I am a non-European that is interested in learning more about the political/social situation in Europe. I’ve heard from many many Europeans that I personally know in real life, from the news and from European redditors that immigration is a major political and social issue in many European countries now.
But I must ask… why? Immigration can be good, especially in ageing countries where a lower tax-base might lead to worse services and worse economy. A country like Japan (and now China) has really started to see economic stagnation because of population decline. So why are so many people in Europe seem to find immigration such a big problem when age demographics say most European countries need immigration to sustain a healthy economy with quality public services?
I understand this can be a controversial topic and I am not trying to stir anything up. I ask this in good-faith out of genuine curiosity with open ears so I can learn more about that part of the world. Thanks for reading.
26 comments
Legal Immigration of people with skills and willing to integrate would of course be useful. Unfortunately Europe gets a lot of illegal immigration from an undesirable demographic (only young men with very problematic values and no skills useful in a knowledge based economy). In some small countries the yearly influx of these type of immigrants is half the yearly birth rate. That’s a systemic problem that’s going to blow up in the foreseeable future.
Immigration definitely has value and the aging population will cause a temporary problem. But spoken as a Dutch person ; our country is too small for the size of our population, and our population keeps growing due to immigration. We have a major housing problem. We cannot produce enough food to feed our own country. Our sparse nature is threatened on all sides. There shouldn’t be this many people on this small a patch of land, especially not when it’s likely that part of that land will disappear due to climate change in the coming century…
It might cause all kinds of trouble and people from different cultures might have a hard time assimilating to new cultures.
Lots of immigration into Europe is in the form of refugees who have little interest in work. They are a drain on society rather than an asset. That said there are lots of economic migrants that are an asset to society.
It’s a complex multifaceted issue. Generally, while immigration may benefit the country by filling up labour, especially low-skilled, shortages, it can also cause resut in of issues regarding migrant integration, at its worst resulting in siginificant rise of crime rates. Generally, I would ideally like to keep extra-European immigration fairly low, especially from the more problematic countries, mostly letting migrants in to fill up shortages in necessary qualified rather than low-skilled sectors. Instead, European countries should try to incentivize natural population growth, which is obviously an incredibly hard thing to achieve
Not considering the economical and social impact (a relevant percent of the country’s population suddenly added will lead to a plethora of issues like housing, jobs, food demand, etc), i think a very relevant issue is the ability of some migrants to integrate into the local culture and values.
Just an example that is very close to the heart, as it happened to my gf: when you live in a liberal society and dress whatever way you want, nobody from your own country bats an eye, people just don’t care or maybe you might get some admiring looks. Then suddenly, on your way to work, you have a group of a few dozen men which are devout muslims, shouting at you for dressing like a whore.
This is just an example, but you get the idea.
Nobody would care where you’re from or what the colour of your skin, religion is – as long as you actually adhere to the values of the society you’ve chosen to be your home.
Though this isn’t a problem directly for Europe, it is indirectly.
If we ignore all the problems with unskilled, poorly educated young men who will not or cannot integrate, there’s another problem that is often overlooked.
(And those for open borders.)
Europe is stealing the most skilled and most educated members of other countries who desperately need them for their healthcare, infrastructure and education.
This slows growth, ruins their healthcare and depletes the country of its potential champions of a liberal, secular, rules based society (the educated middle class).
This causes a repeated cycle of low economic growth, high population growth and revolt, revolution and coups which further encourages people to leave their country. Let alone the murderous excess this causes.
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Why? Because laws about rescues at sea and asylum’s rights force my country (Italy) to take in every random guy who pays $$$ to human traffickers to cross the Mediterranean, regardless of their legal rights to enter the country.
If we were able to actually select and decide who is immigrating to my country that would be ideal. Unfortunately we are not: we are just forced to accommodate any rando on the planet who pays human traffickers to try and land on our shores.
Because some people don’t understand that they have to (or should be forced to) leave the shit that ruined their countries at the door when coming to Europe. The problem is some people will call you racist for trying to implement such policies because they can’t distinguish between actual culture that is welcomed (like food, music, clothing, dances etc.) and shitty behavior (like misogyny, violence and religious extremism).
