Добавил:
ivanov666
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз:
Предмет:
Файл:Сравнение социальных моделей Европы. Социальная и трудовая политика в Европе. Монография
.pdf
in these countries is therefore higher, and this has clear repercussions concerning immigrants' chances of finding a regular job, since none of the recent immigrant destinations allow immigrants to work in the regular labour
market as an employee or to be officially registered as self-employed unless
they have a residence permit. Furthermore, residence permits are only temporary and need to be renewed periodically in order for the immigrant to be
allowed to continue to live and work legally in the host country. Renewal is
not automatic and a new permit is only granted if the immigrants have a
regular job or can prove that they have a monthly income high enough to
support themselves and their family, if they have brought their family with
them. Only in exceptional cases are residence permits granted on humanitarian grounds. Even so, having a residence permit is no guarantee that the
immigrant will be able to find a regular job. All too often, they are forced to
work irregularly despite the fact that they are legally resident in the host
country, and they can find themselves repeatedly going backwards and forwards between regular and irregular employment (Baganha and Reyneri
2001: 114-115; see also Calavita, in this issue).
Various kinds of political measures have been taken by European countries in response to the phenomenon of illegal immigration: 1) border control measures including deportation of illegal immigrants to their country of
origin after they have been arrested, 2) ordinary or special measures to regularise illegal immigrants who meet certain conditions and requirements, 3)
imposing penalties on businesses which employ immigrants in the informal
sector (Sassen 1999: 104). The difference between traditional and more recent immigrant destinations as far as illegal immigrant numbers are concerned can be put down to the continued existence of a significant informal
sector in the more recent destinations, which attracts workers who are prepared to work for any wage and under abominable conditions. Labour market regulation and the minimum level of working conditions considered acceptable by the local population have led to immigrants being employed in
labour-intensive sectors where semi-skilled or unskilled workers tend to be
employed (textiles, clothing, building, domestic service, etc). The informal
sector is particularly attractive to immigrants in economies where unemployment is high. This is especially true of Spain and Italy, where unemployment is relatively high compared to the European average and the traditional immigrant destinations, but also of other countries such as Germany
and Portugal, where unemployment is slightly higher than the European average. Disparities in terms of gender and age vary from one country to an-
101
other in line with a country's ability to create jobs. Unemployment has risen
in recent years in both traditional and more recent immigrant destinations,
but this does not mean that the local populations are competing with immigrants for jobs. Many local job-seekers are either young people who are able
to look for well-paid, skilled work, housewives who can count on the financial support of their husband or the head of their family to pay the bills, or
people on state unemployment benefit. Consequently, the overall level of
unemployment in a country cannot be taken as an indication of whether or
not there is competition for jobs between locals and immigrants (Reyneri
1994: 2-7).
Some economists (Gual 2001) have proposed the neoliberal argument
that the labour shortage in certain sectors is in fact caused by economic regulation and the institutions of the welfare state. According to them, this is
demonstrated by the apparent paradox of high unemployment among local
workers being accompanied by a labour shortage in some segments of the
labour market. The argument is that those people who are able to claim welfare benefits have no incentive to compete by offering their services on the
labour market, since it is easier and pays better simply to live off unemployment benefit. Government intervention in the labour market prevents
supply from matching increased demand in sectors where there is a shortage
of labour, causing the cost of labour (wages) to rise. This is what causes
immigrant workers from outside the EU to be recruited. According to Gual,
the shortage of labour and correspondingly higher labour costs can be expected to lead to a lack of competitiveness in low-tech sectors where unit
labour costs are more important, such as the various subsectors of the clothing industry, agriculture, etc. This in turn can lead to a change in the structure of a country's economy, with a move away from labour-intensive sectors where developing countries can be expected to become gradually more
competitive in the future.
