of trafficking vary enormously depending on their nationality, ethnicity, and on the means of transport employed and the distances involved. The total annual business of trafficking Chinese to the US in the early 1990s was estimated to be worth some $US3 billion to the traffickers (Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 April 1993, as cited in Skeldon, 1994). There are almost insuperable difficulties in assessing how many migrants are trafficked, though the usual starting point is the incidence of irregular and undocumented migration. Police evidence in practically all Western European States suggests a growth in stocks of illegal aliens working and residing in these countries (Expert Group of the Budapest Group, 1996). Statistics on border apprehensions seem to confirm the trend, although they may reflect increased vigilance rather than more transgressions. Despite attempts such as the Budapest process, which aims to manage flows of irregular migrants, and suggestions that some forms of irregular migration are now better controlled (for example, asylum seekers) it is anticipated that unless efficient counter-measures are established there will be a continued increase in inflows into Europe outside of legal channels (Ibid). There is evidence to suggest that traffickers are behind a substantial proportion of irregular migration, though how much can at best only be guessed. Where estimates of the extent of illegal border crossings organised by traffickers have been made, it is likely that they have undercounted the problem because of a reliance on statistics of border apprehensions. One of the few attempts to estimate the scale of trafficking in Europe is that of Widgren (1994). He suggested that approximately 15-30 per cent of those managing to reach their destinations in Western European countries in 1993 used the services of traffickers during some part of their journey, the proportion being slightly higher for asylum seekers (20- 40 per cent), resulting in a trafficked total of 100,000 to 220,000 people (Ibid). Evidence from Central and Eastern European states, in replies to anti-trafficking surveys, suggests similar proportions (Expert Group of the Budapest Group, 1995). There is limited statistical information on numbers of illegal migrants apprehended while being trafficked across borders (IOM, 1998). A major problem is in distinguishing trafficked and non-trafficked illegal migrants and also accounting for the fact that one individual may attempt a border crossing several times, resulting in multiple counting. Where data are collected, presentation of the results may only be partial in that only selected nationalities (perhaps the ten largest) are recorded (Lederer, 1997). Furthermore, there are few data which allow trends in numbers to be identified. The limited trend evidence presents mixed results on whether trafficking is growing. Even where the source used is identical, revisions from year to year in the data may make for differences in trends. Federal border data for Germany for the period 1990-96 suggest that trends in apprehensions for illegal migrants as a whole, those engaged in trafficking, and numbers of individual migrants trafficked show some differences. Apprehensions of illegal immigrants peaked in 1993 then fell in each succeeding year. In contrast numbers of cases of trafficking which were relatively low in the early 1990s, peaked in 1993, fell back in 1994 but rose in 1995 and 1996. However, the numbers apprehended as traffickers, which also peaked in 1993, fell in 1994, rose in 1995, but fell in 1996, suggesting that latterly the number of traffickers per case was falling and therefore that one trafficker per case was becoming more common (Bundesministerium des Inneren, 1997). It appears then that in 1996 an individual trafficker was responsible for more migrants. Numbers of trafficked migrants also peaked in 1993, fell in 1994, and have risen in every year since. Thus in 1995 and 1996 numbers of illegal migrants recorded were falling, numbers of cases of trafficking were rising, numbers of traffickers apprehended fell in 1996 while numbers of trafficked individual migrants rose throughout. In 1997 the situation may have changed. The number of illegal migrants in the first six month of 1997 rose by 30 percent compared with the previous year. In contrast, cases of trafficking during the same period fell by 6 percent while the number of migrants trafficked who were apprehended rose by 17 percent (Severin 1997). These statistics would appear to suggest that the number of migrants per trafficking operation was continuing to rise, and that the trafficking business was expanding. One interpretation of these figures is that trafficking in migrants was becoming relatively more important and the process more efficient, although the poor quality of many of the data and the effort expended by the authorities in apprehending and charging illegal entrants mean that such a conclusion must be approached with caution. Some support for this