Amid all the euro-phobes' schadenfreude about the euro-zone's travails, it is remarkable that the pound is plunging - not just against the US dollar, but also against the much-maligned euro.
If markets get panicky about the UK government's deficits, we may regret our not-so-splendid isolation from the euro-zone.
By Tim Finch of IPPR. Excellent. Read it here.
Christopher Caldwell is an intelligent and educated man. His columns for the FT are often perceptive and original. But his views on immigration in Europe, presented in his new book, "Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West", are paranoid and delusional.
Caldwell's book is a cocktail of projected fears: Europe is in decline, its population ageing and falling, its citizens decadent and weak; immigrants are a threat, Islam an even bigger one, and Muslim immigrants are multiplying like rabbits; ergo, Muslim immigrants are a united force bent on conquering a continent that has lost the will and the means to fight. I simplify, but only a little.
Caldwell's book tells us more about Caldwell himself than it does about immigration in Europe. But sadly, it will get huge play, because it plays to the prejudices of all sorts of people.
Read a full review of Caldwell's book in the FT by Mark Mazower here.
Three, perhaps 4, boats laden with migrants people heading from Libya to Italy sink. As many as 300 people could be dead.
Europe's border controls claim more lives. The official response? We need tougher controls.
After the Omnibus Appropriations Bill signed into law by President Obama scrapped a pilot programme that allowed a small number of Mexican trucking companies to carry cargoes north of the border - as NAFTA requires - Mexico has responded by slapping tariffs of up to 45% on 90 American agricultural and industrial imports.
Renault is to move production of its new Clio from Slovenia back to France, after President Sarkozy granted a bail out to French carmakers on condition they repatriate production from central and eastern Europe. Renault insists the decision is a commercial, rather than a political, one. So much for the EU single market.
The economy is shrinking, unemployment is soaring, insecurity is rife - no wonder people are angry. As wildcat strikes against foreign workers spread across Britain, people who fear for their own jobs may feel sympathetic. But however understandable the strikers' emotions may be, they have got it all wrong.
Foreign workers are not responsible for the mess we're in; the financial crisis is. Blame bankers (British and foreign), finger blase regulators and blinkered politicians, spread responsibility among everyone who piled on debt and gambled on house prices - but don't scapegoat Italian oil workers.
Nor would kicking out foreign workers create more jobs for British people. The notion that there is a fixed number of jobs to go around is a nonsense. Workers (foreign or otherwise) not only take jobs, they also create them. Gordon Brown should have known better than to legitimise the old National Front canard of "British jobs for British workers" in his 2007 conference speech. He should eat his words.
Fewer foreigners around would mean even less spending in the shops, and so cost British people their jobs. Chucking foreign employees out would cause further dislocation to businesses already struggling with shrivelled credit and collapsing demand. It would play havoc with public services, depriving patients of doctors and nurses, the elderly of carers, and children of teachers. It would plunge the economy into an even bigger hole - and we'd end up with fewer jobs for British people, not more.
Let's be clear: if British workers are being discriminated against in Lindsey or elsewhere, that is unacceptable. It would be a breach of both British and EU law. But there is no evidence of that. What the strikers appear to want is that foreign workers be discriminated against - and that too is unacceptable.
The free movement of labour is not only economically beneficial and morally right, it is a legal requirement of EU membership. If Britain were to discriminate against other European workers, what is to stop other EU countries discriminating against British ones? Some 2 million Brits are thought to work in another EU country - do we want to put their jobs at risk too?
During the boom years when the pound was overvalued, Britain attracted workers from around the EU. But with the UK economy now predicted to be hardest hit by the global recession, Brits may feel tempted to seek work on the continent. That's what happened when unemployment reached 3 million in the 1980s, as workers similar to the brickies who featured in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet sought work in Germany and elsewhere.
Pundits and politicians are forever intoning that we must not fall prey to protectionism. Barricading ourselves off from outsiders leads not to salvation, but to economic depression and political extremism. That's one reason why the EU, with its single market, impartial regulations and common political institutions, is so important. Reverting to a policy of each to his own, beggar-thy-neighbour, and devil take the hindmost, would cause the EU to unravel.
That would delight Europhobic Tories, Ukip, the BNP, MigrationWatch and a host of rancid fellow-travellers. But the trade union and wider Labour movement should have no truck with it. Solidarity does not stop at the water's edge. The EU is a champion of workers' rights. And if the flaws of financial globalisation are to be fixed - and climate change curbed - it will be in partnership with Europe, not against it.