On top of that, most countries suck at integration because they let migrants live all among themselves in rundown ghettos while giving them endless social benefits with no language requirements and no incentive to get employed. Also, there is this vicious cycle that is the fight between far-right nutjobs and extremist migrants that just stirs the fire even more.
I don’t get why people obfuscate facts in their answers truthfully.
I’m speaking as someone living in The Netherlands just be clear.
Yes immigration solves the problem of ageing society and fill spots in an economy where there are staffing issues everywhere. Over the longer term both low skilled and high skilled jobs will be filled.
The issue of housing which is massive in The Netherlands is not one created by immigration. We’ve always since WW2 had a housing problem. Every 10-15 years these problems escalate to mass protest and some level of action taken with varying results. These problems mainly stem from the governments endless subsidizing of mortgages. Any interest paid on the mortgage is partly paid back to the homeowner through a tax credit. This has caused earlier generations to have easy to pay off homes (high interest rates) and normally they’d eventually sell the family home and move to someplace else as they get older. Now that the government in last decade and a half got rid of most senior living spaces including retirement homes as a measure to cut spending. Meaning elderly citizens are stuck in large homes they cannot move out of easily (there’s no place to go) and they’re stuck paying for expensive care at the home. When the house eventually comes on the market it’s at a sky high price with especially recently a low interest rate mortgage (it is now slowly going back up). Meaning you don’t get nearly as much of a benefit out of this tax credit subsidized mortgages scheme. It’s been a recommendation from the council of Europe (not the European council) to stop the subsidizing for decades. It’s not a popular message for election season so I doubt that’ll happen anytime soon.
Secondly we’ve also had an integration problem. Back during the 60s when many workers from mainly Turkey and Morocco came over and the later Eastern European workers and today practically everyone.. well none of them are forced to integrate. They live in neighborhoods together, they speak their own language, they eat their own food, they set up their own stores they shop at. While I have no problem with that the issue it brings comes when you look at modern day refugees. Many of whom come from horrible war torn countries in need of significant psychological help not available to them. They are also not required to integrate. This causes a range of issues mostly outside of their control. They’re not used to our norms, how we treat people, how we deal with things. People get a bad taste in their mouth when yet another lesbian or gay couple is shouted at or bothered walking down the street etc etc. I have no problem with people dressing, eating and even speaking what they like within their own circle but there’s a definite disconnect between our culture, our norms and acceptance of each other and what the new migrants bring. That gap is being exploited politically instead of bridged like it should be.
The immigrants I wrote about earlier who came in the 60s largely worked with and around Dutch locals, picked up the language and eventually raised their kids in Dutch schools and it all worked itself out. I’m sure we can overcome the negatives. I’m sure it’s pretty shocking seeing all the freedoms people enjoy when you come from a place where you’ve been drilled to think different, you’ve been taught hatred for certain minority groups. Nothing is impossible if we set our minds to it. We can overcome that if only we acknowledge it as a problem without allowing those who would exploit these differences to spread racism and hatred taking center stage.
As a Spaniard, I can tell you that in Spain people appreciate Latin American immigrants a lot more than any other kind of immigrants, because they are latin, catholic, they speak our language, we share a lot of cultural traits and we’re connected for historical reasons too. They’re usually not as educated as the average Spaniard, they’re usually more sexist, homophobic, but when they come to Spain they tend assimilate our rules pretty well and they integrate and embrace our traditions. They’re the main source of immigration in Spain.
From Africa, black people don’t cause much trouble in Spain either, they’re usually very hard working people.
Moroccans however, people usually don’t have a good opinion of them.
I think the real problem is not immigration itself, but when immigrants don’t integrate in the local culture. Religion plays a big role here IMO. But immigrants are not the problem. The sons of those immigrants that don’t integrate and create here a small version of their country of origin, that will be the problem. The immigrants usually come looking for a better life and they come from a place so bad that they are happy with very little. But their sons will be europeans, they will grow up in poor neighborhoods, different cultures, they’ll feel rejected, and they’ll feel like we owe them. And I think we’re seeing this already in countries like France and Belgium.
I just address the
> Immigration can be good, especially in ageing countries where a lower tax-base might lead to worse services and worse economy.
