Europe needs immigrants

While Europe needs more workers, immigration remains strict. A more liberal migration policy in Europe would help ourselves, in addition to lift people out of poverty.

During the first two months of the year, the EU's border in the central Mediterranean was illegally crossed 11,951 times. According to the EU's border police Frontex, this is an increase of 118 percent compared to the same period last year. In 2022, 1,377 people lost their lives or were reported missing trying to reach Europe, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).

At the same time, economists and social planners say that Europe needs more workers. An analysis prepared by the McKinsey Global Institute says that the health and social care sector will need 4.5 million more workers by 2030, and the education field will require 2.6 million more teachers. Science and technical services need 2.3 million new positions. The report calculates that the number of Europeans of working age will decrease with 13.5 million people in the same period. Some of the jobs can be automated, but healthcare personnel, social workers and teachers can hardly be replaced by robots and computers.

An open Europe

We must facilitate large-scale immigration from the Third World, both to help millions out of poverty and war, and not least to help ourselves. We kill two birds with one stone.

Germany, with its 84 million inhabitants, welcomed 1.1 million immigrants in 2022. In comparison, Norway welcomed 58,000 immigrants last year. Every German woman gives birth to 1.58 children. To maintain the population, they must have 2.1 children. The birth rate in Norway is 1.48. Thus, there will be fewer of us. But there is hope: there are many non-Europeans who want to live here, or at least work here for periods of time, and send money home.

The American economist Lant Pritchett, formerly working for the World Bank and now a researcher at the Blavatnik School of Development at Oxford University, writes in an article in the March/April issue of Foreign Affairs that unskilled immigrants earn 35 times more working in the United States, compared to what he/she would earn in a well-functioning anti-poverty project implemented in the home country. The situation in Europe is probably similar.

What do the immigrants do with this money? According to the UN, 200 million immigrants sent 689 billion dollars back to their home countries in 2018. That is three times as much as was donated in international development aid. Half of the remitted money goes to the countryside, where ¾ of the world's poor live.

Slow bureaucracy

In Norway, the directorate of immigration often spends a very long-time issuing residence and work permits. Random tests have shown that many people apply with false documents, so this is a time-consuming process. However, it is also a fact that many spend years in reception centers or they experience not getting a response to their application. Personally, I know a woman from Somalia, who has lived in uncertainty since she came to Norway as a refugee in 2008. She has a Somali passport and speaks Somali, but the authorities do not think she is telling the truth when she says which part of the country she comes from. This leaves the application for a residence permit pending.

Canada has an effective system called «The Private Sponsorship of Refugees. » Here, the immigration authorities collaborate with private organizations, such as churches, on residence permits. An Iranian couple, who was expelled from Norway because the authorities did not believe they had converted to Christianity, are now in the process of obtaining permanent residence in Canada through a quota scheme. The proceedings have so far taken less than a year.

Norway and Europe need the immigrants, and they need a safe place to live. They want to work and support themselves and their family members and relatives. According to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, they have the right to do so.

Norwegians not so humanitarian

Norway likes to present itself as a leading humanitarian power, but when it comes to making room for persecuted and poor people here in our country, we lag behind our European neighbors. However, the authorities probably reflect the attitudes of many Norwegians; we want as few foreigners here as possible. We often say that the refugees must be helped where they are. But to be honest; this sounds a bit hollow. We are afraid of everything foreign, and we doubt that our culture will survive when confronted with other people's thoughts and ideas.

Perhaps we will eventually be willing to open the doors wider than before, when we see that we need them. It's not noble, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

Magnanimity and hospitality are perhaps primarily found in Germany, championed by Chancellor Angela Merkel who, faced with a massive wave of refugees from Syria in 2015, simply said: «Wir schaffen das.» «We can do this.» Great leaders dare to make controversial decisions. Merkel's three words are still controversial, but she has shown the way. After all, we are all in the same boat, and depend on each other.

This article was first published in the Norwegian daily Fædrelandsvennen on March 31st, 2023.