interpretation, however, comes from US enforcement data: trends in numbers of "smugglers of aliens located" fell from 21,901 in 1990 to 13,458 in 1996, but at the same time numbers of "aliens located who were smuggled into the US" rose from 71,049 to 122,233 (INS, 1997). Many references can be found to the sums of money paid to traffickers. Most of the information is "event related", i.e. it refers to individual cases. It is difficult to come up with anything approaching a set tariff since the sums paid vary according to the level of service provided. As might be expected the costs are positively related to distance. Hence trafficking to the US costs more than to Europe. For similar destinations however there may be sharp differences in amounts paid: one study found a range from $ 3000 to $ 30000 (Smith 1997). Although resort to trafficking varies for different national and ethnic groups, by gender and by sector of employment, studies consistently show trafficking’s increasing importance in flows of irregular migrants. Around 40 per cent of transit migrants interviewed in Turkey were without a valid document and almost all of them arrived with the aid of traffickers. One-third of them, mainly Iranians, ethnic Turks from Iraq, and Africans, were planning to use traffickers to help them reach their final destinations (IOM, 1995a). Findings of the German Border Police suggest that more than 60 per cent of the foreigners who illegally entered Germany in 1995, most of them from and via Central and Eastern Europe, were guided by trafficking organisations (Ternes, 1996). An estimated 2,000 of the 19,000 - 25,000 foreigners currently working as prostitutes in Italy had used the services of traffickers (IOM, 1996b). A similar story applies to the case of Chinese irregular migration into Central and Eastern Europe (IOM, 1995b). While it would appear that trafficking is organised, often highly so, there is less evidence that ‘organised crime’ per se is heavily involved. For the most part it appears that the main operators are more likely to be conventional criminal groups than internationally organised crime syndicates. It appears that trafficking is a business with relatively low entry costs and one that can be carried out by small scale entrepreneurs. The primary motivation is that of high profits and low risks (Lederer, Nickel 1997). The major exception would seem to be the Chinese Triads (IOM 1995: Chinese in CEEs: snakeheads), Italian Mafia (Global Survival Network 1997), and, perhaps, Vietnamese in Germany diversifying from their main activity of cigarette smuggling (Spiegel 1995). 5.3 Trafficking and the new geography of migration Trafficking may also be creating a new geography of international migration. Evidence suggests that traffickers increasingly determine the choice of migrants’ destination countries and the routes taken (see for example, Koser 1998 and IOM, 1997b). The effect of channelling migrants also reflects the principles by which this process is achieved: traffickers use of local knowledge, of key locations, and their wider intelligence of international weaknesses in regimes of migration control. Knowledge of trafficking routes is sporadic, largely anecdotal and often highly sensitive. The available information shows a high level of diversity in the flows, many of which are highly organised. Within Europe, Germany is easily the most popular destination, but it would appear that to some extent fashion dictates flows, with certain countries becoming more popular depending upon current rumour about ease of entry or reception policies. The origins of trafficked migrants have expanded to include parts of Eastern Europe (notably former Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria), most of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East, and much of Africa and Asia (including China and the Indian sub-continent (ISC) ). Given the wide range of origins, it is not surprising that complex networks of flows have developed. Information on the geographical pattern of routeways, much of it derived from studies of transit migrants, suggests five main trajectories. Three of these are "land" routes from the East. The most northerly goes through Russia, the Baltic and Poland. To the south is a route through Ukraine, the Balkans and the Czech and Slovak Republics. The third route goes through Bulgaria, Romania and the Balkans. A fourth route transits the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean. The final path crosses the Mediterranean from North Africa, mainly into Italy and the Iberian peninsula. All of these routes may be fed by any of a diverse set of sources, located mainly in Europe and Asia. Along them are some countries, towns and cities through which migrants are routinely trafficked. Although most studies say something about them, knowledge of trafficking routes remains desultory and largely anecdotal. Given the wide range of origins and the large number of destinations it is not surprising that complex networks of flows have developed. For example, one