Yes of course. But in a highly developed economy with a big welfare state, immigrants need to work and pay taxes. The taxes need to be higher than the cost of each person, which is not the case.
Many are unemployed and those who work have low wages.
A Brochmann 2 rapporten (in Norway) concluded that a non western immigrant costs around 400k euro in total Kostnaden for det offentlige av flere innvandrere – Statistisk sentralbyrå https://www.ssb.no/offentlig-sektor/artikler-og-publikasjoner/_attachment/151652?_ts=142b30fbf58
Similar numbers has been calculated in Sweden.
Of course, one solution is that immigrants need to work more, but that has been tried for a very long time
There is an underlying assumption here that a young person is automatically a benefit to the economic engine of the society.
European societies are not structured in a way that allows this to be the case. The US way is much better suited to handling tons of immigrants. You sink or you swim on your own.
Of course Europeans might not be very interested in the increased crime, harsher work environment and reduced national identity – in exchange for cheaper food at restaurants.
In any case, long term the solution is that a country must manage without constant population growth.
It all depends on where they come from and what skills and backgrounds they have. Will they benefit our society? Will they integrate quickly into our society? Common sense says that if we got hard-working nurses from the Philippines knocking on the door, we might want to roll out the welcome mat. We would be stupid not to. I mean, we are in dire need of nurses, and people from Southeast Asia have a good track record of integrating well into our society.
Ireland’s population has grown 8 percent in the six years between the last two censuses. Paired with a (centerist) neoliberal government that believes the market will fix housing, and property tax is rude, it’s causing big problems in housing. We get an unusual proportion of high-earning immigrants, which is great for taxation, but locals get priced out of housing.
As the percentage of 30 year olds living with their parents has gone from 41% to 65% in the last decade…that might change. None of the political parties tolerate bigotry, which helps. But, we have a very functional democracy, so a change of government may fix many of the housing problems.
Note: Europe is a big place. Countries are wildly different there. More different than Alaska and Florida.
Ehhh…
It’s not “all migrants”, quite contrary.
It’s the minority of people, who migrated using the opportunity of Syrian war and jump on the bandwagon of uncontrolled migration combined with internal European infighting.
The law that prohibits returning the migrants who throw they passport away is also laughable.
There’s also a lot to blame in European authorities. If you band all migrants of one descent in one crowded, underdeveloped district – ghetto is expected to happen.
Europe needs migration and millions are willing to come here, even poorer parts of Europe, but we need to have a right to select migrants and have resources to take care of them, not let anybody washed on Italy’s and Greek shore in.
Immigration is a good thing, it’s when they expect to move to a completely different culture and act like they are still in their original country.
If they integrated with the culture and changed what is not accepted then there would be very few issues, it’s when they set up seperate communities and try to enact their own rules that it becomes a problem.
In the UK immigaration has been an amazing thing in the past, our national dish is a curry for example, but with a rapid influx from certain areas has lead to small pockets of crime, harrassment and a general feeling of not belonging as the area someone might have grown up in has changed with a majority of immigrants arriving.
But it’s seen fantastic benefits too, lots of those from the middle east work in the medical sector and it’s more common to have a doctor not originally from the UK.
Personally I want immigration to continue, but at a controlled rate. Those who will benefit the country rather than try to change it to their way. And as you mentioned, it’s needed with a declining birth rate and aging population.
It starts to become a problem the moment the immigrating people refuse to integrate and work. I see it in a couple of western countries already. Also, it’s pretty alarming there are whole districts in some European countries so dangerous even police is afraid to visit them.
I’m pretty sure that as long as all the immigrants were willing to integrate (learn the local language, accept culture and law), majority of natives would have no problems with them at all (of course, there always will be some loud minority which won’t like them nonetheless but they obviously don’t speak for everybody).
Imagine getting somewhere illegally, having no respect for the local people’s culture or laws and demanding they let you live off their welfare system. Do you think the locals would be happy about it or would you even feel good about yourself? Didn’t think so.
The question at the core is, what immigration does Europe attract and in what historical context. You see, Europe is not a blank slate, it has history with most of the world, that spill into migration and that is particularly true for North African and Middle Eastern muslim migrants. Something that also has changed over the past 50 years or so. You see, the first big wave of migration to Europe from these areas happened in the 60ties, when most of Europe had humming economies, the West was still seen as a role model by most societies around the world and migrants coming to Europe did not hold a negative view to their host societies.