This indirect effect is more pronounced when illegal immigrants are involved and the workers from outside the EU are employed under irregular
conditions. This is the case in certain southern European countries such as
Italy and Spain where there is a large informal economy which attracts
workers from outside the EU who are often unable immediately to get a residence permit and a regular job in the host society (Solé et al. 2001). This
has the effect of tending to make labour-intensive sectors even more competitive in these countries, when in fact these sectors should be prospering
in the countries or regions that the immigrants originate from (Gual 2001:
102
30). Seen in this way, one paradoxical effect of labour market inflexibility
and excessive state welfare protection is to favour emigration from poor
regions to rich regions, at the expense of the endogenous development of
labour-intensive sectors in regions from which the migrants originate. Consequently, an immigration policy which has the fundamental aim of integrating immigrants into a modern industrial society should be accompanied
by a trade policy which provides for investment in the immigrants' countries
of origin.
The final differences between the traditional and more recent immigrant
destinations are access to the welfare state and to employment, as well as
political participation in terms of the right to vote in local elections and immigrants' ability to obtain citizenship. The idea that immigration poses a
threat to the welfare state (Geddes 2000: 152-153) could be countered with
the argument that it actually contributes to a society's ability to maintain
welfare benefit levels in the future, once the immigrants have been integrated into the labour market. This view leads to the conclusion that it is necessary for immigrants to participate in the political decisions which affect
them in the shape of legislation. There are differences between traditional
and more recent immigrant destinations with regard to these issues too. Despite national differences and their different political and cultural histories,
in the 1990s countries such as Germany, the United Kingdom, France and
the Netherlands saw a shift from immigration control policies towards policies aimed at integration, with the development of social policies in fields
such as education, health, housing and town planning. They made it easier
for resident immigrants to obtain citizenship and gave them the same basic
rights as the local population in areas such as employment, health and education. In some traditional immigrant destinations such as Sweden, immigrants' political rights are also recognised (the right of association, the right
of assembly, the right to demonstrate and the right to vote in local elections). In contrast, the more recent immigrant destinations continue to pursue immigration control policies over and above policies aimed at integration. Furthermore, basic integration measures are only offered to legal immigrants, whereas illegal immigrants only have discretionary access to basic
rights such as healthcare and education.
Given the current lack of a single EU policy providing for political participation for immigrants and thus recognising their status as permanent residents or denizens (Hammar 1990) rather than purely as workers, the combination of the different historical traditions of Europe's nation states gives
103
rise to: 1) 'communitarist' policies such as those in the Netherlands, which
6
promote immigrants' political participation via recognition of the various
ethno-cultural communities, leading to the development of an ethnic minorities policy which can paradoxically lead to actions which promote segregation and which consequently work against effective integration, 2) 'compartmentalised inclusion' policies as seen in Germany, where the welfare
state guarantees coverage of immigrants' material needs such as employment and housing, and immigrants are able to achieve a temporary status as
permanent residents, and 3) assimilation (as opposed to integration)6 policies such as those in France, where rights are granted on an individual basis
and there is no recognition of the very real discrimination suffered by immigrant groups, particularly illegal immigrants, i.e. those without residence or
work permits (Aubarell 2001: 45-46). So much for the situation in some of
the traditional immigrant destinations. In the more recent destinations, it is
not currently possible to speak of policies aimed at promoting political participation, since the first halting steps towards a process for achieving political participation for immigrants have been the result of individual, private
initiatives taken by mixed associations, ethnic organisations, NGOs, etc. As
far as the institutions are concerned, immigrants are not allowed to vote in
local elections.
In Spain, the first law regulating the rights and duties of foreigners was
the 1985 Aliens Act, This Act created a vicious circle which was in no way
broken by the two subsequent pieces of legislation: Organic Law 4/2000, for
which the Implementing Regulation was never passed, and its amendment
Organic Law 8/2000 which came into force on 23 January 2001 after the
Popular Party's comprehensive election victory in March 2000 and for
which the draft Implementing Regulation was put before Parliament in midFebruary 2001. The vicious circle in which immigrants are trapped arises
from the fact that employment contracts, work permits and residence permits are all mutually dependent, in other words immigration policy only
treats immigrants as a source of labour. They cannot obtain a residence
By assimilation I mean the complete assumption by immigrants of values, norms, practices,
etc. of the host society: by integration. Í refer to the interplay and interdependence of autochthonous and immigrants' values, norms, practices, etc., forming a new social structure and
culture. The process of integration is sociocultural and has four levels: insertion in the labour
market and occupational structure: residency in the receiving society; acceptance and interchange of cultures; and political participation through voting and ethnic and mixed associations (Solé. C. et al. (2002).
