PolicyPoints EU enlargement

1
PolicyPointsEU enlargement migration

• Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah
• Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr)

2
Floodgates or turnstiles?

• The potential scale and impact of migration is
  one of the most heated aspects of EU enlargement
• An unhappy coincidence? The politics and
  economics of EU meets the politics and economics
  of migration
• Result media frenzy
• This feeds into wider fears about migration,
  benefit tourism, failing government policies,
  Roma etc.
• Key is to untangle issues, examine evidence, and
  generate appropriate policies.

3
3 main concerns for EU15

• Large scale of the enlargement (10 new members
  and 75 million people) and the
• large economic disparities between existing and
  new members may lead to
• large and uncontrolled flows of unskilled or
  low-skilled workers that will undercut wages in
  EU15 countries.

4
Transitional restrictions?

• Concerns about impact of migration on some EU15
  countries led to transitional restrictions being
  permitted as part of the Accession treaties.
• These restrictions
• can only be imposed up to 2011 at the latest
• can only be applied to workers and services and
  not other flows (e.g. visitors, students)
• Countries like Germany Austria indicated early
  on that they would impose restrictions but other
  EU15 countries imposed restrictions at the last
  minute.

5
But UK should not panic

• Surveys and economic models predict small flows
• Previous enlargement experience didnt result in
  large flows from South to North
• UK is not a likely destination for accession
  nationals
• There will be initial rise but then gradual
  decrease
• Peak stock 3-4 million in EU15 200,000 in UK
• Peak annual flows 370,000 to EU15 17,000 to UK
• Migrants will most likely be young, single,
  reasonably well educated and come for short
  periods

6
Opportunities for the UK

• Main question is when to allow free access not
  if
• UK decision to allow migrant workers access now
  rather than later makes economic sense because
• unemployment is low at the moment
• there are skills shortages that accession
  nationals can fill
• more legal flows will reduce demand for illegal
  workers
• the UK stands to gain an early starter advantage.
• Escape clauses if flows are larger than expected
  the UK can reduce other migration streams or
  impose restrictions later.

7
New policies for a new Europe?

• Essential to situate debate about migration
  within wider aspirations for EU
• Important to reaffirm the relatively small scale
  of migration after enlargement and that EU
  policies are determined by evidence rather than
  media hysteria.
• Unwarranted fears about migration should not lead
  to a two-tier Europe
• Migration in an enlarged EU may cause short-term
  upheaval in some areas but it also offers
  opportunities for new and old member states alike