study of the routes used to traffic women for prostitution from the nearly independent states of the former Soviet Union shows a network which links that region with the rest of Europe, North America, North and South Africa the Asia-Pacific Rim and Australia (Global Survival Network 1997). Other studies have demonstrated the importance of particular places in route networks. Survey evidence suggests for example that a main route from China is via Moscow and Prague (IOM 1995). Although there is plenty of anecdotal information about specific routes, few studies have attempted to produce a synthesis. An exception was a study by the Council of Europe 1993 of illegal entry routes for trafficked migrants into Europe which suggested an 80 per cent dispersion via Eastern Europe and the Balkans, a 2 per cent dispersion from the Maghreb and an 8 per cent dispersion via the North Sea. The immigration story in Canada and the US in the 1990s is characterised by four basic trends. First, policy and quotas have been increasingly driven by the need to compete in a global skills market. Thus, for example, the 1995 Report of the US Commission on Immigration Reform argued that skill-based immigration should support national interests by bringing in skills which benefit society and help businesses compete in the global economy. Similarly, the points system in Canada serves also to select in those with the skills required by the Canadian economy. Second, competition in the global skills market is tempered in both countries by the need to balance it with humanitarian concerns. Hence, family reunion remains the single biggest ‘cause’ of migration, and is a central plank in what is effectively a tripartite approach focusing on nuclear family members, refugees and others in need of protection, and professional and skilled workers. Third, both countries continue to experience a changing geography of migration. They are both important nodes in a global migration system. More significantly, however, over the last three decades the balance of their intake has swung inexorably towards Asia and, especially in the US case, towards Latin America. Finally, both countries are increasingly questioning their migration ideologies, in particular with regard to the balance between family, skills and humanitarian intakes. What this implies is a continuing fluidity in patterns and trends, the upshot of which is the creation of patterns, trends and policy responses that reflect an increasingly globalised migration system, but with marked national differentiation as well. 6.1 Stock of Foreign Born Immigrant Population. There is a clear trend in the foreign-born population of both countries towards more rapid growth in the late eighties and the first half of the nineties. In Canada, the quinquenial census provides a figure for the stock of foreign-born population. Between 1981 and 1996, the number of foreign-born increased from 3.8 million to nearly 5.0 million (Table 24), up 29.3 per cent. The US has also experienced an increase in the stock of foreign-born by 74.7 per cent from 14.1 million in 1980 (Census) to 24.6 million in 1996 (Current Population Survey). The increase appears to be accelerating: in Canada 1.7 per cent 1981-86, 11.1 per cent 1986-91, and 14.5 per cent 1991-96, providing an average annual increase for the three periods are 0.3 percent, 2.2 per cent and 2.9 per cent respectively. In the US, between 1980 and 1990 (taking into account the estimated 1.9 million born to US citizens) the foreign-born population increased by 23.7 per cent, between 1990 and 1996, 24.4 per cent. Since 1994, the foreign-born population has increased by 2 million (8.8 per cent). These three figures produce average annual increases of 2.4 per cent, 4.1 per cent and 4.4 per cent. However, although the US has seen greater per increases in a stock of foreign-born population five times greater than Canada, Canada has a foreign-born population that is proportionately twice the size of the US when compared with the native-born population. 6.2 Composition of the foreign-born immigrant population by country of birth Fundamental shifts are continuing in the composition of the foreign born (Table). The main trends in the foreign-born population in Canada are a declining share of European-born, from 62.3 per cent in 1986 to 46.9 per cent 46.9 in 1996; a stable share of those born in the Americas at around 16 per cent; an increase in the share from Asia, rising from 17.7 to 31.4 per cent; and a modest increase in the proportion born in Africa, 2.9 to 4.6 per cent. In the US, the European share is also declining, 36.6 per cent in 1980 to 22.0 per cent in 1990 and there is an increase in the Asian share of 18.0 to 25.2 per cent. However, unlike Canada, there is a significant increase in the share of American foreign-born from 37.0 to 46.3 per cent, largely accounted for by the increase in those from Mexico. 