Now of all times Derek Simpson, Jon Cruddas and others on the left should not be making common cause with what Peter Mandelson has rightly called "the politics of xenophobia".
Free movement of labour makes economic and moral sense. Without it the EU would unravel
Read my article in today's Guardian
The latest Transatlantic Trends survey of attitudes towards immigration in America and Europe finds that 47% of Europeans and 50% of Americans think immigration is more of a problem than an opportunity.
But young Europeans (aged 18-34) are much more positive about immigration than older ones. In both the US and Europe, the better educated people are, the more positive towards immigration they are. While 52% of Europeans and 55% of Americans who have not completed secondary school think immigration is more of a problem, only a third of Europeans with a university degree think so. Among those with a post-graduate degree, the figure is 28% for Europeans and 27% for Americans.
People who actually have contact with immigrants are also much more favourable towards immigration. Whereas 54% of Europeans and 61% of Americans without immigrant friends or colleagues said that
immigration is more of a problem, only 42% of Europeans and 43% of Americans with at least a few personal or professional immigrant contacts said likewise.
There was also a strong left-right divide, with Democrats, independents and Europeans who identify as being on the left or centre much more positive about immigration than Republicans and right-wing Europeans.
While the overall picture is not particularly cheery, the fact that those who are younger, better educated and have contact with immigrants are more positive is a good sign. Generational change, improvements in education and contact with real people can make a difference.
Photo by Sergio Betancort © Prisacom S.A. From El Pais.com
They came from North Africa and reached Europe: the Canary Island of Lanzarote, Spain
Net immigration to the EU - immigrants less emigrants - was 1.9 million in 2007, according to Eurostat. Since the EU population is just shy of 500 million, the immigration rate was 0.38%.
Spain had the highest level of net immigration: 702,000; Italy was second, with 494,000; Britain third, with 175,000. The Netherlands experienced net emigration, with 1,600 more people leaving than arriving.
In a bid to reverse the brain drain out of Europe and attract talented foreigners to come work here, the EU is proposing to introduce a Blue Card visa, in a deliberate echo of the US's much-coveted Green Card.
The Green Card grants the holder the permanent right to live and work in America.
The Blue Card would give highly skilled workers with at least 5 years' relevant experience who have found a job that pays more than 1.7 the average wage in that European country a two-year visa that would allow them to live, work and travel in Europe.
Several European governments, notably Germany, think the proposal is too generous.
From the country that elected a former Nazi as president comes another outrage:
In an extraordinary on-air outburst, Klaus Emmerich, the veteran Austrian television pundit, declared: “I would not want the western world to be directed by a black man.” When invited to retract, Mr Emmerich stood by what he had said, adding that “blacks aren’t as politically civilised” and pouring fuel on to the fire by hinting that Mr Obama’s “rhetorical brilliance” and ability in organising a movement made him comparable to infamous demagogues from the past. America’s choice, Mr Emmerich concluded, was as misplaced as a Turk becoming the next chancellor of Austria...
A comment such as Mr Emmerich’s would be political suicide in the US; in Austria it earned little more than a slap on the wrist. How is it that while both places have their fair share of racism, one finds such contrasting public and political responses?
One difference is that in Europe today truly to belong still means being white. “Do you feel yourself to be British?” BBC journalist Jeremy Paxman asked a young black London rapper after Mr Obama’s victory. Europeans find it hard adjusting to a colour-blind world. Indeed their hesitancy is growing. In Austria, the extreme right carved out big gains in September’s general elections. Pope Benedict weighed in over the summer to warn against a possible resurgence of fascist values in Italy. Europe as a whole, according to recent polls, has become significantly more xenophobic over the past few years. Fears of Islamic terrorism and anxiety about globalisation have fed this trend. So has fervent anti-European Union sentiment, strongly correlated to populist anti-immigrant rhetoric. By contrast, Mr Obama’s story is that of the immigrant dream, a tale of upwardly-mobile success that cut decisively across race lines. Immigrant voters played a decisive electoral role in Mr Obama’s win, yet immigration – for all the prior public debate – figured little as a campaign issue.
Read the full article by Mark Mazower in the FT.
What bank investors need from authorities is clarity. A concerted, pan-European drive to inject capital might provide it. As US fund manager John Hussman has suggested, that injection could be achieved via a “super-bond”, countable as capital and subordinate to customer deposits, but ranking ahead of both shareholders and even senior bondholders in the event of bankruptcy. That super-bond would pay a high rate of interest, giving banks an incentive to switch to cheaper funding. But interest payment could be deferred until the bank hit a minimum level of profitability.
