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with support from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA)
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This document is being made available by the Population Information
Network (POPIN) Gopher of the United Nations Population Division,
Department for Economic and Social Information and Policy Analysis,
in collaboration with the European Association for Population
Studies and the IUSSP. For further information please contact
Professor G.C. Blangiardo, Local Organizer, EAPS Conference, Milan,
University of Milan, Istituto di Statistica, V. Visconti di Modrone
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EUROPEAN POPULATION CONFERENCE
CONGRES EUROPEEN DE DEMOGRAPHE
Milano, 4-8 settembre 1995
Plenary III
Where did they all come from?
Typology and geography of European mass migration
in the twentieth century
by Rainer MYnz
1. Introduction
Spatial mobility is a crucial element characterising open
societies. Only totalitarian regimes prevent their citizens from
travelling abroad or emigrating, or force them to settle in
certain areas. Democratic societies in contrast uphold the right of
their citizens to choose their place of residence freely. This
includes the right to emigrate. During the Cold War and the
division of Europe this was a central stumbling-block not only
between East and West, but also among the socialist countries
themselves. There the governments rightly feared a mass exodus of
dissatisfied citizens, while many of the people living under
communist rule secretly hoped for such an opportunity to arise. The
western countries for their part made it a point to keep their
borders open, at least for migrants from the East1.
The perspective has changed dramatically since the fall of the
Iron Curtain. The poorer countries in Eastern Europe and south of
the Mediterranean regard the possibility of their citizens to
emigrate to Western Europe as a chance for them to find work and to
help reduce demographic pressure. The remittances of successful
migrants, both in cash and in kind, are equally welcome and can
help stabilising the sending countries. This is true for Poland and
Romania as well as for Turkey and Morocco.
Today however, western societies are frightened by the
possibility of mass immigration from Central and Eastern Europe,
the Balkans, North Africa and Central Asia. The inflow of poor or
persecuted citizens from these and other regions of the world is
seen as a threat. The fact that, at least in the past, the
countries of destination generally profited economically from the
immigrants hardly plays a role in the public debate. Instead,
migration has become one of the main topics of Western European
domestic and security policy. Scenarios of ethnic or cultural
infiltration of West European societies, a dramatic decline of law
and order, increasing competition between domestic populations and
immigrants for housing and jobs, growing demographic and unsolvable
ethnic, religious or political conflicts are discussed.
Some of these fears are justified. Others are obviously unfounded
or have much more to do with the receiving societies than with the
immigrants themselves. The geopolitical context also plays an
important role. Countries like France, Belgium and since the late
1980s also Italy and Spain tend to see demographic pressure from
North Africa and the Middle East as main problem. In Germany,
Austria and Scandinavia the main concern is about immigration from
the East. To the extent to which countries like the Czech Republic,
Hungary and Poland became destinations of immigrants from the CIS
countries and the Balkans they also started to share this concern.
In fact, the end of Europe's political division led to an
unexpected wave of mass migration. Between 1989 and 1993 more than
4 million Europeans left their home countries. Most of them went
from the eastern part of Europe to the West (Fassmann / MYnz,
1994b). Another 5 million lost their homes on the territory of the
former Yugoslavia because of war and ethnic cleansing (UN-Ece,
1995). Since 1945-1948 in Europe there has not been any migration
of comparable size.
These are the main reasons why the euphoria about the end of the
Cold War and the creation of a greater Europe without frontiers
faded away so quickly, at least in the West. Many West Europeans
soon felt the need for sealing off their countries2. And during the
late 1980s and early 1990s both hostility towards foreigners and
ethnocentric attitudes became more common (Wiegand, 1992;
Hofrichter / Klein, 1994; see also figg. 14-16). As a reaction
most European countries and the USA have enacted tighter border
controls, sanctions against airlines carrying would-be migrants,
new procedures and regulations restricting the right of asylum, and
a variety of other anti- immigration measures. In general, since
the late 1980s, migration has become a ®hot¯ issue both at the
foreign and the domestic policy agenda of most industrialised
nations (Teitelbaum / Weiner, 1995; Heinelt, 1994; Baldwin-Edwards
/ Schain, 1995; Velling / Woydt, 1993).
2. Types and stages of mass migration in Europe
In spite of the recent renewal of public interest in migration,
we have to keep the following in mind: Mass migration is neither a
new phenomenon, nor can we say that migration is the historical
exception. At least ever since the Industrial Revolution, spatial
mobility has been a regular phenomenon characterising European
societies. But the balance has changed. Europe as a whole, once a
continent of emigration (Bade, 1992; Hoerder, 1985), has turned
into a world region mainly consisting of countries with a positive
migration balance (Chesnais, 1995; Council of Europe, 1994; Muus,
1993). Sometimes Europe is even called a ®white fortress¯ (Ruffin,
1993; Chesnais, 1995) and a continent ®under siege¯ (Coleman,
1994c).
Between 1815 and 1930 more than 50 million people left the old
World for North and South America, Australia and New Zealand
(Hoerder, 1985). During the same period large numbers of Polish
and Ukrainian workers migrated to the emerging centres of the coal,
iron and steel industries in France (Lorraine), Germany (the Ruhr,
Upper Silesia) and even England (the Midlands). Large numbers of
ethnic Italians moved to France, Switzerland and Western Austria,
Irishmen to Britain. The growing cities of continental Europe also
attracted large numbers of Slav immigrants from the Czech lands,
from Galicia and from the Prussian parts of Poland. Eastern
European Jews fled from the rising tide of anti-Semitism, pogroms
and economic misery in the Ukraine, Galicia and the Baltics and
established themselves as large ethno-religious minorities in the
booming metropolitan areas of the late 19th and early 20th
centuries: Berlin, Vienna, Paris and cities like Lviv, Warsaw and
Prague.
2.1. The inter-war period
After 1918 the influence of ethno- nationalistic, religious and
political push factors became even more evident as the winners of
World War I had reshaped the political map of Europe. The
establishing of new nation states also created large numbers of new
ethnic minorities. In many places they were not recognised, but
oppressed or even terrorised and forced to leave the country. Some
cases are still part of our collective memory, others can only be
recalled by descendants of the respective groups.
Tab. 1 - Types of mass migration in the
inter-war period
Main types of mass migration migration directly related to the
results of World War I and the change of borders; migration,
displacement and ethnic cleansing directly related to the creation
of new nation states; migration related to the recruitment of
foreign labour; migration of political and ethno-religious refugees
(mainly from the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany).
Source: Jungfer et al., 1993; Kulischer, 1948; MYnz / Fassmann,
1994.
During the inter-war period some 6 million people were
affected by forced resettlement, ethnic cleansing or repatriation
due to a change of borders. Among them were ethnic Greeks
displaced from Istanbul and western Turkey and resettled in
Greece; ethnic Truces and other Muslims from the Balkans who were
forced to leave Romania, Bulgaria and Greece for Turkey; ethnic
Hungarians who left Romania, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Ethnic
Poles had to leave their homelands that had just become part of
the Soviet Union (Kulischer, 1948; MYnz / Fassmann, 1994). Ethnic
Germans and Jews holding German or Austrian citizenship emigrated
from the Baltic states, Poland and from other newly established
Central and East European countries to Germany and Austria.
Tab. 2 - Types of mass migration since World
War II
Main types of mass migration migration, displacement and
ethnic cleansing directly related to the end of World War II and
its consequences; migration related to the decolonisation of
Africa, South and Southeast Asia and the Caribbean; post-colonial
migration from the former colonies to Western Europe; migration
related to the recruitment of foreign labour, and subsequent
migration of family members; migration of business elites and
wealthy elderly Europeans; migration of victims of war, political
refugees and asylum-seekers.
Source: Ilo / Iom / Unhcr, 1994; Fassmann /
MYnz, 1994a,b; van de Kaa, 1993; Salt, 1989.
During the inter-war period the largest single wave of
emigration was caused by the Soviet revolution. Between 1917 and
1922 some 1.5 million Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians left
the country (Kulischer, 1948). Nazi Germany was the other regime
causing mass migration for political reasons. Some 450,000
Jews and other political refugees managed to emigrate from
Germany, Austria, and Bohemia-Moravia occupied by Nazi Germany
in 1938-1939 (Bade, 1992). Others were sent to concentration camps
and murdered in the holocaust.
In Europe the inter-war period was also marked by a considerable
amount of labour migration and return migration. Between 1918 and
the mid-1930s some 1.2 million labour migrants and family
dependants moved within Europe. During this period Poland became
the main country of origin and France the main destination of
migrant workers (Jungfer et al., 1993; MYnz / Fassmann, 1994). In
the early 1940s, Nazi-Germany became the main destination for
forced and voluntary foreign labour. In 1944, the size of this
foreign labour force reached 8 million (Dohse, 1981).
2.2. Mass migration since 1945
In the second half of the 20th century, in Europe at least
several types of mass migration had a major impact (see tab. 2).