6.3 Immigration to Canada and the US Immigration flows are summarised in Table 25, and the two countries show some divergence in trends in the 1990s, at least as far as recorded flows are concerned. In Canada inflows rose, peaking in 1993 after which there was a sharp decline with the last four years showing fluctuations within a fairly narrow band. 1991 was the peak for the US, since when numbers have halved, though 1996 represented a significant rise on the year before. Permanent immigration to Canada in 1997 was 216,000 a decrease from the previous year (226,100), continuing the general downward trend from the peak of 255,800 in 1993 (Table 25). This was well within the planned level of immigration but there was a continuation of a shift in type of immigrant, away from the family unification towards economic migration. The family class made up 28 per cent of permanent immigration, the skilled worker class accounted for 49 per cent, the business class 9 per cent and refugees 11 per cent. However, not all dependants are accounted for in the family class, only 40 per cent of the business and skilled worker classes entering as principal applicants. In 1997 the marked decrease in family class landings, falling 9,535 from the previous year, represents a continuation of a decline, with a 27.9 per cent decrease since 1994. This was 21 per cent less than the upper end of the planned range of 78,000 to 85,700 for 1996 (Ruddick, 1997). In contrast there was a rise in the intake of skilled workers of 46 per cent between 1994 and 1996. The major source areas were in the Asia-Pacific region which contributed 57 per cent of the skilled worker flow, followed distantly by Europe (including the UK) which contributed 22 per cent. Business immigration increased 1995-6, but the level was still below that of 1994. Asia again led the way in this class: the top three source countries in 1996 were Hong Kong (37.5 per cent), Taiwan (19.2 per cent) and Korea (6.9 per cent), together accounting for 64 per cent of business immigrants, an increase on their 61 per cent share the year before (Ruddick, 1997). In the US, in 1996 there were 915,900 immigrants, a significant increase on the previous year (720,500), and an upturn in the general downward trend since the 1991 peak of over 1.8 million. Permanent immigration is counted as those granted permanent residence, and in 1996 over half of those persons were already in the country, living as temporary residents. Excluding these persons, 1996 saw the largest number of immigrants admitted since 1914 (Kramer, 1997). Family reunion and refugees were the two main categories, accounting for almost 80 per cent. The 1996 increase is mainly due to a rise of 30 per cent in family reunion and 40 per cent in employment-based immigration. The 1996 increase was partly a result of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) allowing "illegal" immigrants to regularise their status between 1995-97. Also, the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) has resulted in nearly 2.7 million immigrants obtaining permanent residence, some of whom have gained citizenship which allows their immediate family members to apply for permanent immigration. This category showed a marked increase in 1996 over 1995, looking likely to account for an increasingly large proportion of total immigration. Family reunification accounted for nearly 65 per cent of total permanent immigration in the US in 1996. A further 13 per cent (including dependants) were granted that status in order to work. Although the Immigration Act of 1990 increased numbers for or work permits from the annual cap of 54,000 a decade before it was implemented (in 1992) to 140,000, not all of the permits are used and employment-based principal applicants have accounted for only 5-6 per cent of total annual immigration since 1992. Mexico is the leading country of origin of those entering the United States with some 164,000 in 1996, an increase of over 80 per cent on 1995. North and Central America was the largest region of origin at 340,500, 37.2 per cent of total immigration, having peaked in 1991 at 66.3 per cent (Table 26). Next was Asia with 307,800 (33.6 per cent), again peaking in 1991 at 358,500 thousand but with an overall decline in share for the period 1986-96. Europe’s contribution rose from 10.4 per cent in 1986 to 16.1 per cent in 1996 after peaking at 20 per cent in 1994 with 160,500. Migrants from Africa rose significantly, especially after 1994, trebling over the period 1986-96, increasing that continent’s share from 2.9 to 5.8 per cent. Both countries take in temporary foreign workers, in addition to their permanent immigration programmes. Table 27 suggests that trends may be in opposite directions, downwards in Canada, but rising in the US. The US recorded over half a million temporary labour immigrants in 1996, and the trend in their numbers is firmly upwards, the rise since 1994 being 18.6 per cent. Most of these are highly skilled workers and reflect the US government’s decision to increase the competitiveness of the national economy. They particularly comprise professionals, treaty traders and investors, and - the