This is the other migration threatening Europe. Not the migration of Syrians, Afghans, or Ethiopians dominating political debate for years. No, an internal migration within Europe, a silent movement seeing young graduates from Southern and Eastern Union countries move to live in the West and North.
Freedom of movement is indeed an achievement of the European Union, providing everyone with the right to choose where to study and work. But where is the freedom when migration becomes a necessity for people? And where is the shared achievement when this migration functions in just one direction?
“These young people represent a loss for their countries of origin, which spent public money on their education and training. And they are a gain for the host countries, where they pay social contributions and taxes and fill labor market shortages,” analyzes the Bruegel Institute.
From Poland and Spain…
The losers are primarily in the East. Former communist countries, whose economies suffered severely in the system change, have seen their youth head West since the fall of the Berlin Wall. But the hemorrhage never stopped.
Poland lost another 268,000 young people aged 20 to 34 during the 2013-2017 period. Lithuania lost 85,000 during the same period, despite recording just 30,000 births per year.
In the 2013-2017 period, Hungary “lost” 62,000 young people aged 20 to 34 in its population exchanges within the European Union. Meanwhile, Germany gained 492,000, notes a study by the Bruegel Institute.
The losers are then in the South. The outburst in 2010 of the euro crisis marked a break for these countries that, since joining Europe, managed to reverse migration flows. Spain lost 136,000 young people from 2013 to 2017. In Greece, where such age-based statistics are unavailable, the total migration balance was negative by 183,000 during the period.
Even as Europe’s economic situation improves, the flow does not dry up, still more significant from the East than the South. Returns are rare, often synonymous with failure: the typical profile of a returning migrant in Central Europe is “a man under 45, with a university degree, but who held a low-skilled job,” summarizes another Bruegel study.
Towards Germany and the United Kingdom…
The winners of the other migration are the wealthy countries of the North. Germany, but also Benelux, Sweden, or Austria: this country hosts more than 360,000 Central European citizens, for a population below nine million. All these countries share having a positive balance of payments. Simply put, they win on all fronts – human and financial.
The United Kingdom, as always, holds a special place. It opened its labor market on the first day of enlargement, May 1, 2004. The only state to do so with Ireland and Sweden, when France maintained restrictions until 2008. It is today, along with Germany, the primary beneficiary of migrations from the East: 1.74 million Central European citizens live in the United Kingdom, including 930,000 Poles (2016 figures).
This reality likely facilitated the Brexit campaign and its promise to “take back control of immigration,” which nevertheless targeted migrants from Africa and the Middle East.
France apart
France also stands apart. In recent years, its internal Union migration exchange balance is negative. The state of its job market, much worse than that of the United Kingdom or Germany, plays a significant role. Over the long term, however, it is the first destination country for Spaniards and Portuguese. But the relationship with the East makes the difference: it hosts only 210,000 Central European citizens, fewer than Ireland or Austria, and ten times less than Germany (2016 figures). As if the reluctance of its governments toward enlargement (absolutely not shared by its businesses) built a sort of imaginary wall for a long time.
France has another distinction from other wealthy Union countries, contributing to its lesser openness to migrants: its still dynamic demography. Because internal migrations in Europe take place against a backdrop of almost general demographic crisis. This crisis persists in Germany, where there are 150,000 to 200,000 fewer births than deaths each year, justifying opening doors to migrants.
But the demographic crisis also affects the countries of origin of these migrants.
The population has started to decline in Spain, dropped by 5% in Greece in less than ten years, Poland follows with a recent but sharp drop in birth rate, and Hungary has fallen below ten million… To put it bluntly, Europeans are becoming a rare commodity, therefore expensive, logically taken by the wealthiest countries at the expense of the poorest.
The issue of migrants has dominated the European debate since 2015, with the sudden rise in flows from the Middle East and then Africa. It has helped redraw the European political landscape, deepening and dramatizing divisions on border and identity issues. It is urgent to realize that another migration exists: it is internal to Europe, for many of these migrants less synonymous with freedom than constraint, and thus no less fraught with conflicts.
