Refugee crisis shows EU problems
- By Mitchell Blatt
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 10, 2015
As Professor Wang said, "The Slavic peoples are typical of the third level [of EU development], and at the same time they are EU members. Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria are comparably poor, while Luxembourg's average per capita GDP is over US$100,000, so the difference is huge."
Thus, it's hardly surprising, as the U.N. reports, that refugees who are mostly young men head for Germany, whose per capita GDP is US$45,084 and a low unemployment rate of 4.7 percent. Slovakia's unemployment rate was 11.8 percent in May, and its GDP per capita US$17,689. Romania and Bulgaria both have per capita GDP below US$10,000. In 2013, the figure was less than twice as much as Syria, the war-torn land they were leaving behind.
While it has been argued that young workers might help the economies of Europe in the long-term, it is less likely, in the short-term, that those accepted as refugees would have an easy time finding a job in places where the unemployment rate is close to 10 percent - and they could be more likely to face discrimination from the locals there.
Moreover, the economic circumstances of each country warrant individual consideration. The U.K., which has a degree of autonomy from EU edicts, is less welcoming of refugees and of migrants in general than Germany, in part because its economy relies much more on technology and services.
Economic arguments shouldn't really be a prime concern of refugee placement, but they have become part of the debate. Some say the high number of young men escaping Syria on boats reflects that some of those are economic migrants looking for job opportunities. That they are heading to Germany could validate that argument.
The refugee issue is intermingled with internal migration in the EU, a contentious issue in itself. The anti-EU U.K. Independence Party increased its share of representation in its country with an appeal against immigration and migrant workers. Its leader, Nigel Farage, was especially indignant about Romanians coming to find jobs in England's much more prosperous economy.
For a much of its existence, the EU moved along in the post-World War II and then post-Cold War illusion of peace and democracy. After the Iron Curtain disappeared, they moved to quickly expand, thinking EU expansion would easily turn former Soviet countries into prosperous Western-style democracies.
What they didn't figure out until the next wave of crisis hit, is that it might be the new members that changed the EU more than the EU changed those countries.
The author is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/MitchellBlatt.htm
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