Europe's war against immigration is immoral and unwinnable. It's time for a radical rethink.
Read the full article in today's Guardian
Europe prides itself on being a continent of human rights, freedom and international solidarity. Yet it is fighting an increasingly dirty war against immigration, with casualties mounting every day. The biggest victims are the poor and the vulnerable, who are demonised as "illegal" or "bogus". But EU governments are also doing huge harm to the societies they purportedly want to protect.
Britain continues to hunt down unauthorised migrants and is planning to introduce ID cards for foreigners. In Italy, Gypsy camps have been burned down, and the Berlusconi government, far from protecting the targets of such racist attacks, is whipping up animosity against them and fingerprinting them. Spain is increasing its efforts to stop desperate Africans from reaching European soil, causing thousands to die each year as they take longer and more dangerous routes to avoid detection. Last month 15 people died of dehydration and exposure when their boat engine failed as they tried to reach Almería, on the Costa del Sol. The previous week 14 people drowned when their boat sank off nearby Motril.
Those lucky enough to escape death en route to Europe now face being locked up when they arrive. The EU's new "return directive", which was recently approved by European interior ministers and MEPs, allows governments to imprison - sorry, detain - unauthorised migrants for up to 18 months. Why? For daring to cross a border in search of a better life.
As the EU begins to adopt a common approach to immigration, the British government is helping to draft Europe-wide measures that attract little coverage in the UK. Frontex, the EU's border force, is helping southern European governments to patrol the Mediterranean and around the Canaries. And while the return directive was front-page news in Spain, it was a footnote in Britain.
There is plenty more to come. Nicolas Sarkozy, the son of a Hungarian migrant, has made cracking down on migration a priority for France's EU presidency, which lasts until the end of this year. His proposed migration pact aims to make it easier for the EU to attract highly qualified migrants, establish common European refugee and asylum policies by 2010, beef up policing of the EU's borders, and expel more illegal migrants. EU leaders are due to decide on the plans in October.
They should reject them. Europe's clampdown on immigration is neither fair nor sensible. Undocumented migrants are not criminals, nor are they an invading army. They are human beings less fortunate than ourselves. Most come to do jobs that comfortable Europeans no longer want to do, but as Europe's front doors are closed, they have to creep in through the back. Far from threatening Europe's ageing societies, they are reinvigorating them. What's more, the billions of pounds they send home dwarfs the sums that European governments give in aid.
The cruel irony is that, despite all the suffering they cause, Europe's increasingly costly border controls fail to keep foreigners out. Instead, they foster people-smuggling and an ever-expanding shadow economy in which illegal migrants are vulnerable to exploitation, labour laws are broken and taxes go unpaid. They also encourage people who would rather work temporarily to remain permanently, because migrants fear that if they go home they will not be able to return to Europe. Surveys of Senegalese migrants in Italy show that most would prefer to spend part of their time working in Europe and part back home, just as the Poles who commute back and forth to Britain do. A sensible immigration policy would facilitate this.
1. Nine young children and six adults have died, with four more in a very serious state, in the latest tragic attempt by Africans to reach Europe. Full article in Spanish at El Pais; photos here.
2. The European Parliament has passed a motion demanding that the Berlusconi government stop collecting the fingerprints of gypsies in Italy, who are the targets of an increasingly violent anti-immigrant backlash. El Pais has the full story.
3. A 32-year old Moroccan woman, who is married to a Frenchman and has 3 children who were born in France, has had her normally automatic request for French citizenship denied for wearing a burqa, which France's constutional council deems "incompatible with the fundamental values of the French community, and notably equality between men and women." Full article in French in Le Monde.
French president Nicolas Sarkozy is planning a Europe-wide crackdown on immigration when France takes over the reins of the EU in the second half of this year, according to documents seen by the FT.
Not content with mismanaging France, it seems, Sarko is now determined to sow discord throughout Europe.
Coming from the son of a Hungarian immigrant, such claptrap is particularly disappointing and hypocritical. Young Sarkozy may always have thought that he was destined for greatness, but the French authorities who admitted his parents could not have known. Had Sarkozy's parents been turned away, President Bling Bling would not be in office and, dare I say it, Carla would not be the jewel in his crown.
The cruel irony of Sarko's proposals is that far from protecting Europe from the perceived threat of immigration, they would do further damage to Europe's stuttering economies and ageing societies.
Does Sarko honestly think that his anti-immigrant rhetoric is conducive to attracting the high-skilled migrants that the EU is wooing with its new "blue card" proposal?