104
permit if they do not have a work permit, and they cannot obtain a work
permit unless they have a residence permit. The result is that the vast majority of immigrants from outside the EU end up in irregular forms of employment, since they can only find work in the informal sector and employers do not wish to give them proper contracts.
Furthermore, while the reform is in line with Law 4/2000 of 22 December 1999 in that it seeks to achieve effective integration of immigrants by
granting a wide range of rights to people who have lived and worked in
Spain for several years, the amendment, despite being called the Organic
Law on the Rights and Freedoms of Foreigners and their Social Inclusion,
actually only grants these rights to legal immigrants. For example, only foreign residents have the right to non-compulsory education on the same
terms as Spanish nationals, and the amended law does not grant everyone
personal rights such as the right of assembly, the right of association, the
right to legal aid and the right to court protection against discrimination. In
addition, it makes it harder to obtain a residence permit by raising the minimum period the immigrant must have lived in Spain from two to five years,
and it only allows the holder of a residence permit to be joined in Spain by
family members who are economically dependent on him or her. The emphasis of the new legislation is on border control and increased penalties
designed to get rid of organised criminal groups responsible for trafficking
in human beings. Thus, rather than promoting integration, it actually introduces new obstacles to the entry of immigrants into Spain, an approach
which is totally ineffective as has been demonstrated by the constant stream
of people from Africa, Asia and Latin America who have been entering the
country in recent months.
Immigration control and integration policies in Europe
There is no single, all-encompassing definition of integration, nor is
there a single universal integration model or ideal mechanism for achieving
integration (such as obtaining citizenship) which can be applied to all the
countries of Europe. Consequently it is currently all but impossible to develop a single integration policy at European level. Despite the political reality of the European Union, the legislation arising from the various Treaties
and Agreements (Maastricht (1992), Schengen (1985), Amsterdam (1997)
and Nice (2003)), and the European Councils dealing with the issue (Tampere 1999), there is still no consensus concerning a single European integration policy. This is largely due to the fact that the nation state continues to
be regarded as the most important political level, both by governments when
105
they are taking decisions on common issues and by the citizens of Europe,
who identify more closely with their own nation state than with Europe as a
supranational entity.
The result is that legislation and government strategy and policies vary
from one European country to another in keeping with each country's geopolitical context, degree of economic development, history as a host society
for immigrants, etc. This is why the distinctions between the countries of
northern Europe (traditional immigrant destinations with economies that
drive the European economy) and southern Europe (traditional exporters of
migrants with economies which are lagging behind those of the North) are
still valid and continue to be used on a regular basis. National legislation
concerning immigration (as opposed to a common EU immigration and asylum policy) can be rendered inneffective by the existence of the 1985
Schengen Agreement which guarantees free movement of people within the
EU. The countries that form the EU's border are forced to act as Europe's
border police by preventing the entry of non-Europeans or immigrants from
outside the EU. On the one hand, a Fortress Europe has developed in the
face of the 'invasion' of foreigners and immigrants from outside the EU,
while on the other hand these immigrants are needed to do jobs which are
essential for the economy to continue to function normally, and for which
there is a labour shortage or which local workers are not interested in doing
because they have very high standards concerning what sort of employment
they are prepared to accept (Cachón 1995).
Until about 1999, immigration control policies were more important to
many European governments than integration policies. Furthermore, since
the middle of 2002, immigration control policies have once again been
tightened in countries which have had relatively relaxed asylum and refugee
policies such as Scandinavia and Germany. This change in trend is particularly evident in traditional immigrant destinations such as Germany, the UK,
France and the Netherlands, despite national differences and the different
political and cultural histories of these countries. In spite of the possible
negative effects or distorsions caused by inflexible labour markets and the
welfare state in Europe, efforts are being made to try and reduce the tension
between the need for migrant workers in order to meet the demands of the
market, and the need to integrate these workers into the host society. On the
one hand, many small and medium-sized enterprises in sectors in which local workers do not want to work only manage to survive thanks to immigrants. In this respect, immigration helps to make the labour market more
106
flexible. On the other hand, the presence of immigrants in these businesses,
living locally and with their children attending local schools, leads to the
xenophobic attitudes, racist behaviour and problems with integration which
have been experienced by various European countries.