fastest growing group - intra-company transferees. The size of the last group illustrates the growing significance of economic globalisation and the roles of transnational corporations. Temporary immigration to Canada is tracked through data on employment authorisations. The latest available data for temporary labour immigration (Table 27) show a steady decline from 289,200 thousand in 1989 to 172,900 thousand in 1994. This can be explained in part by the effects of the Backlog Clearance programme and also by the relatively weak state of the Canadian economy. Since 1994, in addition to the regular issue of work permits, about 10-12 thousand authorisations have been added under the NAFTA, though these figures are low in comparison to the total number of temporary workers. As in the US, the main occupations authorised are skilled (Table). 6.5 Emigration flows from Canada and the US In both Canada and the US the focus of the debate about migration is inflows, and there is little serious attention to outflows. Official estimates of emigration are presented in Table 28. For Canada it would appear that emigration fell in the 1980s, fluctuated in the early 1990s, since when it has risen steadily. The resultant net flows peaked in 1993. For the US, it is suggested that emigration may be around 200,000 per annum, so for 1996, for example, the net flow would be around 700,000. Measurement of the scale and nature of emigration flows is a subject to which both governments might justifiably pay attention, not only to establish net flows with more accuracy but for the ideological contribution that might be made to immigration debates. 6.6 Refugees and Asylum Seekers In Canada, applications for asylum rose in the 1980s, with a peak of 45,000 in 1988 (Table 29). Since then there has been an overall decline, although the figures have fluctuated year to year. Since 1994, the number increased from 21,100 to 25,900 in 1995, falling again to 24,300 in 1997. Refugees and asylum seekers have been a subject of political and popular concern in the US mainly because of the numbers attempting to come from Haiti and Cuba. The US distinguishes refugees from asylum seekers only in that they are admitted after applying for asylum from outside the US rather than within the country or port of entry. After one year, refugees may then change to immigrant status. Currently, the admission of refugees is subject to an overall ceiling subdivided into five geographical regions. During the 1990s the ceilings rose to a peak of 142,000 in 1992, subsequently falling steadily to 78,000 in 1997. Numbers of admissions have tended to be slightly lower than the ceiling figures, peaking at 151,800 (excluding dependants) in 1993, generally declining since then, falling to (provisionally) 65,000 in 1997. The former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has been the main source of applicants during the 1990s. As has been the case in Europe, new procedures have been adopted with the aim to speed up decisions and deter applications. Undocumented migrants move to the US for varying lengths of time, many of them making frequent, short-term trips, others intending to stay permanently. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 resulted in about 2.7 million undocumented workers becoming legalised. Since then, numbers of illegal immigrants have risen to an estimated 5 million in 1997, and are growing at about 275,000 per year (Kramer, 1997). Mexico is the leading country of origin, with an estimated 2.7 million, or 54 per cent of the undocumented population (Kramer, 1997). Although numbers of illegal immigrants are still concentrated in a small number of states, there is a growing realisation that illegal migrants are establishing networks that take them to new destinations and into new industries. A relatively new development in recent years has been an increasing awareness of visa overstayers. The Immigration and Naturalisation Service estimates that about 2.1 million (41 per cent) of the undocumented population are non-immigrant overstayers. Canada does not appear to have data on its undocumented population. However, new measures have been taken to deal with fraudulent asylum claims and to stop clandestine entry by sea. About two-thirds of illegal migrants are estimated to have embarked in Europe (Ruddick, 1997). 