2.2.1. Post-war migration, displacement and ethnic cleansing as a
result of World War II, Yalta, and Potsdam
During the collapse of the Nazi regime and in the second half
of the 1940s some 12 million ethnic Germans (estimate for
1945-50) either fled or were expelled from the eastern parts of
the former ®Third Reich¯ and territories formerly occupied by the
German Wehrmacht (Poland, the Baltics, Bohemia-Moravia, Slovenia,
Serbia, Ukraine) or ruled during World War II by allied fascist
and authoritarian regimes (Slovakia, Croatia, and Hungary). Another
2 million lost their lives as a result of this ethnic cleansing
(Benz, 1985; Reichling, 1985).
In some countries, like Poland and Czechoslovakia, the
expulsion of ethnic Germans and former German citizens was
accepted or even encouraged by the Allies. In other places this
expulsion was arranged by local authorities or resulted from
collective measures against German minorities, who were
generally suspected to be Nazi collaborators (e.g. German-speaking
citizens of Yugoslavia and Hungary). Between 1945 and 1949 almost
8 million of these German refugees and expellees came to the
western part of Germany, then occupied by the western Allies, and
some 3.6 million to the eastern part of Germany, controlled by the
Soviet Army (Lemberg / Edding, 1959). Smaller numbers made their
way to Austria (530,000; Stanek, 1985).
During the same period, most of the 10.5 million displaced
persons, Pow's, forced labour and survivors of the concentration
camps living in Germany and Austria in 1945 returned to their
countries of origin (Bade, 192). Especially Pows and displaced
persons from the Soviet Union were forced to return against their
will. In late 1946 only the Western Allies stopped forced
repatriation to what then became the communist part of Europe.
After the foundation of the Federal Republic of Germany
(FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1949, West
Germany also had to deal with mass migration from East Germany.
Some 3.8 million Germans crossed the line which gradually became
the border between the two German states and gradually part of the
Iron Curtain. The construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961
closed a last loop hole and largely reduced this flow (Ulrich,
1990; Rudolph, 1994).
Ethnic Germans were not the only group affected by expulsion,
allied arrangements and the new national boundaries drawn in Yalta
and Potsdam. 1.5 million ethnic Poles had to leave their homes in
former eastern Poland, i.e. areas that are now part of Lithuania,
Belorussia and the Ukraine. They were resettled in areas, cities
and houses just ®purged¯ of their former German inhabitants.
Almost 600.000 ethnic Ukrainians, Belorussians and Lithuanians
had to leave Poland and Czechoslovakia and were resettled in
territories that had become part of Soviet Union in 1945 (Kersten,
1968; Urban, 1993). Under similar auspices more than 100,000
Czechs and Slovaks were resettled in the former Sudetenland and
in Southern Moravia, also purged of their former German-speaking
population (Stola, 1992).
At the same time (1945-50) more than 100,000 ethnic Italians
were forced to leave Istria and Dalmatia. Some 300,000 members of
the Hungarian minorities in Southern Slovakia, Transylvania
(Romania) and the Voyvodina (Serbia) were transferred to Hungary
or ®exchanged¯ by order of their respective governments (Kosinski,
1982; Dsvenyi / Vukovich, 1994). This list of enforced ethnic
cleansing in central and south-eastern Europe could easily be
prolonged.
2.2.2. Migration and de-colonisation
The second type of post-war mass migration was and still is
related to the colonial history of the major West European nations.
During the process of de-colonisation ®white¯ colonists and
settlers, troops and civil servants moved back to their home
countries in large numbers. In some cases this process created a
steady flow of return migrants, in other cases the former colonial
powers were confronted with big waves of immigrants. E.g., in
1962-3, as a result of the Ÿvian peace treaty with the FLN, more
than 1 million people left Algeria for mainland France. Return
migration from other former French colonies was of comparable size
(Tribalat et al., 1991). Since the early 1950s, sizeable numbers
of people migrated from Indonesia to the Netherlands. In the
1970s, immigration from Surinam and the Dutch Antilles followed
(Entzinger / Stijnen, 1991). In the mid 1970s Portugal was also
confronted with a sudden surge of returnees and immigrants from its
former African colonies. Since the 1950, several hundreds of
thousands of people remigrated from overseas territories back to
Belgium, Italy, and Britain. In the late 1990s, a last flow of this
type will take place when Hong Kong (1997) and Macao (1999) will
become part of China.
2.2.3. Post-colonial migration
The third type of post-war mass migration is closely linked to
the second one. Following the remigrating colonial masters,
®native¯ migrants from South and Southeast Asia, Africa and the
Caribbean moved first to Britain, France and the Benelux
countries, later also to Italy, Portugal and Spain. The
deterioration of living conditions in several Third World
countries, ethnic and political conflicts in the newly founded
states of Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, but also the growing
demand for cheap labour in Europe led to considerable migratory
flows. (Coleman / Salt, 1992; Entzinger / Stijnen, 1990; Tribalat
et al., 1991).
The colonial legacy - a common language shared by the citizens
of former colonies and the former colonial power, cultural
orientation towards London, Paris or Lisbon, established traffic
channels - made it easier for people from Pakistan, India, Bangla
Desh, and from the anglophone countries of the Caribbean to come
to Britain, for Arabs from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and for black
people from West Africa to come to France, for Surinamis and
Indonesian Molukkers to come to the Netherlands. At an early
stage this kind of migration was amplified by several European
countries granting citizenship to the residents of their
former overseas territories or facilitating their
immigration by granting them special legal status as quasi-
nationals or privileged aliens (Cohen, 1994; Coleman, 1994a;
Entzinger, 1994).
This type of migration has transformed the metropolitan areas
of western Europe into multicultural ®nutshells¯. It has led to the
establishment of ethnic networks and so- called ®visible'
minorities. Since the 1970s, these networks and minorities have
created chain migration, explaining continuous streams of
immigration (Zlotnik, 1992). This type of migration persists
despite high rates of unemployment and anti- immigration policies
in most West European countries (Coleman, 1994b).
But the minorities from Third World countries do not only
remind us of Europe's colonial past. Their presence has also re-
imported racist and ethnic tensions and led in many places to the
re-emergence of populist right-wing movements, ethno-centric
rhetoric in everyday life, and to new forms of xenophobia, inter-
ethnic tensions and violence. In the age of a new ethnocentrism in
Central and Western Europe these prejudices have replaced
older ones (Hofrichter / Klein, 1994; see figg. 14-16).
For decades race relations were considered to be a US-
American or South African problem. At least since the mid-1970s
they are back on the European agenda (Miles, 1990; Bielefeld, 1991;
Cohn-Bendit / Schmid, 1992). And as in many other fields of public
policy, symbols are sometimes more important than sheer numbers.
Otherwise we could hardly explain why in France the discussion
about young French girls of Arab descendance insisting on their
right to wear scarfs in public schools led to vivid and highly
political debates. Another telling example is the conflict in the
small Suebian town of Geislingen. There, since 1990, the
administration is quarrelling with Muslim immigrants about the size
of the minaret of planned mosque.
2.2.4. Labour migration
The fourth type of mass migration in Europe partly overlaps
with the aforementioned third one. Following the end of World
War II, the Western European economies first had to integrate
refugees, displaced persons, and returnees from the colonies. By
the end of the 1950s, some countries began to meet part of their
growing demand for cheap labour and unskilled workers by
recruiting immigrants from former colonies or the few still
existing overseas territories. In other countries this demand has
been met by migrant workers from by recruitment in several
Mediterranean countries: at first in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and
Greece, later in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Turkey, and former
Yugoslavia (Bshning, 1972; Stark, 1989; Castles / Miller, 1993).
In most cases the recruitment took place on the basis of bilateral
agreements between sending and recruiting countries. In the early
1970s the employment of foreign labour in the countries of
Western Europe reached its maximum to that date (Stalker, 1994;
Oecd / Sopemi, 1994; Gordon, 1989).
In the mid 1970s, Western European governments and employers
reacted to the economic recession and the reduced absorption
capacity of labour markets following the 1973 oil price shock by
halting recruitment of foreign labour and by imposing restrictive
immigration regulations on residents of former overseas territories
(Hollifield, 1992). In some Western European countries - above all
in Great Britain and France - the deteriorating economic position
of ®visible¯ immigrant minorities and native underclasses led to
social conflicts (Coleman, 1994c; Angenendt, 1992; Booth, 1992).
In the second half of the 1970s in some countries halted
recruitment and restricted immigration led to a reduction in the
foreign resident population (see tab. 4). In relation to the size
of the foreign resident population the largest reduction took
place in Switzerland. There, already at the time, a massive anti-
foreigner movement gained political momentum. Some of its
representatives were elected to parliament, where they exerted
political pressure by forcing the holding of national plebiscites
on issues that fanned xenophobic sentiments (Straubhaar / Fischer,
1994). The reduction in foreign labour was mainly achieved by not
extending temporary residence and work permits (Haug, 1980).
