Sir, - Anthony Coughlan (August 26th) once again conjures up thespectacle of a full-scale future assault on these shores by waves ofEast Europeans desperate to leave their countries for the supposedemployment and welfare nirvana that is the Republic of Ireland.
Not only is Mr Coughlan demonstrably wrong about the potentialnumber of immigrants; he is being disingenuous in bandying aboutfigures that have no basis in reality and are designed to frighten theelectorate into associating the prospective enlargement of the EuropeanUnion exclusively (and negatively) with increased numbers of immigrants.
All of the evidence contradicts this analysis. First and foremost,in historical terms East Europeans have been no more likely to uprootthemselves and their families than West Europeans. In fact, in manycountries of the region attachment to family and that which isspecifically local acts to discourage emigration.
This is borne out by the figures for the post-1990 period. Despiteextraordinary "push" factors (very high unemployment, meagre welfareprovision, a significant wage gap with EU States), and countries suchas Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany and others opening their labourmarkets (to different degrees) to East European job-seekers, the levelof East-West migration has remained extraordinarily low. This isreflected in the current population structure of all EU states wherethe East European presence varies from 1 per cent to only 5 per cent.
Where Mr Coughlan suggests that "East European emigrants wouldnaturally prefer to work in their neighbouring EU countries", I wouldsuggest that, like most of us, their continued preference is to stay athome and build lives for themselves centred on their own families,cultures and regions. I spent the past eight weeks in Bulgaria andRomania and everywhere I went people expressed the desire not for theright to reside and work in the European Union but for the investmentand growth that would improve their local material conditions.
Arguments like Mr Coughlan's were bandied about freely before theaccession to the then European Community of Spain and Portugal in the1980s. It was suggested that France in particular was vulnerable to awave of southern migration. The absurdity of this contention was provedin the 1990s when, with full freedom of movement for Spanish citizensand very high levels of unemployment in Spain (higher than in almostall the East European applicant states today), Spanish migration toFrance and other EU states remained very low.
According to Prof Alan Mayhew, "the experience of the Spanish andPortuguese accessions suggests that accession gives such a stimulus toinward investment and general economic confidence in the newmember-state that its nationals abroad tend to return home, creatingnet immigration rather than expected emigration".
Mr Coughlan, when warning of the supposed great-power ambitions ofthe larger EU member-states, continually stresses the danger presentedby movement to such a "two-tier Europe", a Europe of first- andsecond-class memberships. But isn't that exactly what he himself isrecommending: an enlarged EU where only the citizens of the new EastEuropean member-states would be denied the right of free movementwithin the Union?
The suggestion that 750,000 people - or even 75,000 - would seek totake advantage of Ireland's relative generosity is spurious in theextreme. Of course for the propagandist the greater the number ofsuggested future immigrants the greater the level of hysteriagenerated. Such talk is designed to give the impression of a "flood", agreat mass of the East European peasantry headed our way in theimmediate future.
This is crude tabloidism at its worst. It is not worthy of MrCoughlan and contributes nothing to the debate on enlargement and theNice Treaty. - Yours, etc.,
Dr JOHN O'BRENNAN,
Lecturer,
European Politics,
Department of Government
and Society,
University of Limerick.
