View from Europe,
Chartist Magazine, April 2004.

Kofi Annan took the European Parliament by surprise when he devoted almost all of his recent address to MEPs to the sensitive issue of asylum and immigration. Two weeks earlier I piloted the Parliament's report on immigration, integration and employment through the European Parliament. Here I explain why there was a divided response to Kofi Annans speech and why ultimately Kofi Annan was right.

Kofi Annan signalled in his speech that migration was one of the most important issues facing the EU, his achievement in addressing the EP last week was to move the agenda from the issue of illegal immigration and how member states prevent it to the clear understanding that migration movements to the EU and around the world are likely to increase year on year, and it is the duty of the EU to face up to this reality with a strategic, managed and comprehensive approach.

Kofi Annan knew when he made his speech littered as it was with phrases like "managed migration", "integration" and "partnership with countries of origin", that these were terms already being used by the European Commission and the European Council in repeated attempts over the past year or so to create a comprehensive strategy to deal with migration. So exactly what direction was the Commission taking and what was I saying in my report which linked with the Secretary General's analysis.

Essentially the European Commission in their Communication on Immigration, Integration and Employment made a brave attempt to address some of the most sensitive political questions facing the EU. Emanating from the Tampare Council during the Finnish Presidency in 1999 the questions were: will new immigration be at least one solution to the EU's future labour and pensions needs as the population rapidly ages? Should the EU member states coordinate more closely on the integration of immigrants and asylum seekers already here? And how can immigration to the EU and free movement from the new EU member states be better managed against the backdrop of the increasingly vocal debate on illegal immigration?

The answer to the central question about the "demographic time bomb" is one of the most powerful. Increasingly, member states realise that immigration will form one of many solutions to the shrinking working age population. The figures are dramatic, by 2020 the EU's working age population is estimated to shrink from 303m to 295m and then to 280m by 2030.

These conservative estimates drove the Council and not the Commission or MEPs to describe the options of "no policy change" on managing migration in response to the demographic change as "a major threat" to the EU's social and economic development.

Of course, the problem with this approach and the reason that privately many MEPs opposed Kofi Annan's analysis is that we all know migration is not just an economic and labour market issue. In a powerful passage in his speech Annan woke up the MEPs present by quoting Max Frisch who said that "when European countries had invited guest workers what they got was human beings". Annan need of said no more than this but he did go further, he reminded MEPs of what was already in the Commission's thinking at Tampare that you cannot pretend that the issues of illegal immigration, integration, partnership with countries of origin and labour market needs could all be neatly separated.

As an immigrant myself I understand only too well the complexity of this debate and the fact that it is one of the most deeply emotive debates in the EU currently.

Much of this political sensitivity and emotion was played out as my Report on this issue went through Parliament. The Report sailed through committee stage almost unanimously yet on the floor of plenary the EPP chose to vote against it although the Report eventually was adopted, the opposition from the centre right revealed just how important Annan's speech was. The vote revealed the fact that there is still a great deal of denial about the very nature of migration movements around the world. In a searing passage in his speech Annan described how migration movements in fact were a much greater burden on the poorest developing countries rather than the EU member states which take a dramatically smaller number of refugees. The reality of the future is that migration will not stop. Technology and trafficking can be stemmed but ultimately the movements will continue.

For those that think seriously about this issue the Secretary General of the UN provided a wake up call, it was surely not expected that he would choose this subject but it was fortunate that he did. He understood that immigration can bring problems too. But he echoed what the Commission, Council and ultimately the European Parliament said in my Report, which was that to not manage migration for the benefit both of the member states and the migrants themselves is no option at all. Lets hope that his speech was one step towards breaking down the wall of denial on this critical issue.

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