Similar measures were taken by Austria, Germany, and Sweden
(Fassmann / MYnz, 1995; Rudolph, 1994). At the same time other
Western European countries, e.g., France, the Benelux and the UK,
experienced no major decline in their foreign resident population
(tab. 4). While in some cases the return of foreigners was strongly
encouraged and rewarded by way of repatriation allowances (e.g.,
in West Germany), the newly introduced restrictions slowed rather
than halted immigration.
In many countries family reunion and higher birth rates of the
foreign resident population compensated for decreased labour
migration. These phenomena led to significant changes in the
composition of the foreign population which earlier consisted
mainly of males of employable age. Among foreign residents the
percentage of women as well as of children and adolescents
increased3. This entailed more than demographic consequences
(Stalker, 1994). By making clear that returning migrants would not
be able to get back again restrictive immigration policies slowed
down remigration to the sending countries, an unplanned side effect
which led to a marked increase of the foreign resident
population's average duration of stay, while their labour force
participation dropped due to the higher proportion of housewives
and children immigrating by way of family reunion and family
formation (Kuijsten, 1994; MYnz / Ulrich, 1995).
Meanwhile relatively open borders led to a rising number of
irregular migrants. The existence of informal ethnic networks and
the opportunity to enter the receiving country as a tourist,
student, short-term contract worker, or asylum-seeker became an
essential basis for this type of migration. No precise data on
irregular migrants are available. We can only speculate about the
magnitude of this stream. There could be more than 2 million
irregular migrants in Western and Southern Europe (Bshning quoted
in Coleman, 1994c). Most of these irregular migrants seem to be
concentrated in only a few countries (Austria, Germany, Greece,
Italy, Spain). However many of those migrants do not stay for
good but only for a couple of weeks or months. Many new patterns of
seasonal work and long distance commuting (under the cover of
tourism) have emerged.
Today the internationalisation of European labour markets has
brought more than 20 million people to Western Europe or
relocated them within the EU region, Norway and Switzerland (Ilo /
Iom / Unhcr, 1994), thus creating new underclasses largely
excluded from political participation and not well represented by
trade unions. In contrast to the United States or Canada, in most
European countries foreign migrants are not naturalised and
therefore not able to form successful lobbies and ethnic voters
blocks (Hammar, 1990; Baubsck, 1994).
2.2.5. Migration of elites
The fifth type of mass migration is frequently either not
realised or underestimated: the international mobility of elites
and the mobility of wealthy elderly citizens from north-western
Europe. The first group consists of managers and highly qualified
specialists of multinational companies, students, trainees,
academic scholars, diplomats, artists and employees of
international organisations. In many cases they also compete with
locals for housing and working facilities. Interestingly enough
they hardly ever become targets of xenophobic violence. This elite
migration has reached high numbers too, and therefore may be
regarded as a part of mass migration. Although most managers,
scientists and employees do not comply with the way of life in the
receiving country - the term assimilation cannot even be
considered - they are not regarded as a problem contrary to the
non-privileged labour migrants.
In recent years the migration of highly skilled people from
Eastern Europe and the CIS countries to the West labelled as ®brain
drain¯ has attracted some interest, both scientific and political
(Rhode, 1991; Salt, 1992). In this respect two issues were of
major concern: The fear that some experts could help Third World
countries to build up nuclear capacities, and the argument that
this brain drain might slow down economic and social transformation
after the fall of communism.
In some countries the international migration of wealthy
retired people, especially from Great Britain and Germany has
found more public attention. They settle down in southern
Portugal, along the Mediterranean coast of Spain, France and
Italy and at the southern edge of the Alps (Austria, Italy,
Switzerland). In contrast to migrating business elites these
elderly migrants in some places cause resentments among local
populations and considerable resistance against what sometimes is
blamed to be a ®sell-out of national soil¯ to foreigners or a
threat to local culture.
2.2.6. Ethnic and political refugees and asylum-seekers
The sixth type of mass migration started as a stream of
political and other refugees from Eastern Europe and the Third
World to the West, and partially turned into a kind of poverty
migration. For a long time its main characteristics were distinct
®waves¯ of migration directly linked to political events or even to
political bargaining. Significantly enough before 1989, only
western states had joined the Geneva Convention of 1951,
although this was and is a UN convention. Today poverty, disasters,
civil and inter-state wars have turned into motives for migration
to a much larger extent (Opitz, 1991; Unhcr, 1993; UN-Ece, 1995;
Weiner, 1995).
In 1956/57, some 194,000 Hungarians left their country just
before Soviet troops and the Küdür regime closed the border,
establishing the Iron Curtain between Hungary and Austria
(Dsvenyi / Vukovich, 1994). Nobody asked for their individual
motives. Following the logic of the Cold War, everybody who came
from a communist country was considered in the West to be a ®true¯
refugee.
In 1968/69, some 162,000 Czechs and Slovaks fled from
Czechoslovakia after the occupation of their country by Soviet and
allied Warsaw Pact troops (Chesnais, 1992; Fassmann / MYnz, 1995).
They too met with great western sympathy. World-wide media
coverage of the Soviet military intervention had contributed to the
sympathy on the side of the public.
In 1980/81, some 250,000 Poles fled from martial law and
political repression to the West (Chesnais, 1992; Fassmann /
MYnz, 1995). Public opinion did not generally accept them as
political refugees. This time the willingness to receive them was
already limited.
In 1989/90 more than 300,000 Bulgarians of Turkish descendance
fled from collective oppression, forced Bulgarisation and
economic problems. Most of them made their way to Turkey before the
Turkish government closed the border to neighbouring Bulgaria
(Bobeva, 1994; Vasileva, 1992). Though Turkey considers itself to
be the protector of the 1 to 1.2 million Muslims of Turkish and
Slavic origin, it is unwilling to host and integrate all ethnic
Turks and other Muslims (Pomaks, Gypsies) living in the area.
120,000 of these refugees later returned to Bulgaria.
Another flow of refugees started in July 1989 with several
thousand GDR citizens walking into the West German embassies in
Prague and Budapest. Following the dismantling of the Iron
Curtain some 45,000 GDR citizens crossed the border between Hungary
and Austria, first illegally, then with the consent of the
Hungarian authorities. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
opening of the borders between East and West Germany, another
344,000 people left the GDR for the Federal Republic of Germany in
November and December 1989 (Hullen / Schulz, 1994; Grundmann,
1994). This migration flow ultimately led to the collapse of the
GDR.
The largest migration wave of refugees on European soil began in
1991, when Yugoslavia broke apart, and the wars in Croatia and
Bosnia-Herzegovina began. Since then more than 5.3 million people
left their home region or suffered expulsion. More than 1 million
were able to reach Western Europe, among them 700,000 who were
recognised as political refugees or at least tolerated temporarily
(Unhcr, 1994). These figures have hardly changed since 1993, as,
in the meantime, nearly all European states have closed their
borders for victims of war and ethnic cleansing from Croatia,
Bosnia, Voyvodina and Kosovo.
4.3 million victims of war and ethnic cleansing still remain on
the territory of former Yugoslavia: 690,000 in the part of Croatia
controlled by the regime in Zagreb, 110.000 in the parts of
Croatia controlled by Serbian militia, 630,000 in Serbia and
Montenegro, and more than 2.7 million in Bosnia-Herzegovina (Unhcr,
1994), which has to carry the major burden of what is to be
regarded as Europe's largest political and humanitarian disaster.
All in all the number of refugees and displaced persons within
former Yugoslavia or originally coming from this country now
exceeds 5 million people.
In 1983 only 65,000 people applied for asylum in Western Europe.
In 1986 the number had tripled to 195,000. In 1992 the
unprecedented number of 693,000 people asked for political asylum
in Europe, two thirds of them in Germany, fig. 1 (see also annex
1). Many of them were not political refugees in the strict sense
of the Geneva Convention, but might have had good reasons for
fleeing from political or military repression, economic recession,
ecological disasters, or ethnic conflict. Refugees from Bosnia are
the best example for this phenomenon.
Fig. 1 - Asylum applications in selected
European countries, 1983-1994
Source: Unhcr, Intergovt, Consultations.
Since 1992 more restrictive asylum laws in Austria, Germany
and Sweden and more restrictive regulations in many other
countries have changed the situation. The number of applications
for political asylum in Europe dropped to 551,000 in 1993 and
322,000 in 1994, fig. 1 (annex 1). Significant reductions took
place in Germany (1992-1994: -81%), Austria (-80%), Sweden (-78%),
and Denmark (-52%; fig. 2). Part of this was due to an overall
decrease in the number of people seeking asylum. But we also see
that in many cases legal and administrative regulations simply
led to a shift from more restrictive to less restrictive
countries. E.g., numbers of applications significantly rose in
the Netherlands (1992-94: +110%), and the UK (1992-94: +27%; see
fig. 2).