This has changed profoundly especially during the last two decades and are at the core of why many in Europe see migration from these countries as negative and there was a long process that caused this.
1. Non integration (migrant side): One of the core problems with migration everywhere around the world and Europe is no different here from places like the US is the long process of integration. If you look at older studies on how the US assimilated different migrant groups you see that it took at least three generations until the migrant groups were mostly assimilated. This did not or only partly happened in Europe, one reason is a radical change of how media and information work. Mass migration to Europe occurred in a time that satelite TV and later the internet became available – many migrant communities are deeply connected to their not too distant home countries. They watch Turkish/Arab … TV, listen to influencers from those countries and they visit their extended families at least once a year and can do a facetime with their relatives every other day. So additionally to the typical diaspora communities many that came in the 80ties and later never disconnected from their home countries (and those coming earlier always were deemed “Guest workers” that would go home eventually).
2. Non integration (host side): Add to this a less than positive attitude towards certain migrant groups. Firstly people were seen as quasi Barbarians that came from former colonies or other exotic places. Knowledge was small, interest in the newcomers too, all covered in chauvinistic attitudes that easily lent themselves to xenophobia. Yeah and to be honest, for most of Europe it wasn’t the elite that migrated but illiterate farmhands that looked for jobs in European factories as cheap workers. Also people who were expected to go home after some time.
3. Economic downturn: Then came the 70ties and 80ties with the oil price shock and sudden end of full employment in many European countries. And the migrants deemed necessary a decade earlier suddenly became competitors for the blue collar jobs that became increasingly scarcer in some places.
4. Decline of the West/Europe as a role model – Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism:
Yeah and at the end of the 90ties, that already saw some of the ruptures at the seems get obvious, you had 9/11 and the rise of Islamic terrorism and its Panislamic message on the one side and Islamic countries openly using their diasporas as propaganda targets for their very nationalistic aims (looking at you Turkey).
5. So arriving in the here and now, you have a bunch of things going on. A large group of migrants that just go do their everyday jobs and fitting into societies. But you also have large diaspora groups that although having been here for 3-4 generations still feel absolutly foreign (to themselves and to the host countries). Their ideologies hardly match with the general ethos of the constitutions of their host countries and they have developed an anti western outlook, while right wing groups and to a big extend more and more parts of the general public see them as outright danger to European societies and depict them as such. So the divergence gets ever more radical. And every new migrant (especially Muslims) is seen as an attack to the respective country.
6. Culture war/Clash of Civilizations: Some on both sides put this in the context of a millenia long struggle for dominance. Some Muslims see it as finally conquering Europeb by means of migration and higher birth rates, some on the European side frame it as a continuation of the Muslim attacks that haunted Europe between 660 and the early 19th century. This is framed not just as a conflict but is seen as part of an outright war between Civilizations, like the Neo Con author Samuel Huntington already wrote in the early 90ties.
So where are we standing today. Europe is rapidly aging and needs migrants to stem this development. On the other hand, a majority (and I believe this is very much established by polling) is adamantly against further Muslim migration, citing security reasons and incompatibility with societal and cultural norms as main reasons for this (remember Europe is one of the few places in the world, that is mostly secular, a deeply religious migrant population is a challenge to its core ideas).
So either Europe can attract migrants form elsewhere, which effectively limits it to parts of South East Asia, South America and Southern Africa – each of them coming with certain problems themselves or it will rapidly run into huge problems to uphold its social systems.
The aging population argument is false because immigrants age too. So that has to be continuous over the generations to work, theoretically. In practice the mass immigration is a huge net loss economically. The immigrants Western European countries get pay less taxes, take more welfare, take more health care, take more effort to educate lower, take more government at not for profit services in general, including social housing (which is private in NL) too. It’s simply more people for society to take car of with a smaller part of the people.