European countries' integration policies are gradually beginning to converge in some respects, either as a result of the pressure that the process of
European union has brought to bear on the Member States to bring their
immigration policies into line with each other, or because the Member
States' governments have adopted more liberal policies. There are signs of
greater efforts to address the situation of non-EU immigrants who are resident in the European Union which go beyond simply focusing on their role
as a source of labour and their contribution to the host country's economy.
There is a shared desire to base immigration policy on external border controls and restricting applications for asylum, as well as tackling the issue of
immigrants who are employed without work permits. On the whole, all
countries also recognise the right of immigrants to take up permanent residence in the host society and to be joined by their families.
This means that there is no longer the assumption that immigrants are
guest workers or Gastarbeiter who will definitely return to their country of
origin at some point. Several decades of empirical evidence in traditional
immigrant destinations such as Germany and France have led to the acceptance of the fact that fluctuations in the demand for labour do not influence either the return of immigrants to their country of origin or the numbers of immigrants entering the host country. Thus, even when there is a
recession such as in 1973-1974, and jobs become scarcer, immigrants do not
leave, but rather continue to enter Europe either legally or illegally. This
phenomenon can be attributed to the existence of migration networks rather
than the push-pull theory. Attempts have been made to tackle the situation
by introducing entry quotas in line with the requirements of certain sectors
of the economy. For example, rules may be introduced according to which
immigrants wishing to enter economically developed countries may be required to possess IT qualifications or have other specialist skills in order to
obtain a work permit, as happened in Germany in the spring of 2001. These
quotas are accompanied by measures to limit the numbers of immigrants
entering the country overall, leading to an increase in irregular workers. In
other cases, such as France, at the end of the 1990s measures of this type
were complemented by joint development programmes which offered im-
107
migrants incentives to return to their country of origin and invest in its financial and human resources.
When immigrants are joined in the host society by their families, this has
major consequences in terms of housing needs and conditions, the ghettoisation of districts inhabited by large numbers of immigrants, and healthcare
and education requirements. In the medium term, this leads to the problem
of competition between locals and immigrants for the resources of the welfare state, as well as problems relating to spatial, linguistic, cultural and social integration. This has led to a number of housing schemes in the bigger
cities in the UK, France and the Netherlands. In the UK, where the majority
of immigrants come from the Commonwealth, integration is not a question
of legalising their status but rather of adding cultural and symbolic meaning
to their citizenship. Among the measures introduced in the UK are Urban
Programmes which are aimed at inner-city dwellers and which have had an
indirect effect on the spatial integration of immigrants and on the development of social policies targeting immigrant children of school age and large
families (Mahnig and Wimmer 2000: 66). In France, integration policy has
concentrated on housing and the social and urban development of local
neighbourhoods, and a policy of social housing dispersal has been implemented to combat the proliferation of deprived districts with a mainly immigrant population. In both France and Germany, special grants are provided for school catchment areas where the average performance of all students
is brought down because of immigrant students' lack of familiarity with the
language and because the curriculum's design fails to take into account the
long-term presence of these children at local schools.
Fear of the emergence of urban ghettos and the gradual acceptance during the 1990s that Germany is a multicultural society and immigrant destination led to the simultaneous introduction of legal restrictions on asylum
and measures to make it easier for resident immigrants to obtain German
citizenship. Unlike in France, where the republican tradition places the individual above the collective, in the Netherlands independent immigrant organisations played a major role in the development of policies aimed at
combating social discrimination against ethnic minorities. This led to an
improvement in the legal position of immigrants - they were allowed to become civil servants, the rules governing access to citizenship were made
more flexible, and they were granted the right to vote in local elections if
they had lived in the country for more than five years. After this integration
policy was implemented during the 1980s, the high level of unemployment
108
among immigrants and the lack of incentives for them to try and improve
their situation by themselves led to it being amended to create a new policy
which concentrates on education and vocational training for ethnic minorities (Mahnig and Wimmer 2000: 70-82).
