Migration, solution or problem? The biased response of the European Union

Abstract

Most people who come to Europe do so for work or family reasons. And only a small fraction of them enter the Union irregularly, as they are not allowed or have no other option of entry. The search for international protection, in any of its forms, is another reason why people wish to be admitted to the territory of the Union. The Union increasingly depends on immigration to sustain its active population, in order to meet the needs of its own labour market, which is clearly insufficient. To this end, it is necessary to address the construction of a positive narrative about immigration, which requires a public debate that is currently lacking, through which the population is made aware of how to properly manage a social phenomenon, in no way temporary, that generates benefits for both those who arrive and those who receive. This narrative should serve as an incentive for the creation of regular, legal, orderly and safe migration routes. However, misinformation and the absence of such public debate have fuelled populist and xenophobic approaches, through which migration is demonised and exploited, and is portrayed as a threat, as unfair competition that restricts opportunities for nationals. The so-called «refugee crisis» brought about a change, not only demographic but also cultural, in the States that make up the European Union. Its most lasting consequence was the adoption,
largely reactive, of the «security approach» that has come to inspire the Union’s new policies on border control,
asylum and immigration, which has encouraged an unsupportive policy, forged in the exclusive interest of those
Member States that consider themselves threatened, in very different ways, by the increase in migratory flows.
In this way, the Union has been insisting on the creation of channels and instruments of containment and
rejection, which are far from expressing an authentic, rational and humanitarian common migration policy.
To this end, the new Pact on Migration and Asylum has been set out in a comprehensive set of provisions that
result in more intense and effective controls, aimed at containing and rejecting those who are not considered
worthy of entering or remaining legally in the territory of the Union.