Is it really in Europe's interests to try to round up illegal workers, at a time when a greying continent is struggling to find people to look after the growing number of elderly Europeans who need care?
Does anyone think that such a crackdown will succeed?
Is it not a recipe for fracturing society rather than protecting it?
Thanks to Project Syndicate, my article on why Europe should open its borders to foreign workers has been reprinted in Turkish Weekly, the Japan Times, and the Times of Malta. Please let me know if you see it published anywhere else. Thanks
Spain is leading the way for a humane and common-sense approach to immigration. In 2005, the government allowed illegal immigrants to regularise their status, giving them the right to work legally.
Continue reading "Spain leads the way for Europe on migration" »
Read my article for Europe's World here
It is time that Europe’s politicians admitted to voters that governments cannot stop people moving across borders. Despite efforts to build a Fortress Europe, more than a million foreigners bypass its defences each year: some enter covertly; most overstay their visas and work illicitly. While draconian policies do curb migration somewhat, they mostly drive it underground.
Continue reading "Migrant tax would slash illegal entry into Europe" »
Ian Buruma writes in today's FT about the elusive quest for a European soul. He remarks:
The most inspiring thing about the EU is the mobility of its citizens, the way Europeans can live and work anywhere they want in Europe. Let there be more Polish builders in Paris, British designers in Berlin, French entrepreneurs in London.
Europeans are growing accustomed to TV footage of Africans piled on to rickety boats arriving in the Canary Islands. They may be less aware of the thousands of people who are trying to enter Europe from the east.
I debated whether Europe should open its borders on Radio Netherlands with Manuel Medina Ortega, a Euro-MP for Spain's Socialist Party, Johannes van der Klaauw, the head of mission for UNHCR in Rabat, Morocco, and Vanessa Mock, RN's Brussels correspondent. You can listen to it here.
Edward Lucas has written a thought-provoking article on migration in Europe in this week's Economist, which is available for non-subscribers on his blog.
Last year it was gas piped through Ukraine, now it's oil through Belarus - how many times does Russia have to cut off Europe's energy supplies before we wake up to the risks of being dependent on the Kremlin to keep the lights on?
When eight ex-communist countries joined the EU in 2004, only Britain, Ireland and Sweden allowed their citizens to come work freely.
On 1 January two more are joining: Bulgaria and Romania. But this time, Britain and Ireland have decided to impose restrictions on the new EU citizens' right to work.
Among rich EU countries, only Sweden and Finland are opening their doors to Bulgarians and Romanians (as are all the ex-communist members, except Hungary). What a pity!
I don't usually write about such matters, but I am so shocked and outraged by the assassination of Alexander Litvinenko in London that I feel compelled to comment.
Anti-dumping duties, which unfairly penalise imports that are deemed too cheap, are one of the most pernicious protectionist devices. After all, we ought to be cheering if the cost of imports falls, because it makes the money in our pocket stretch further, not taxing consumers in order to try to prop up less efficient domestic producers.
Continue reading "EU fails to mend its protectionist ways" »
European leaders are still struggling to come to terms with the Dutch and French No votes last year. At least for now, closer political union appears to be on ice. Even so, there is lots the EU could - and should - be getting on with.
Continue reading "Europe needs a common energy policy: updated" »
Most people think Europe's single market already exists: it was created way back in 1992, wasn't it? Unfortunately not. While goods are traded freely across borders within Europe, services are not - and since they account for over two-thirds of the EU economy, Europe's single market is in effect far from complete.
India's drinkers should raise a glass to Peter Mandelson.
Here we go again. The US government has today launched yet another salvo in its long-running conflict with the EU over aircraft subsidies, announcing that it is to file a new complaint at the WTO against European subsidies for Airbus. Before you could say "Boeing", Brussels made clear that it would hit back with its own tit-for-tat complaint. So much for the fragile truce that had held since February.
The International Organisation for Migration estimates that 2,000-3,000 would-be migrants from West Africa have died trying to reach the Canary Islands this year. Others reckon the true death toll is over three times higher. Meanwhile, Spain says 26,000 migrants have actually landed on the islands this year.
How many more people need to die before we realise that our border controls don't work?
Online gambling is immoral and illegal - except when it takes place within US states, of course; oh, and interstate betting on horse races is also OK. That is the essence of the US's new Unlawful Gambling Enforcement Act, as clear-cut a case of protectionism as there is.
"Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet" - the words are St Augustine's, but they could just as well have been uttered by Peter Mandelson.