And that’s just the economics. Impact on social cohesion, something the USA doesn’t really do, is much bigger. It creates societies within society, we have to show solidarity with groups that don’t show solidarity with us. We even get hostility, a huge chunk identifies with their parents citizenship. Many hang on to their culture of their religion ruling the streets, and therefore are not respecting the freedom of religion that allowed them to be here in the first place.
Only a minority of the immigrants escapes that. I celebrate those, that’s the part I and other indigenous people usually deal with. It’s nice to think and act like they represent mass immigration. But I’m afraid that’s not the case, that’s just a minority and we shouldn’t let that obscure the problem with the majority we don’t have contact on an individual level with.
In Spain the only reason we haven’t had huge population decline is because of immigration. We have an aging population and low birth rates, much like Japan. What we need to do is allow more of them to work legally and pay taxes.
Because the numbers are so high, it’s led to division and segregation. There is no integration among some communities. In certain cities all the White people live in one area, all the black people live in another area, all the Muslims live in another area. And it seems increasingly that immigrants are identifying more and more with their homeland than with Britain. Particularly among African and middle Eastern/South Asian communities. We have also imported cultural grief between cultures such as Pakistani/Indian grievances, Sikh/Hindu/Muslim grievances. Increasing violence among different communities and the police are scared to tackle it for fear of being thought of as racist. Just look at what happened in Telford, Rotherham, Oldham, Bradford and countries other Northern towns to young girls.
Also I don’t know where you’re from, but Britain is a tiny island. England has already has a population density similar to India’s. And a housing crisis. Where the hell are we going to put millions of immigrants? Our infrastructure is, what, 50 years old most of it? People already struggle to find doctors appointments and school places for their kids. Do you think that gets easier when millions of immigrants show up to?
most migrants are from MENAPT countries and at NO point in their lives are they providing a net positive to the states finances. [source](https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/the-effects-of-immigration-in-denmark)
you may solve the demographic problem, lowering the age, but when those people don’t work then you’re only worsening the actual problem
not even speaking of the cultural issues these migrants create. criminal parallel societies created by failed integration.
Yes, in Austria it’s a huge political issue because too many people are against immigration. In current polls, the anti-immigration party is the biggest party and will most likely win the next election.
Why are people against immigration? I have found these reasons:
*Fear against losing our own culture:* Some claim that immigrants will change our culture and Austria won’t be Austria anymore in a few decades. IMHO that’s a false claim because most immigrants assimilate pretty well after one or two generations.
*Competition on the labor market:* Immigrants are competitors on the labor markets, especially for working class and low skilled labor. Immigrants are willing to work for less money so wages for workers haven’t risen much in the last few decades.
*Prejudices and outright racism:* Muslims are terrorists who rape women. Africans are lazy. You know, the usual. There is even prejudice against people from former Eastern Europe, like they are lazy and they steal. Many people also claim that ‘immigrants come here only for the social benefits and don’t even want to work.’
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Where are you from, OP? do people in your country happily welcome immigrants? In my perception, there are very few countries that are positive towards immigration. I can only think of Canada and maybe Australia, but even Australia treats refugees very badly.
Even the US has turned very skeptic lately. Trump won the election by promising to ‘build a wall’ against immigration.
Japan does not like immigration, neither does South Korea. Even in South Africa there is violence against immigrants from Zimbabwe (mostly over competition on the labor market.)
All in all, it seems to me that humans worldwide are generally xenophobic and don’t like immigrants….
Immigration can totally be good! An example is my parents. They immigrated legally to England from Hong Kong and integrated into the culture of the country. They contributed to the economy positively while raising two daughters.
But immigration can be harmful as well. Immigrants who come across illegally, refuse to integrate, and bring their backwards cultures/practices with them are a severe problem. They’re often freeloaders who only take up space/resources in the country without contributing. And how can you be British if your first act in the country is a crime? I also recognise that the problem of refusing to integrate and bringing across harmful practices can be a hallmark of legal immigrants as well, which is why I personally think we ought to better curate the countries we accept immigrants from. Some of these migrants actively put British citizens in danger.
For example, as a British Chinese woman, the (sometimes almost violent) harassment I faced during the pandemic came by and large from Muslim and African men. I really have a hard time believing that we should be bringing more of these people in the country when there are others who could actually contribute positively culturally and economically to the country. Just my two cents as a British gal!