Good fences make good neighbors, so the poet Robert Frost wrote. Sadly, the European Union seems to be taking Frost's poetic whimsy as a serious policy prescription.
For how is the EU preparing to welcome the citizens of the ten countries that will become members in May? Simple: by shutting the door in their faces, and then building regulatory walls to keep them away from the door in the first place.
Indeed, the Union is behaving even worse. Because no agreement exists at the EU level concerning a common set of rules to be applied to the Union's new citizens, each member country is establishing its own rules without any coordination.
Some of these emerging rules are draconian. Austria and Germany - so far the two largest recipients of migrants from Eastern Europe, receiving four out of every five - announced last year that they will restrict migration from the new member states for the full transition period of seven years. France and Belgium will restrict immigration by new EU citizens for at least the first two-years of the transition period.
Sweden initially appeared to take a liberal stance, but is now postponing opening its borders and may tighten migrants' access to welfare benefits. The Danish government almost collapsed in January when the Ministry of Labor proposed to open the job market to all new EU citizens who can prove that they have found employment.
Greece and Italy have been silent so far, which means that they are likely to keep current restrictions vis-à-vis the new members: they will de facto be treated the same as migrants from outside the EU. Thus, all the countries bordering the new member states will be closed to migration from the "New Europe."
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All this barrier-building reflects mounting public concern about citizens from the new member states emigrating to take advantage of generous welfare systems in the Union. Little wonder, then, that the largest drops in popular support for enlargement registered by the Eurobarometer Survey occurred in EU countries with the most generous welfare states. But support for enlargement is fading everywhere, right on the brink of accession.
At the same time, closing the doors to the Union's newest citizens will not solve the problem of welfare access and will certainly hurt economic growth. In EU labor markets characterized by low mobility, such as those that exist across Western and Southern Europe, migrants can play a very important role. By increasing average productivity, they contribute not only to stronger growth, but also to achieving higher incomes per capita.
In fact, due to distortions in how wages are set-often set irrespective of local labor productivity rates-migrants can even contribute to reducing unemployment in Western and Southern Europe. Moreover, shutting the door will not solve the problem of welfare access, because illegal migration is worse than legal migration: it draws resources without contributing anything to finance the welfare state even though most migrants are young and do work.
A better way to deal with the fear of migrants abusing social welfare systems would be to adopt a common and rather generous transitional quota at the level of the EU as a whole, to be lifted early if it is not filled. Migration quotas should be preferred to other types of restrictions on the ground that they allow at least a part of the potential welfare gains from migration to be realized. Quotas could be established at levels set on the basis of past periods of high migration - say, an annual flow of 400,000 people to the EU.
While these transitional restrictions are put in place, reforms should be undertaken that address the underlying basis for the public's fear of migration. The root of this fear, of course, is the vast differences in income between citizens of, say, Lithuania, and those of most of the Union.
Of course, economic convergence is a long-term business. Thus, redistributive policies in the EU should be reformed in ways that discourage "welfare shopping" by citizens of its poorest member states. Here the problem is the incompatibility of insurance schemes, on the one hand, in which the benefits that people receive are based on what they have contributed, and, on the other hand, social assistance programs that entail cash transfers.
All EU countries, including the new members, should be encouraged to adapt social assistance schemes (which also exist in the new member states) so as to meet some basic income requirements. EU-wide coordination of these minimum guaranteed income schemes should be gradually pursued, with the long-term intention of building up a pan-European safety net as one of the institutional pillars of the EU.
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America's president subscribes to a brand of isolationism that has waxed and waned throughout US history, but has its roots in the two-century-old Monroe Doctrine. This is bad news for nearly everyone, because it implies acceptance of a world order based on spheres of influence, as envisioned by China and Russia.
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Good fences make good neighbors, so the poet Robert Frost wrote. Sadly, the European Union seems to be taking Frost's poetic whimsy as a serious policy prescription.
For how is the EU preparing to welcome the citizens of the ten countries that will become members in May? Simple: by shutting the door in their faces, and then building regulatory walls to keep them away from the door in the first place.
Indeed, the Union is behaving even worse. Because no agreement exists at the EU level concerning a common set of rules to be applied to the Union's new citizens, each member country is establishing its own rules without any coordination.
Some of these emerging rules are draconian. Austria and Germany - so far the two largest recipients of migrants from Eastern Europe, receiving four out of every five - announced last year that they will restrict migration from the new member states for the full transition period of seven years. France and Belgium will restrict immigration by new EU citizens for at least the first two-years of the transition period.
Sweden initially appeared to take a liberal stance, but is now postponing opening its borders and may tighten migrants' access to welfare benefits. The Danish government almost collapsed in January when the Ministry of Labor proposed to open the job market to all new EU citizens who can prove that they have found employment.
Greece and Italy have been silent so far, which means that they are likely to keep current restrictions vis-à-vis the new members: they will de facto be treated the same as migrants from outside the EU. Thus, all the countries bordering the new member states will be closed to migration from the "New Europe."
Secure your copy of PS Quarterly: The Year Ahead 2025
Our annual flagship magazine, PS Quarterly: The Year Ahead 2025, has arrived. To gain digital access to all of the magazine’s content, and receive your print copy, subscribe to PS Digital Plus now.
Subscribe Now
All this barrier-building reflects mounting public concern about citizens from the new member states emigrating to take advantage of generous welfare systems in the Union. Little wonder, then, that the largest drops in popular support for enlargement registered by the Eurobarometer Survey occurred in EU countries with the most generous welfare states. But support for enlargement is fading everywhere, right on the brink of accession.
At the same time, closing the doors to the Union's newest citizens will not solve the problem of welfare access and will certainly hurt economic growth. In EU labor markets characterized by low mobility, such as those that exist across Western and Southern Europe, migrants can play a very important role. By increasing average productivity, they contribute not only to stronger growth, but also to achieving higher incomes per capita.
In fact, due to distortions in how wages are set-often set irrespective of local labor productivity rates-migrants can even contribute to reducing unemployment in Western and Southern Europe. Moreover, shutting the door will not solve the problem of welfare access, because illegal migration is worse than legal migration: it draws resources without contributing anything to finance the welfare state even though most migrants are young and do work.
A better way to deal with the fear of migrants abusing social welfare systems would be to adopt a common and rather generous transitional quota at the level of the EU as a whole, to be lifted early if it is not filled. Migration quotas should be preferred to other types of restrictions on the ground that they allow at least a part of the potential welfare gains from migration to be realized. Quotas could be established at levels set on the basis of past periods of high migration - say, an annual flow of 400,000 people to the EU.
While these transitional restrictions are put in place, reforms should be undertaken that address the underlying basis for the public's fear of migration. The root of this fear, of course, is the vast differences in income between citizens of, say, Lithuania, and those of most of the Union.
Of course, economic convergence is a long-term business. Thus, redistributive policies in the EU should be reformed in ways that discourage "welfare shopping" by citizens of its poorest member states. Here the problem is the incompatibility of insurance schemes, on the one hand, in which the benefits that people receive are based on what they have contributed, and, on the other hand, social assistance programs that entail cash transfers.
All EU countries, including the new members, should be encouraged to adapt social assistance schemes (which also exist in the new member states) so as to meet some basic income requirements. EU-wide coordination of these minimum guaranteed income schemes should be gradually pursued, with the long-term intention of building up a pan-European safety net as one of the institutional pillars of the EU.