Fig. 2 - Changes in the asylum applications
in selected European countries, 1992-1994
(in %)
Source: Unhcr, Intergovt, Consultations.
What we are experiencing now is also an unplanned side effect
of western Europe's anti-immigration policies. Since the mid-
1970s, when Western Europe closed its borders to new labour
migrants from outside the EU, family reunification remained a
major ®gate of entry¯. After that, ®repatriation¯ on an ethnic
base (ethnic Germans to Germany, Jews to Israel, ethnic Hungarians
to Hungary) and the Geneva Convention on political refugees became
the two major legal ®gates¯.
It has often been argued that many asylum- seekers might in fact
be labour migrants or, even worse, migrants intending to just cash
social welfare benefits earmarked for refugees. At the same
time Kurds from Anatolia and Northern Iraq, ethnic Albanians from
Kosovo, South Sudanese Christians and Afghans cannot simply be
labelled as ®fake¯ refugees who are only looking for better living
conditions. We also have to admit that our humanitarian standards
are less liberal than a decade ago when asylum- seekers only came
in small numbers. Without any doubt western Europe has become less
liberal, because of growing signs of xenophobia and the
increased number of people seeking asylum. This seems to be the
main reason why today most West European countries grant refugee
status to less than 10% of all asylum-seekers, while the US, Canada
and Australia have stopped granting immigrants from Central and
Eastern Europe priority status. Another result is the growing
number of de-facto refugees and tolerated displaced persons with
precarious legal and economic status in western Europe. They are
Europe's new helots.
3. The changing course of European migration, 1950-1993
3.1. Who is a migrant?
For the second half of the 20th century data are not available
on the chronological course and the geography of all relevant
migration flows. The first problem is that of registration. Not
everyone leaving a particular country and settling in another one
declares himself or herself as a migrant. The same holds true for
return migrants who decide to go back to their home countries. The
second problem is that of definition. Who, from an administrative
or statistical point of view, was and is defined or registered as
a migrant varies from country to country (Kuijsten, 1994). From an
analytical point of view the following more or less distinct
groups of people may be considered as ®foreign born¯ or
®foreigners¯, their relative importance varying in the different
Western European countries (see also tab. 2): a)migrants from
former colonies with or without citizenship of the former colonial
power4; b) migrants with the same nationality or from an ethnic
diaspora leaving their traditional areas of settlement5; c) migrant
workers and their relatives; d) asylum-seekers, recognised
refugees and de facto refugees and their relatives; e) ®other¯
immigrants6.
In most West European countries nationality or citizenship
is the decisive criterion for distinguishing between ®locals¯
and ®foreigners¯. In only a few countries immigrants are
officially or statistically divided into analytical
categories. Most countries try to distinguish between EU
nationals or privileged aliens and ®other¯ foreign residents.
In Great Britain, immigrants with British Dependent Territory
Citizenship or British Overseas Citizenship and immigrants holding
the citizenship of a Commonwealth country are recorded separately
from ®other¯ groups of the foreign resident population. Sweden
distinguishes between foreigners and Swedish nationals born abroad,
and the Netherlands between ®indigenous¯ nationals, former
residents of Surinam, the Dutch Antilles, and the Moluccas and
their descendants (i.e. recognised minorities) and foreign
citizens (see Coleman, 1994a,b; Entzinger, 1994; Fassmann / MYnz,
1994a). Other countries with marked changes of international
boundaries during the 20th century that granted preferential
immigration status to former nationals, or even systematically
resettled them, have frequently taken the opposite approach. If at
all possible, they carefully avoided registering these residents as
immigrants once they were resettled. Above all, this holds true
for Germany, which, upon application, granted citizenship to
members of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe, the Balkans and
Central Asia and still accepts applications from ethnic Germans
living on the territory of the former Soviet Union7.
3.2. Europe becoming a continent of immigration
Some countries collect and publish data on migration. For others
we can only establish the migration balance by comparing census
results and vital statistics which, as a rule, are not affected by
large undercounts. The results of such an analysis seem to
contradict at least some of the prejudices concerning international
migration shared by many observers:
1. Demographic analysis shows that since the 1950s international
migration mainly took place among European countries rather than
between Asia, Africa and Europe.
2. Until the mid 1960s the number of Europeans emigrating and of
non-Europeans returning overseas was higher than the number of new
immigrants coming from Turkey, Asia, Africa the Caribbean and the
rest of the world to Europe. Emigration to the USA, Canada, Israel
and other destinations outside Europe prevailed. Between 1950 and
1959 the net loss due to migration was considerable (-2.7 million;
see tab. 3). Between 1960 and 1969 the migration balance was only
slightly positive (+250,000). Only after 1970 Europe as a whole
turned into a continent of immigration. Europe's migration balance
with the rest of the world became highly positive (1970-79: +1.9
million, 1980-89: +1.6 million, 1990-93: +1.1 million).
3. For the whole period analysed, the impact of net migration
(1950-93: +2.2 million people; tab. 3) on Europe's total
population was rather small. Nevertheless its demographic
importance is growing.
4. Despite the fact that Europe now mainly consists of countries
with a positive migration balance, it is far from being a
continent of immigrants. The growing number of foreigners in the
EU-15, Norway and Switzerland8 is a result of the ongoing
internationalisation of Western populations, industries, labour
markets and societies, but only 19 of the 383 million people living
in this region are not citizens of their country of residence. In
the western half of Europe foreign nationals account for less than
5% and all foreign-born for less than 10% of total population.
Fig. 3 - Foreign residents in Western
Europe, 1993
3.2.1. Eastern Europe, the Balkans
Until the 1950s the dominant European migration flows were
both East-West and from Europe to destinations overseas. This
pattern changed after the establishing of the Iron Curtain. But
even during the Cold War emigration from Europe's communist
countries never came to a standstill. Their net migration balance
remained negative (1950-1959: -4.0 million, 1960-69: -1.9
million, 1970-79: -1.1 million, 1980-89: -2.3 million; tab. 3, fig.
4). The main East- West flow (of considerable size until 1961) took
place between the two Germanies9. Other flows can largely be
explained by the emigration of ethnic and religious minorities
from Bulgaria (ethnic Turcs, other Muslims), Poland (ethnic
Germans, Jews), Romania (ethnic Germans, ethnic Hungarians,
Jews) and Yugoslavia (ethnic Turcs, other Muslims). In these
cases Western nations played a decisive role by negotiating with
the governments of sending countries the terms under which
individuals were allowed to leave.
Tab. 3 - Migration balances in major regions
of Europe, 1950-1993 (in 100,000)
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990
Region -'59 -'69 -'79 -'89 -'93 Total
Central and -40, -19, -10, -22, -23, -116
Eastern Europe 0 2 9 8 1 ,0
USSR / CIS 0,4 1,0 -3,7 -4,3 -13, -20,
5 1
Scandinavia -0,5 0,7 2,0 2,4 2,2 6,8
Southern Europe -29, -30, 6,2 16,2 6,7 30,8
1 8
Western Europe 42,5 50,9 25,2 24,7 38,6 181,
9
Total Europe -26, 2,6 18,8 16,2 10,9 21,8
7
Central and Eastern Europe: (former) socialist countries
(including Albania and former Yugoslavia), since 1991
without East Germany;
Ussr / CIS: (including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania);
Scandinavia: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden;
Southern Europe: Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain;
Western Europe: all other countries of Europe, since 1991: united
Germany as part of Western Europe.
Source: Chesnais, 1995; Council of Europe,
1994; Fassmann / Mnz, 1994a; Rallu / Blum,
1991.
In 1964 Yugoslavia became the only communist country
to allow its citizens to emigrate. As a result West Germany,
Austria, France and Switzerland recruited labour migrants
which, since the late 1960s were followed by family dependants.
In 1973 the number of Yugoslav citizens living abroad reached
its first peak (850.000; Malacic, 1994).
Other East-West migrants qualified as political
refugees. In most cases they managed to ®escape¯ during
times of political crises in their countries of origin
(Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, Poland 1980/81, GDR 1989,
Bulgaria 1989/90, Albania 1991). In line with the logic of the Cold
War, these emigrants were seen by the West as political refugees,
whatever their individual motives were. The fact that some of
them risked their lives in attempting to leave their countries was
of highly symbolic nature.
Fig. 4 - European migration balances,
1950-1993, in million
Source: Chesnais, 1995; Council of Europe, 1994; Fassmann /
Mnz, 1994a; Rallu / Blum, 1991.
This sharply contrasts with West European perception and
treatment of those who have left Eastern Europe and the
Balkans in periods of war (former Yugoslavia), political
instability and economic crisis since 1990 (1990-93: -2.3
million). The majority of East-West migrants of the late 1980s
and early 1990s belonged to an ethnic or religious minority
(Fassmann / MYnz, 1994b). Some of them belonged to an ethnic
diaspora with ties to a Western country (ethnic Germans,
Jews, Turks, other Muslims). Others were asylum seekers
and tolerated de facto refugees from war torn areas in
Croatia and Bosnia or from underprivileged minorities (e.g.