Germany's Chancellor, Angela Markel, is making noises about reviving the well-worn idea of a transatlantic free-trade area (FTA), and Susan Schwab, America's top trade negotiator, has welcomed the idea too. So might the proposal finally get off the ground?
Peas in a Pod™
Fears that Apple aims to become the Microsoft of the music download
business by using proprietary technology to lock in the dominance of
iTunes have already attracted the scrutiny of Nordic competition
watchdogs. So it is a worrying indication of Apple's monopolistic
intentions that it is laying legal claim to the word "Pod," threatening
to sue companies that use the word as part of their product names for
infringing its iPod trademark. It is already taking action against the
small start-up that makes the Profit Pod, an infrared scanner used to
record activity on video-arcade machines.
But lest Steve Jobs forget, Apple did not invent the word "pod." By trying to appropriate it, he risks alienating millions of people who were once attracted to Apple's apparently upstart brand, as well as fanning the fears of European trustbusters. After all, even Microsoft has not dared to lay claim to the word "Word."
Doha is not yet dead and buried, but already the European Union is rushing to pursue new bilateral trade agreements instead.
We should go beyond the EU’s existing bilateral free trade agreements, by setting out the case for new free trade agreements designed to deliver more open markets and fairer trading conditions in new areas of growth, particularly in Asia.
says Peter Mandelson, the EU's trade commissioner. India, South Korea and the ASEAN countries are already said to be in his sights.
As the great and the good gather in New York for the United Nations' jamboree on international migration, Spain's decision to expel 1,000 illegal migrants back to Senegal reminds us that our current immigration system is creaking at the seams.
The world's trade negotiators cannot seem to agree on much these days, but on one thing there is near-unanimity: the United States is responsible for the collapse of the WTO's Doha Round.
Peter Mandelson, the EU's trade commissioner, told the FT:
“If the US continues to demand dollar-for-dollar compensation in market access [cutting agricultural tariffs] for reducing domestic support, no one in the developing world will ever buy that and the EU will not either.”
Kamal Nath, India's fork-tongued commerce minister, said of the US:
“Everybody put something on the table except one country who said ‘we can’t see anything on the table’.”
This is nonsense. Whenever negotiations fail, all sides must take some of the blame. And the US, for good reasons and bad, is guilty mainly of being too ambitious to free up world trade - which is meant to be what the WTO is about.
Continue reading "America alone is not to blame for Doha collapse" »
Peter Mandelson, the EU's trade commissioner, has announced a review of anti-dumping measures. These seek to protect Europeans from imports that the Commission deems unfairly cheap. Personally, I think low-cost foreign products are one of the boons of globalisation - allowing the pound in your pocket to stretch further - as well as being particularly pro-poor, since the dirt-cheap basic goods that the likes of China produce allow poorer people to enjoy a much higher standard of living. Unfortunately, Mandelson is not questioning the flawed protectionist premise behind anti-dumping duties. He just wants to mitigate the harm they do to European companies with investments abroad.
Tony Blair must be thanking his lucky stars. The British prime minister never wanted to fight a referendum campaign on the European Union constitutional treaty that he stood a good chance of losing. Now, thanks to the No votes in France and the Netherlands, it looks like he will be spared the ordeal. When, in April 2004, he caved in to demands for a referendum, it looked like a gamble that would take Europe off the agenda in this year's election but potentially destroy his premiership shortly thereafter. Now it looks like a stroke of genius. But even so, Mr Blair, and more importantly Britain, will not escape unscathed from the aftermath of the No votes.
Continue reading "No-voters score own goal against Europe" »
“Shock! Horror! Cato Institute declares American capitalism superior to European social democracy.” That was my cynical initial reaction to Cowboy Capitalism: European Myths, American Reality, a new book published by the free-market Washington, DC-based think-tank that comes recommended by the usual right-wing suspects: Milton Friedman, James Buchanan and Henry Paulson, the boss of Goldman Sachs.
It goes without saying that George W. Bush is not loved in Europe. Even before the Iraq war raised animosity toward him to fever pitch, the perceived stupidity, ignorance, and arrogance of the "Texan cowboy" had gone down badly across the Atlantic. His evangelical Christian beliefs do not sit well with mostly secular Europeans. His assertion of U.S. exceptionalism sticks in the craw. His contemptuous dismissal of the United Nations has angered even those Europeans who normally favor a strong alliance with the United States. So two days after the presidential election, when the Daily Mirror ran a front page picture of Bush next to the headline, "How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?," it was widely assumed that the paper was reflecting popular sentiment in this part of the world.
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