6.1 Dissatisfaction with existing policy regimes In both Europe and North America the 1990s have witnessed increasing questioning of the direction of immigration policies. In recent years a veritable legion of critiques has called into question the direction of US policy. Gimpel and Edwards (1998), for example, have charted the politics of immigration policy over recent decades. They have emphasised the ebb and flow of debate over short- and long-term, and the role of Washington interest groups in driving the agenda. The result has been a fragmentary approach to immigration policy, generating a need for the entire basis of the current immigration system to be re-evaluated. There have been more specific criticisms. Papademetriou (1998) has called for new thinking on the relationship between the selection of immigration on economic grounds and the competitiveness of US firms in the global economy, while Massey (1998) has described US policy towards immigration from Mexico as "spectacularly unsuccessful", advocating a package of measures designed to manage rather than suppress flows. In much of the UNECE area it is possible to identify two major reactions to existing policies. The first is a growing dissatisfaction with existing, control-based structures. Too often these have adopted a piecemeal approach, tackling individual migration issues separately with resultant unanticipated (at least by policy makers!) side effects. The second is a realisation that a comprehensive approach is much more likely to bear fruit, that governments should seek to manage migration flows by swimming with the tide rather than against it. A possible way forward is developed here with respect to the European situation, but which has wider applicability. It draws upon the recent work of the Council of Europe’s Reflection Group to develop a new migration management strategy for Europe as a whole. The increasingly apparent need for a new European policy on migration stems from a combination of the deficiencies of the policies evolving since the 1970s, and the changing nature of migration and attitudes to it. The existing policy model is based on two major lines of action: the closing of borders to new influxes of immigrant labour, and measures to promote the social integration of the immigrant populations in place. This model has proved inadequate in dealing with existing stocks and flows, and there is little likelihood that it is flexible enough to deal with the new situation. Not only are the migration problems confronting the wider Europe of the 1990s different from those faced by Western Europe in the 1970s, but the new democracies will also wish to avoid the mistakes made historically by their western neighbours. Closing borders to foreign workers emerged as the main response to a new economic situation in the 1980s marked by the end of growth and by recession. However, in a world increasingly characterised by global networks for producing and exchanging goods, services and information, and where states have forfeited much of their control over capital movements and the organisation of production, excessive reliance on policies to control labour flows is unlikely to succeed. It is clear, too, that large numbers of new unskilled jobs continue to be created, many of them in the ‘informal’ sector, filled by immigrants willing to work at wage levels unacceptable to indigenous workers. Given the existence of such jobs, and the willingness of immigrants to take them, it is difficult for governments to control entry to them. Furthermore, in the face of the prevailing economic ethos for flexibility and deregulation in labour markets, which are driving down wage rates and conditions of work, tightening immigration control appears to be a contradictory strategy. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that entry controls have had some success in Western Europe, though it is clear that their effects have not been uniform across countries. Migration policies are still generally reactive rather than proactive, and characterised by crisis management, not consistency. The circumstances of the 1990s have led to the evolution of a series of migration-related policies pursued in parallel rather than in an integrated fashion. As a result, labour and family reunion policies are generally not integrated, while asylum policy has grown up separately from them. The situation now is that a new strand of policy, dealing with trafficking, is being added to the warp. Thus European migration policies currently address a series of issues separately: labour; family reunion and formation; asylum; trafficking and illegal flows; integration. Cutting across these are broader management issues such as those of regularisation and return, and prevention: only a comprehensive strategic approach will deal with these. 6.2 A new Migration Management Strategy Underlying such a strategy is the conviction that a comprehensive approach should satisfy certain basic criteria, applicable across Europe and in North America. First, migration policy should be open and transparent, so that all interests know the rules and how they are applied. Second, policy makers and their social partners should be well informed, using information that is as accurate and up-to-date as possible. Third, the rules and regulations formulated by policy makers and their agents should be as clear and unambiguous as possible. Fourth, any strategy should be manageable in terms of in terms of the resources available, including those of finance, information and time. Finally, and most importantly, policy must clear aims and objectives, ideally pursued in a consistent manner. With these things in mind a management strategy for Europe was developed based on four principles:
