Confronting the EU's 'Great Migration Muddle'

Giles Merritt, Founder of Friends of Europe and author of a new book entitled “People Power: Why we need more migrants”, wants to “ring an alarm bell and try and wake people up to the need in Europe for more people”.

During a Friends of Europe debate on 2 February 2022, Merritt told participants that it is “very simple. Europe is shrinking and getting old.”

“I don’t claim in the book to have a magic wand for the many problems surrounding migration,” he said, “but I do believe it’s a problem we have to solve. It’s become a toxic political issue, but that doesn’t mean we can allow ourselves to just ignore it.”

He explained how the number of people in Europe’s workforce who supported pensioners is shrinking fast.

For a long time four workers could support one pensioner, but in the last four to five years, this figure has decreased to 2.9. The European Commission, backed by the International Monetary Fund, estimates that this figure will eventually decline to 1.7.

“This is obviously unsustainable,” said Merritt. “The forecasts are terrifying. We don’t have any chance but to have more Europeans to replace the many retiring people of my generation, who instead of being taxpayers are becoming tax users.”

Merritt referenced a report by the former Spanish prime minister, Felipe González, which said that by mid-century Europe needed 100mn immigrants.

“His report was quietly buried,” claimed Merritt. “It was too toxic and embarrassing for European governments to want to talk about it.”

He continued: “There are problems associated with immigration – some practical, others are cultural. But these are problems we have to fix. We can’t just ignore them, we have to explain to European voters why we need to bring people in, and we have to stop the hypocrisy of European governments saying we need legal migration and then halving work visas and migrants in the last 10 to 15 years.”

“We can do nothing – we can keep telling ourselves we’re saving European culture. Fine, but we’re condemning our children and grandchildren to really low living standards. As our workforce shrinks, our ability to maintain an open-minded society will shrink accordingly.”

Merritt’s assertions received support from the other speaker, the former president of Lithuania and former European Commissioner for budget and administration, Dalia Grybauskaitė.

“Europe needs more labour in any way we can receive it, and migration is one of the methods to increase our labour market,” she said. “The anti-immigration narrative is only increasing in Europe, and there are reasons for it.”

She described how the term is now largely related to criminality, smuggling and illegal immigrants, and this relates to the recent “weaponisation of migrants” conducted by Russia and Belarus.

“This spoils the objective scientific research towards increasing our labour market and towards legal migration,” she said.

She also highlighted the shortcomings in the EU’s own immigration system, notably the lack of a “regulated Schengen border code”.

“We need more people,” she said, “but the political system is still sensitive.” She noted the “objective necessity of importing labour. Integrating legal immigrants is absolutely clear … We do have an academic understanding that we need immigration, but the way will be painful, sensitive and long.”

“We need to make it worth people’s while to think positively about bringing newcomers in,” concluded Merritt. “Immigration won’t fix problems urgently, but it is urgent to start a long-term strategic approach now.”