Gypsies). A smaller portion of the East West migrants were
legal and irregular labour migrants, mainly from Albania,
Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Poland working in neighbouring
Western and Southern European countries. In all due to a negative
migration balance Eastern Europe and the Balkans lost 11.6
million people during the whole period analysed (1950-93; see
tab. 3, fig. 4).
3.2.2. Soviet Union / CIS
Emigration from the former Soviet Union followed similar
patterns. The main difference is also evident: During the 1950s
and 1960s there was almost no emigration from the Ussr10, but some
immigration of ethnic Armenians returning to their historical
homeland and of refugees from China. Thereafter the USA and some
Western European countries pressed for the liberalisation of
the restrictive Soviet emigration policy. In 1973 the US Congress
made this a precondition for the removal of trade barriers. As a
consequence during the 1970s (1973-79) some 370,000 people, most of
them Soviet Jews, were allowed to leave the Ussr. Following a brief
revival of the Cold War (Afghanistan, SDI) a second large wave of
emigration started in 1986/87 when Gorbachev came to power. Most
of the emigrants were Jews, ethnic Germans, Armenians, Greeks
or Pentecostals (Basok / Brym, 1991; Heitmann, 1994). In all some
2 million people emigrated from the Ussr and the CIS between 1950
and 1993 (Vishnevsky / Zayonchkovskaya, 1994; see tab. 3, fig. 4).
In contrast to some predictions (as discussed in Muus, 1991)
irregular mass emigration from the former Soviet Union did not
materialise during the first half of the 1990s. But the dissolution
of the Ussr and the foundation of new nation states on the
territory of break-away republics led to a speed up of return
migration of ethnic Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians to the
Russian Federation, the Ukraine and Belorussia, a pattern which
already emerged during the 1970s (Rowland, 1993). Recent estimates
suggest that, between 1991 and 1994, more than 2 million ethnic
Russians have come to the Russian Federation largely outnumbering
the emigrants (UN-Ece, 1995). At the same time as a result of wars
and ethnic conflicts the number of refugees and internally
displaced persons is rapidly growing (1993: 1.7 million in
Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia; 0.5 million in Tajikistan; see
Unhcr, 1994; 1995: 0.5 million in Chechnya and Ingushetsia). With
a net gain of 400,000 persons in the first half of 1994 Russia
unexpectedly (together with the USA and Germany) has become one of
the most important immigration countries in the world.
3.2.3. Scandinavia
After World War II, traditional migration patterns already
observed in the first half of the 20th century prevailed in
Northern Europe: Finnish and Norwegian labour migrants mainly
tried their luck in Sweden; other Scandinavians migrated
overseas (migration balance 1950-59: -48,000). Labour migration
between Scandinavian countries then was facilitated by the creation
of a common Nordic labour market.
From the 1960s onward, Sweden, Denmark and Norway began
recruiting labour in Southern Europe. Scandinavia's migration
balance turned positive: 1960-69: +65,000, 1970-79: +204,000,
1980-89: +239,000, 1990-93: +224,000. From the 1980s, immigration
and return migration also took place in Finland. All in all between
1950 and 1993, in Scandinavia the number of legal immigrants
exceeded the number of emigrants by 684,000 (tab. 3, fig. 4).
3.2.4. Southern Europe
Overseas emigration prevailed in Southern Europe until the
middle of the 20th century. After 1950 rapid economic growth in
Western Europe reduced the need to emigrate from Europe's
Mediterranean peripheries to the USA, Canada and other overseas
destinations. Instead Italians, Greeks, Portuguese and
Spaniards were recruited by France, Germany, Switzerland and
the Benelux countries (migration balance 1950-59: -2.9
million, 1960-69: -3.1 million). Others were able to find jobs
in their own countries, e.g. Sicilians in Northern Italy.
In the 1970s, these migrants returned in larger numbers to
their home countries which had become western style democracies
and also members of the European Union (Italy 1957, Greece 1975,
Portugal, Spain 1978). In Portugal return migration from the
former colonies which became independent in 1975 also had a
major impact. Spain and Italy have become preferred
destinations for wealthy retired people, especially from Great
Britain and Germany11. Since the 1980s Southern Europe only
consists of countries with a positive migration balance (1980-89:
+1.6 million, 1990-93: +673,000). Former labour migrants and
family dependants returning from Western Europe are joined by new
immigrants from the Maghreb, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle
East, and since 1989/90, also by Poles, Bulgarians and
Albanians looking for work in Italy and Greece.
Despite the positive migration balance of the last two
decades Southern Europe lost 3.1 million people (1950-93; see
tab. 3, fig. 4).
3.2.5. Western Europe
In contrast to most other parts of the world, Western Europe
has a long tradition of recruiting and integrating foreign
workers. In the first years after World War II, Western European
economies had to absorb refugees, displaced persons, and returnees
from the colonies. But already during the 1950s, they began to meet
part of their growing demand for labour by recruitment in several
Mediterranean countries: at first in Italy, Spain, Portugal, and
later in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, former Yugoslavia and Turkey.
Great Britain was the main destination for labour migrants from
Ireland and from other Commonwealth countries. In the majority of
cases (at least in continental Europe) the recruitment of
foreign labour took place on the basis of bilateral agreements
between the governments of sending and receiving countries. In the
early 1970s the number of foreigners working in Western Europe
reached a first ®historical¯ maximum (Hollifield, 1992)
Altogether, West European countries over the decades
recruited some 20 million foreign workers. More than half of them
sooner or later returned to their home countries (Ilo / Iom /
Unhcr). It was not until the recruitment stop in 1973 that many
migrant workers chose not to return home, but to bring in their
families instead or to start new families in Western Europe.
Recruited foreign labour became ®true¯ immigrants. Absolute
numbers and percentages of foreign population thus continued to
grow in spite of the recruitment stop, whereas the number of
gainfully employed foreigners stagnated.
Until World War I, Western Europe had been the most important
region of origin of overseas migration. After 1950 overseas
migration mainly continued to play a role for Great Britain and
Ireland. For this reason (and despite immigration from the New
Commonwealth) in the 1970s and early 1980s Great Britain remained
the only West European country with a negative migration
balance12. In France, Belgium and the Netherlands immigration and
return migration from former colonies and overseas territories
dominated over emigration. (West) Germany, which had lost its
overseas colonies in 1914/18 has been playing a similar role by
serving as country of destination for more than 5 million GDR
citizens (1949-1990) and 3.2 million ethnic Germans (1950-1994)
from Poland, Romania, Russia and Central Asia.
Since 1950, as a result to the aforementioned flows,
Western Europe was and is the main destination of migrants coming
from other parts of Europe, Turkey, the Middle East, South Asia,
the Maghreb, Sub- Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. For the period
1950-93 the net gain was about 17 million. From its high level of
the period 1950-59 (+4.3 million), the net migration gain still
rose during the boom period of the 1960s (1960-69: +5.1 million),
dropped after the oil price shock (1970-79: +2.5 million),
rebounding despite slow economic growth and high unemployment
during the second half of the 1980s and early 1990s (1980-89: +2.5
million, 1990-93: +3.9 million; tab. 3, fig. 4).
3.3. Demographic impact
From a demographic point of view, one major change is
obvious. In the second half of the 20th century, in most
European countries changes in the size and structure population
could largely be explained by changes in fertility and
mortality determining natural increase. In the 1950s, Ireland and
the GDR were the only exceptions. There the negative
migration balance was higher than the natural increase.
During the early 1970s, at the first peak of labour
migration within and to Europe only Germany's and Austria's
positive migration balance exceeded natural increase. In the
second half of the 1980s, this was already the case in eight of
16 West European countries (figg. 5.1 and 5.2).
Fig. 5.1 - Natural increase and migration
balance of selected Western European
countries, 1950-1990
Source: United Nations, 1994.
Fig. 5.2 - Natural increase and migration
balance of selected Western European
countries, 1950-1990
Source: United Nations, 1994.
Among them were Austria, Germany, Greece, Italy, Sweden,
and Switzerland - all countries with a positive migration
balance - but also Ireland and Portugal, where the negative
migration balance was higher than the natural increase (Macura,
1994).
Since the early 1990s, demographic development in the
majority of West European countries as well as in a growing number
of Central and East European countries is characterised by
a situation in which changes in the size of total population
are influenced to a larger extent by net migration than
by natural increase or decrease (see Council of Europe, 1994).
3.4. Origin and growth of Europe's foreign resident populations
A person's citizenship does not necessarily distinguish
migrants from nonmigrants. Even if return migrants are ignored, a
significantly larger number of people have migrated since 1945 than
those listed as foreigners. Apart from naturalised expellees,
refugees and migrant workers the available data usually do not
include ex- settlers, soldiers and other return migrants from
former colonies who were born as British, French or Dutch
subjects. Nevertheless the size of foreign resident populations in
Western Europe gives an idea of the changing course of
international migration.