To develop a set of measures able to manage migration in an orderly manner, so as to maximise opportunities and benefits to individual migrants and to host societies and to minimise trafficking and illegal movement.
To provide an appropriate capability for protection and for dealing with disorderly or sudden movements.
To provide an environment conducive to integration.
To engage in dialogue and co-operation with sending countries in order to link foreign policy and migration policy objectives. An integrated management strategy should bring these four principles together. But in order to establish it, a number of conditions will need to be met by individual governments, bearing in mind that not all countries will have the same policy entry points. First, all countries should develop a comprehensive migration policy, beginning with a review of existing aims and measures which is designed to identify gaps and introduce greater coherence. Second, policy should be internally co-ordinated between all government departments with responsibilities for migration and integration matters in order to ensure coherence in both initiatives and response. It is surprising how little is known of how the government function is structured and operates (Papademetriou, Aleinikoff, and Meyers 1998). Third, a strategic approach to management of migration matters requires the input of all actors in the migration field, including a wide range of NGOs. Fourth, migration policy should be transparent, so that all actors feel that they have a positive role, with initiatives and decisions being openly communicated. Finally, national policies should be internationally co-ordinated to ensure the greatest possible degree of agreement and harmonisation. Such a strategy accepts the reality that Europe (and North America) is a region of immigration, the management of which has to be organised on a comprehensive basis. It adopts a flexible approach and is co-ordinated both between and within countries. It assumes roles for all of the various actors in the migration process and is to be transparently negotiated and communicated. At the heart of the strategy is the conviction that many of the migration problems now confronting governments have resulted from a piecemeal approach to specific problems, such as the economy, asylum, illegality or return. This approach is no longer sustainable. A management strategy should be regarded as a comprehensive whole, to be applied over the long term. Measures have to be applied as a complete package: failure to do so will only replicate the mistakes of the past where action in one direction has served only to create new problems from another. Whether countries are able to develop their own integrated policies and to harmonise them with others are questions that can no longer be ducked. Reticence will mean the continued application of old, tried, tested and, ultimately, failed solutions. In view of the large number of countries discussed at various stages in this paper, and the range of detail provided, no attempt will be made here to summarise its findings. Instead, a few general points that seem particularly apposite will be proposed. First, the two regions of the UNECE, Europe and North America, have developed international migration systems that have some interdependencies, but which on the whole are geographically discrete. Indeed, within Europe there are ground for arguing that three interlinked but separate sub-systems have evolved, characterised by different types and scales of movement. Second, at the level of individual countries there remain enormous variations in migration experience, the product of historical evolution as well as contemporary events. There is a highly diverse geography of migration within Europe and also within North America. Generalisation is attractive but may be deceptive. Third, the period since c1994 has generally shown declines or broad stability in recorded flows. After some years when the main indicators of migration were strongly upwards, there is at least a hiatus in the graphs. What is unclear is the degree to which unrecorded movements have stepped into the breach. Partly these are in the form of undocumented or illegal migrations; partly also they reflect the increasing incidence of types of movement which defy the normal definitions of migration and so do not appear in any statistics. Fourth, international migration patterns and trends are highly influenced by economic globalisation. The North American and European systems, acting largely independently, at least in geographical terms, are nevertheless part of a multi-dimensional global matrix of movement involving people, capital, goods, services and ideas. The prognosis for the two regional systems will depend to a considerable extent on how this matrix evolves. For example, transnational capital is already driving the migration of the highly skilled within and beyond the UNECE region. Fifth, underlying much of the discussion about immigration in North America is the |