As far as basic rights are concerned (in the fields of employment,
healthcare and education), immigrants enjoy the same rights as locals or
nationals in Germany, France, the UK and Sweden. They also enjoy political rights such as the right of association, the right of assembly, the right to
demonstrate, etc in both Germany and Sweden. The right to vote in local
and national elections is only enjoyed by immigrants from other EU countries, except in Sweden where since 1975 foreigners who have been resident
in the country for a minimum of three years have the right to vote and stand
as candidates in municipal and provincial elections, although not in general
elections. In the UK, associations providing protection and assistance to
immigrants are their most important form of participation.
In more recent immigrant destinations such as Greece, Italy and Spain,
immigration control policies have played a more important role than integration policies. During the 1990s, the government approach concentrated
on controlling illegal immigration and promoting the integration of immigrants who were living and working legally in these countries. Just like their
northern European neighbours, their aim was to allow in enough legal immigrants to meet the needs of the labour market while coordinating integration policies in order to take into account the cultural diversity of both the
European host societies and the countries of origin of non-EU immigrants.
The same basic rights as the local population are available to immigrants in
southern Europe in the fields of employment, healthcare and education, but
only if they are legal immigrants. Illegal immigrants, on the other hand, only have discretionary access to these rights cither in emergencies or as a favour from people working in the social services.
The cultural diversity arising from the different histories and traditions
of the societies of northern and southern Europe is manifested in the field of
immigration in the different approaches to tackling the political integration
of immigrants through citizenship. The legal principles of ius soli and ius
sanguinis and, in the case of some of Europe's former colonial powers, the
principle of whether or not an immigrant comes from a former colony, are
currently being applied less strictly and often in combination with each other. Thus, in Germany, where the principle of ius sanguinis was traditionally
used as the basis for granting citizenship, new legislation came into force in
109
2000 which combines this principle with the principle of ius soli. In the UK,
the distinction between Commonwealth citizens and other non-national foreigners is disappearing and measures are being adopted which apply to all
foreign residents. In other countries such as Sweden, the ius soli principle is
used as the basis for granting citizenship, while recognition of the ethnic
and cultural diversity of immigrants and their readiness to accept the host
society's way of doing things both socially and politically are also taken into
account. Thus, some Scandinavian countries have granted immigrants the
right to vote in municipal elections (Sweden since 1975, Norway, Denmark
and also the Netherlands since the end of the 1980s) (Pajares 2001). One
aspect common to the majority of EU countries is that second generation
immigrants have the right to citizenship while at the same time the conditions that have to be met by first generation immigrants are being made less
stringent (Aubarell 2001: 45).
As far as the transnational aspect of immigration is concerned, there are
two main ways in which migrants stay in touch with the people and institutions in their countries of origin: sending money (or occasionally goods)
from the host society to their country of origin, and family and community
ties as well as ties with the traditions of places outside the nation state to
which they have migrated. Permanent links in time and space are created,
something which has been made easier since the 1990s thanks to the development of new communications technologies and as a result of the changing
economic and political situation in recent years in both countries that export
immigrants and the countries that receive them. Among the consequences of
this are repercussions for a) the ability of (im)migrants to organise politically, b) the positive perception of emigration in the countries of origin, c) the
real impact that sending money has on the local economies and labour markets (Vertovec 2001: 574).
As far as this last aspect is concerned, we know that the subsistence of
families in many developing countries is heavily dependent on the money
and goods sent by their emigrant populations. In the medium term, this economic effect of migration could result in a restructuring of gender relations,
a demand for more vocational training and education, the improvement of
healthcare systems, etc. In addition to this purely economic kind of transnational link, it is also important to take into account sociocultural links which
mainly concentrate on maintaining immigrants' original identity and building a collective identity (which is very often ethnic in nature) in the host
country. The political impact of transnationalism is particularly relevant to
110
Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]