National statistics (see tab. 4) show sharp increases in
foreign resident populations of almost all Western European
countries between the 1950s and the early 1970s, but only minor
or no increase
See file 3rdtable.asc
during the 1980s when immigration control had become a major
political issue. Finally in the early 1990s, the size of
foreign resident populations rose again.
Between 1950 and the early 1970s, the number of
foreigners in countries of the present-day European Union
(EU-15), Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland tripled. In 1950,
more than 4 million foreigners lived in this 18 West-
European countries; in 1970/71, their number reached almost 11
million. Ten years later, in 198214, some 15 million foreigners
were living in the Western half of Europe. In 1992/93, their
number reached 19 million. This trend clearly reflects the ongoing
internationalisation of Western populations, labour markets and
societies, but not a situation in which Western Europe,
Scandinavia, Spain, Italy and Greece could be seen as an affluent
subcontinent overrun by foreigners. Only 5% of the 383 million
people living in this region are not citizens of their
country of residence, among them two thirds who are not
citiziens of a West European country (see fig. 3).
Around 1950, mini-states like Liechtenstein (21.4% of the
total population) and Luxembourg (9.8%), as well as
Switzerland (6.1%), Austria (4.7%)15, Belgium (4.3%) and France
(4.1%) had the largest share of foreign residents. At the
same time, the proportion of foreign nationals was much
smaller in Sweden (1.8%), West Germany (1.1%)16 and the
Netherlands (1.0%). In the early 1950s, in absolute numbers France
had the largest foreign population (1.8 million), at the
time far more than West Germany (1950: 568,000), Belgium
(368,000) and Austria (323,000).
In 1970, in Europe West Germany already was the country
with the largest number of foreigners living on its territory
(3 million = 4.9% of its total population). It was followed, in
this respect, by France (2.6 million foreigners = 5.3% of
total population), Switzerland (1.1 million = 17.4%), and
Belgium (700,000 = 7.2%), Sweden (410,000 = 5.1%), the Netherlands
(260,000 = 1.9%) and Austria (210,000 = 2.8%)17. Large proportions
of these foreigners, often the majority, were migrant workers.
Fig. 6.1 - Share of foreign resident
population in selected countries of Western
Europe, 1992/1993
Source: Council of Europe, 1994; Oecd / Sopemi, 1994; Fassmann
/ Mnz, 1994a.
Around 1992/93, the largest share of foreign population
was still to be found in European mini-states like
Liechtenstein (37.5%), and Luxembourg (29.1%). Germany still
had the largest number of foreigners living on its territory (6.9
million = 8.6%; see fig. 6.1). The biggest single group of
expatriates in Europe, 2 million Turkish nationals living in
Germany, accounted for 2.5% of Germany's resident
population. Second in line were France (3.8 million = 6.6%),
the UK (2 million = 3.5%), and Switzerland (1.2 million =
18.0%; see tab. 3; fig. 6.2). Italian nationals alone
accounted for 5.7% of Switzerland's resident population.
Fig. 6.2 - Size of foreign resident
population in selected countries of Western
Europe, 1992/1993
Source: Council of Europe, 1994; Oecd / Sopemi, 1994; Fassmann
/ Mnz, 1994a.
3.5. Geography of European migration patterns
When looking at the ten most important receiving
countries in Europe18 we see that Turkish nationals - among them
both ethnic Turks and Kurds - are the largest expatriate community
not only in Germany, but also in Western Europe (1993: 2.7
million). The second largest group are citizens of former
Yugoslavia (1993: 1.8 million), mainly Croats, Serbs,
Bosnian Muslims, and ethnic Albanians. Third and fourth in
line are Italians (1.5 million) and Moroccans (1.2 million).
Other large expatriate communities are Portuguese (0.9 million),
Algerians (0.6 million) and Spaniards (0.6 million). In 1992/93
these seven nationalities accounted for 57% of all foreigners
residing in ten most important receiving countries of
Western Europe (see fig. 7; tab. 5).
Fig. 7 - Expatriate communities in 10 major
receiving countries of Western Europe*
Source: Council of Europe, 1994; Oecd / Sopemi, 1994; Fassmann
/ Mnz, 1994a.
In most European receiving countries 60-65% of all
foreign residents only come from five sending countries (tab.
5). In Germany these five nations are Turkey, former
Yugoslavia, Italy, Greece and Poland (1992-93: 64%; see fig. 8); in
France these are Portugal, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, and Spain
(1992-93: 64%; see fig. 9); in Britain these are Ireland,
Pakistan, India, and Bangla Desh (see fig. 10); in Switzerland
the five nations comprise Italy, former Yugoslavia, Portugal,
Spain, and Turkey (1992-93: 67%; see tab. 5). It is worth
noting that the ®demographic hinterlands¯ of Europe's main
receiving countries - especially of Britain, France and
Germany - hardly overlap.
See file 3rdtable.asc
Fig. 8 - Foreigners in Germany by country of
origin, 1993
Fig. 9 - Foreigners in France by country of
origin, 1990
Fig. 10 - Foreigners in the United Kingdom
by country of origin, 1992
See file 3rdtable.asc p. 3
The actual distribution of Western Europe's
foreign resident populations clearly reflects both a high
concentration on only very few countries19 and ®privileged¯
relations between certain sending and receiving countries,
linked by cultural, economic and/or political affinities rooted
in history.
In many cases the reasons of such privileged
relations are obvious (tab. 6). Even in the post-colonial era,
the former colonial ties constitute a major factor explaining
migration. Immigration to former home countries is promoted by
the fact that English, French, Dutch (Afrikaans), and
Portuguese are still used as linguae francae in the former
colonies, and that their economy, their political elites, and
parts of their culture are still oriented towards London, Paris,
or Lisbon. In some cases geographic vicinity also comes into
play.
France enjoys privileged relations with Portugal, the
Maghreb and a number of overseas countries. Almost all
Algerians living in Europe (97%) reside in France. Two thirds
(68%) of the Tunisian and the Portuguese expatriates in
Europe live in France, as do almost half of the Moroccans (47%;
see tab. 6). Mainland France is also the principal destination
for migrants from the overseas territories it still holds20.
Germany, since the 1970s the European country with
the largest immigrant population, is home for most immigrants
from Central and Eastern Europe (e.g. 68% of the Poles). Also,
four fifths of the Greeks (80%), nearly three-quarters (72%) of
the Turkish nationals (see fig. 11) and two thirds (68%) of
the Ex-Yugoslav emigrants and refugees reside in Germany (see
fig. 12).
Similar patterns prevail in Great Britain. In the early
1990s, most of the Irish expatriates in Europe, as well as
almost all Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and people from
the English speaking West Indies who migrated to Europe were
living in Great Britain.
Other small-scale patterns of ®privileged¯ recruitment of
migrants are also evident (see tab. 6). Most emigrants from
Finland live in Sweden, Dutch emigrants can be found mainly in
Belgium, Austrian emigrants predominantly live in neighbouring
Germany and Switzerland. Also noteworthy is the high percentage of
Moroccans in Belgium and the Netherlands, although the share of
migrants from other North African
Fig. 11 - Turkish expatriates in Europe by
country of residence, 1990/94
Fig. 12 - Ex-Yugoslav expatriates in Europe
by country of residence, 1990/94
Fig. 13 - Italian expatriates in Europe by
country of residence, 1990/94
countries is very low there (tab. 5).
Emigration from other European countries follows less
specific patterns. Expatriates from Italy and Spain are
distributed rather evenly among several European countries. Of the
Italians living abroad in Europe, more than one third lives in
Germany, one quarter in Switzerland, and less than one fifth each
in France and in Belgium (see fig. 13). The geographic
distribution of Spanish expatriates in Europe is similar: one
third in France, one quarter in Germany, and one fifth in
Switzerland (tab. 6).
When comparing migration patterns of the 1950s and 1960s
with those of the period 1975-1985 and the new patterns that
have emerged in the 1990s, several changes are obvious (tabb.
3-5). With immigration flows spreading to the western, northern,
and more recently also to southern parts of Europe, the
demographic ®hinterlands¯ of this migration expanded
geographically. In the decades immediately following World War
II the GDR and Italy were the most important sending areas
for labour migration to Europe's main receiving countries. For
many Italians working in West Germany, France, or Switzerland was
an attractive alternative to emigrating overseas to the U.S.,
Canada, or Argentina. In the 1960s Spain and Portugal had
become the most important European sending countries, followed
by Greece and former Yugoslavia. Non-European countries and
regions sending migrants to Western Europe were above all
Algeria, India, Pakistan, and the Caribbean. In the 1970s,
emigration from Turkey, Morocco, and Tunisia to Europe became more
important.
In the 1980s political conflicts, economic crises, and
growing demographic pressure in the Middle East, North, and
Sub-Saharan Africa generated new surges of immigration namely to
France, Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal (tab. 5). In Western
and Northern Europe family reunion and asylum became the main
gates of entry.
At the end of the 1980s and during the first half of the
1990s the fall of the Iron Curtain, deteriorated living
conditions, ethno-political conflicts, civil and inter- state
wars created new refugee flows and other migratory movements
taking place both within the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Turkey,
Algeria and the CIS as well as from these areas to the West.
So far, the main destinations have been Germany, Sweden,
Switzerland, Austria, and Greece. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and
Poland are confronted with irregular labour and transit migrants.
Whereas the successor states of former Yugoslavia and some CIS
countries have to deal with unprecedented numbers of refugees,
displaced persons and ethnic diaspora migrants.
Fig. 14 - Assessment of the number of non-EU
immigrants in Western Europe, 1988-1993
Source: Eurobarometer 1/1988, 1/1993.
4. Migration, public opinion and public policy
4.1. Attitudes towards foreigners in Europe
Do we need immigrants? Someone asking such a question today
in Europe is likely to receive all kinds of answers, but hardly
a positive one. For in the affluent countries of our continent, a
large number of domestic residents is against any further
immigration. In 1993, according to ®Eurobarometer¯21 survey
results (see fig. 14), 52% of those questioned within the
(old) EU-12 felt that there were already too many foreigners from
third countries living in the EU member countries (Hofrichter
/ Klein, 1994). The percentage of people sharing this view
was above EU average in Italy (64%), West Germany (60%),
Greece (57%), East Germany (57%) and France (56%). The
percentages were below average in Ireland (8%), Portugal
(25%) and Spain (25%).
Fig. 15 - Attitudes towards people of
different nationality, race or religion in
Western Europe (EU-12), 1988, 1993
Source: Eurobarometer 1/1988, 1/1993.
Between 1988 and 1993 the share of those who felt there
were too many immigrants from non-EU countries, living in the
country of the persons questioned, has increased
drastically (1988: 37%, 1993: 52%). The increase was
particularly high in Greece and Italy (see fig. 14). This view
is not necessarily influenced by the share of foreign
residents in the respective countries (see tab. 5). In the
case of Italy and Greece it rather reflects the fact that in
these two countries the general public only recently
realised the positive migration balance.
Some Europeans would plainly like to send those immigrants
back home that have entered their countries within the last few
decades or that were actively recruited by their governments
foreign labour. Some locals feel threatened by foreigners.
Immigrants are a source of fear and irritation in everyday
life. They are held responsible for a number of drawbacks in our
societies. Sometimes there is reason in these fears and
embarrassments. But in many cases the immigrants merely
serve as scapegoats.
Fig. 16 - Ethnocentric attitudes in Western
Europe (EU-12), 1988-1992
Source: Eurobarometer 1/1988, 1/1992.
In 1993, no less than 22% of the EU citizens felt
embarrassed by people of a different nationality, race or
religion (1988: 20%; fig. 15).
This sort of irritation was most strongly felt in Denmark
(43%), Greece (38%), Belgium (30%) and France (30%). At the same
time since 1988, in three of these countries - Denmark, Greece
and France - the number of people who felt bothered had risen
above average. An intensification of ethnocentric attitudes is
closely linked to this phenomenon. In 1992, ®Eurobarometer¯
found ethnocentric attitudes to be above European average in
Belgium, Germany (both East and West), Great Britain, France
and Denmark (see fig. 16).
4.2. Self-perception and demographic and geopolitical realities
In the past, national governments and administrations
played an active role in organising labour migration on the
basis of bilateral agreements, in negotiating ethnic diaspora
migration, and by defining ®gates¯ for legal immigration to
Western Europe or by closing them. But up to now, unlike the
USA, Canada or Australia, no West European country sees itself as
an immigrant society. Therefore, in recent years, most European
countries have implemented a series of anti- immigration measures
which, in 1993-94, have reduced the number of new immigrants
(as compared to 1990-92). But almost no country has developed new
legal concepts, political instruments and institutional
arrangements actively dealing with immigration.
In any case Europe's de facto immigration countries lack an
adequate perception of the demographic and geopolitical
realities. Despite Europe's multifold experience with masses on the
move most Europeans still consider mass migration as the historical
exception. Lifelong stationariness is considered to be normal.
Therefore public and publicised opinion oscillate between the
desire for humanitarian solutions in individual cases and the
call for more rigidity towards potential immigrants (Hofrichter
/ Klein, 1994). At the same time many people have the illusory
perception that the affluent countries of Western Europe could
seal off themselves against all potential immigrants from non-EU
countries. Recent history shows that not even the GDR was able to
isolate itself. The Wall has come down, but few are those who still
dream of a Europe without borders. Much larger is the number of
those advocate for new technical border equipment and armed border
troops.
In fact a series of western countries (e.g. Austria, Germany,
Finland, Sweden) have deployed armed forces along the borders
formerly ®protected¯ by the Iron Curtain. Where this fortification
once shielded the West from eastern immigrants, and western public
opinion was indignant at shooting at would-be migrants and the
antipersonnel mines in the border areas, there are now Finnish
border patrols, the Swedish coast guard, and Germany's special
border police (together with voluntary ®sheriffs¯), as well as the
Austrian Army. Spain, Italy and Greece have reacted in a similar
way: These countries also try to stop immigration from Africa and
the Middle East with the assistance of their armies and naval
forces.
A glance at the world map and into the history books
should clarify at least one thing: the deployment of troops
at our borders cannot be the ultimate and only way of dealing
with the migratory pressure which Western Europe is now confronted
with. For neither the economic gap between Europe's rich
industrial nations and the rest of the world, nor political
crises and armed conflicts at Europe's periphery and in the
European neighbourhood, which both generate migration, will
disappear in the coming two decades.
Therefore we must find ways of dealing with future
migration to Western Europe, its origins and its consequences
for the receiving countries. This would mean that the
countries of Western Europe become more active in dealing with
the root causes of migration displacement and refuge. Furthermore,
they must develop concepts for concerted migration policies based
on quotas and preferential criteria. For the time being, such
co-operation only exists as far as the prevention of migration is
concerned.
4.3. Migration and integration
Immigration policies based on quotas and preferential
criteria are essential for regulating future immigration. But
at the same time measures must be taken to integrate
legal immigrants, especially those that have been residents of
the respective country over a longer period of time. Thus any
policies leaving immigrants in doubt for years whether they will
be allowed to stay or will be sent back home are detrimental to
socio-economic integration. Immigrants that have found a place
for themselves within a West European society must be able to
secure their legal position within a foreseeable period of
time. Therefore facilitating naturalisation for those who wish to
become citizens of their new country of residence is crucial.
The children of immigrants must have the opportunity of
becoming citizens of the country they are born in. In Great
Britain because of the us soli regulation this naturalisation
takes place automatically. In France and Belgium, foreigners of
the so- called ®second generation¯ are naturalised if they
apply. Most countries of Europe do not have such policies. In
these countries, citizenship laws must be adapted. European
societies can hardly have an interest in growing numbers of
ambivalent, politically and socially not fully integrated
residents permanently lacking basic civil rights and
responsibilities. Only for migrants moving from one EU-member
country to another, a fully equal status within the framework of
a common EU citizenship would be completely sufficient.
Immigration policies cannot replace policies for
refugees and asylum-seekers. There will always be people searching
for a safe haven in one of the European countries. They must not
be rejected with allusion to ®lack of space¯. In such cases all-
European solidarity is needed, as much as the following
distinction. In general, migration policies need not be
altruistic, but this does not apply to our attitudes towards the
victims of ethnic cleansing, political oppression and
military aggression.
4.3.1. Alternatives to an active migration policy
There are a number of less desirable or even unacceptable
alternatives to regulating immigration:
1. Trying to create a fortress Europe and pursuing
extremely rigid policies towards foreign residents is hardly
practicable. Such attempts inevitably lead to measures that
would adversely affect the quality of life of the domestic
population as well. Drastically speaking: Total control of the
mobility of foreigners and unrestricted freedom of movement
for citizens are practically incompatible.
2. A fortress Europe using unsuitable means of
control can also not be aspired. This would only lead to a growing
number of irregular migrants entering the countries of Europe
illegally or as tourists.
3. Equally undesirable is mere laissez- faire with open
borders. This would leave immigrants at the mercy of the housing
and job markets, at the same time threatening the economic
and social position of the domestic underclasses. In the end
such a development would lead to an ethnically divided two-
tier society sooner or later accompanied by high levels of
violence.
4.3.2. What kind of migration policy at the national and at the
European level?
As compared to unrealistic or undesirable alternatives, the
states of Western Europe have but one useful option: Coming to
grips with the demographic and geopolitical realities and
developing a pragmatic migration policy that takes national and
European interests into account.
1. Such a policy must regulate future immigration
according to qualitative, quantitative and administrative
criteria. This also means fixing an overall number and yearly
quotas for new immigrants and accepting or rejecting new
immigrants by way of a transparent procedure. In order to do so,
such quotas must be determined for certain categories of
people - e.g., family reunification, special skills, ethnic
diaspora migrants - within a fixed framework.
2. A migration policy should offer immigrants a
clear perspective and provide measures and means for their
integration, so that migrants and their children do no
remain at the margins of our society and become tomorrow's new
underclasses.
3. A comprehensive migration policy must try to increase
the acceptance of migrants among the resident population
without chumming up to the xenophobia expressed by a growing
minority of Europe's citizens. We must not forget that even the
most pragmatic migration policies cannot be implemented
against the will of a majority of the electorate.
Migration policies are not altruistic. They don't have
much in common with asylum granted for humanitarian reasons by
states or Churches. A pragmatic migration policy within Europe
neither solves the problem of poverty and overpopulation in large
parts of the developing world, nor does it correct ethnic
cleansing in former Yugoslavia, the consequences of political
suppression of the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, or the market
shock in Central and East European countries. Migration
policy is mainly in the interest of the receiving countries.
A migration policy is indispensable even if the main receiving
countries for the time being, don't see any need for immigration,
because anti-immigration policies and high
unemployment will not completely stop further migration
within and to Europe.
1. The fact that today, 19 million foreigners
legally reside in Western Europe will lead to further immigration,
partly due to family reunification and new family formation,
but also due to diverse economic niches and the demand for
special qualifications and cheap domestic labour not available
within the resident populations. All this will mainly attract
people who can rely on an already established ethnic
bridgehead.
2. Migration is also a consequence of the increased
internationalisation of job markets, markets for goods and
services and the globalisation of European societies in general.
3. Last but not least, international migration is
kept alive by the continuing political, ethnic and religious
conflicts in the vicinity of West and Central Europe. These
conflicts constitute an enormous push factor. A further push
factor are the great economic disparities in Europe and between
Europe and its neighbours in Asia and North Africa. Growing
demographic pressure due to high population growth in the Maghreb,
Sub- Saharan Africa, the Middle East and other parts of Western
Asia are yet another reason to expect further immigration from
these regions along established channels. Despite European
integration most policies concerning immigration, naturalisation
and social integration of foreigners will largely remain a
prerogative of the nation state and of lower levels of government.
So far at the European level supranational agreements only
exist on asylum applications (Dublin agreement), on border
controls and visa requirements (Schengen agreement), and on the
freedom of settlement for EU citizens and privileged aliens22
within the EU (Maastricht / Eea).
If successful, any pragmatic regulation of future
immigration is a powerful political instrument influencing the
course of economic, ethnic and demographic developments. For
this reason it is worthwhile to consider such regulations
- even though many people in Europe want no further
immigration. What is needed is a clear signal that national
and European policy is able to face the problems posed by
migration, instead of practising mere crisis management.
Only then can Europe's citizens learn to regard future
migration as a manageable challenge and maybe even as a
potential enrichment instead of seeing it as a major threat.
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See file 3rdtabel.doc
_______________________________
1. Acknowledgements: this paper has been
prepared for the European Population
Conference 1995 in Milano. Some data and
informations analysed in the paper have been
provided by Jean-Claude Chesnais (Paris),
Heinz Fassmann (Vienna), the Unhcr (Geneva),
and the Intergovernmental Consultations
(Geneva). I would like to thank Heinz
Fassmann (Vienna) and Wolfgang Seifert
(Berlin) for helpful comments, Ines
Heimicke, Kerstin Seiring and Diane Opitz
(Berlin) for providing figures and technical
assistance and Carmen Nemeth (London) for
revising the English text.
2. As early as three months after the fall
of the Berlin wall, ®Newsweek¯ printed the
following headline (February 5, 1990):
®Unwelcome guests - Western Europe welcomes
the new wave of immigrants with a mixture of
fear, refusal and panic.¯
3. Among them were foreign born children
who joined their immigrant parents at a
later stage of the family life cycle as well
as ®second generation¯-immigrants, that is,
children born to foreigners in the receiving
country of immigration. Because of the ius
sanguinis regulations prevailing in most
European countries, these children are not
foreign born but remain foreign citizens.
4. These former colonial powers are
Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands,
Portugal, Spain, and the UK.
5. These areas include Germany (which
basically sees itself as home for all ethnic
Germans in Eastern Europe and Central Asia),
Finland (Karelians), Greece (Greeks from
Bulgaria,Turkey and the former Soviet
Union), Italy (Italians from Istria and
Dalmatia), Poland (Poles from Lithuania,
Belarus, and the Ukraine), Czechia (Czechs
from Volhynia and former Yugoslavia),
Slovakia (Slovaks from Hungary and the
Carpato-Ukraine), and Hungary (Hungarians
from Slovakia, Transylvania, the Carpato-
Ukraine, and former Yugoslavia).
6. This category encompasses: firstly, the
significant North-South migration of retired
persons (e.g. Britons to Spain, Germans to
Spain, Switzerland, and Italy), the
international migration of elites (students,
trainees, employees of multinational
companies, universities, research
institutes, and international
organisations), the return of descendants of
overseas emigrants (of particular importance
for Spain, Italy, and Greece), and the
return of labour migrants to their country
of origin (a phenomenon that can only partly
be explained by the fact that many labour
migrants return after retirement; King,
1986; Bonifazi / Heins, 1994). As a rule,
foreign troops, their civilian staff and
family members, are neither registered nor
counted as immigrants or foreigners.
7. Between 1949 and 1990 migration from
East to West Germany was not even registered
as cross-border migration by West German
authorities, as the former GDR did not
constitute a ®foreign country¯ according to
the legal viewpoint of the FRG.
8. These are Europe's Oecd member
countries or Western Europe in a larger
geopolitical sense.
9. Between 1949 and 1961 some 3.8 million
GDR citizens migrated to the FRG while
400,000 West Germans migrated to the GDR.
Between 1961 and 1988 the East-West flow
dropped to 630,000 (Rudolph, 1994; Ulrich,
1990).
10. Between 1948 and 1970 only 60,000
Soviet citizens were allowed to emigrate
(Vishnevsky / Zayonchkovskaya, 1994).
11. Italy already was a western style
democracy and, in 1957 (Eec), became one of
the six founding members of the European
Economic Community.
12. For most years since the End of World
War II Ireland also had a negative migration
balance. But during times of economic
recession in Britain (especially during the
1970s and early 1980s) Irish emigrants were
outnumbered by return migrants from the UK.
13. Tabb. 4-6 are based on an evaluation of
the Sopemi statistics, on data published by
the Council of Europe (1994), the UN,
Eurostat population statistics, and on
official population statistics published by
the analysed countries. The Sopemi data
base, which was used as main source of
information, is a continuous reporting
system on migration organised by the Oecd.
In most Oecd member countries and some
countries of East Central Europe local
correspondents collect and interpret
available data on international migration.
The aim of Sopemi is to compile available
national data. But there is no authority to
impose changes in the data collections
procedure or to correct government
statistics. Sopemi data and of the data
published by Eurostat and the Council of
Europe heavily depend on the quality of the
national data collection procedures. In
general we can assume that in countries like
Germany or Switzerland, having a population
register for foreigners, the quality of the
data is higher than in countries like
Britain, where estimates are based on
special surveys (see Oecd / Sopemi, 1994;
Council of Europe, 1994). For a discussion
of the comparability of data on
international migration see Poulain (1990).
14. 1982 was chosen (instead of 1980/81) as
year of reference because of the higher
quality of data for this year (see Fassmann
/ MYnz, 1994a).
15. At the time approximately 350,000
refugees and displaced persons from
neighbouring Central and Eastern Europe were
living in Austria. The majority of them were
not naturalised, but stateless or still
citizens of their countries of origin
(Fassmann / MYnz, 1995). Allied troops
stationed in Austria until 1955, their
civilian staff and family members, are not
included.
16. In contrast to Austria, at that time
West Germany had already naturalised
expelles ethnic German, and most other
refugees from the East living on its
territory. Allied and other foreign troops
stationed in Germany and Austria, their
civilian staff and family members, are not
included.
17. Austria was the only country where the
number of foreigners had decreased between
1950 and 1970. In contrast to the situation
in 1950, by 1970 all displaced persons and
refugees of the post-war period as well as
Hungarian refugees of 1956/57 who were still
living in Austria had been naturalised.
18. In 1992/93, 94% of all foreigners on
Western Europe (EU-15 , Norway, Switzerland)
were living in this 10 countries.
19. In 1992/93, 75% of all foreign
residents in Western Europe lived in
Germany, France, Switzerland and the UK (see
tab. 5).
20. E.g. the French Antilles, Guyana,
RŽunion, Tahiti.
21. ®Eurobarometer¯ is a survey based on
representative samples carried out regularly
in all EU member countries. For a detailed
discussion of the survey results on
immigration and ethnocentrism see Hofrichter
/ Klein, 1994.
22. So far this status only applies to
citizens of Norway, Iceland and
Liechtenstein.