Some Questions of Policy

In all four countries the initial political response to unexpected im- migration was laisser faire but more restrictive stances soon fol- lowed, starting in Spain and Italy in the mid-1980s. However, bilis to regularise and limit immigration have proved only partially effective, as we have seen. Regularisation can also have unforeseen effects, as the experience of the 1990 Martelli Law in Italy showed: a flood of immigrants carne in as a result of the law and were able to legalise themselves quickly (King and Knights 1994).

In policy terms there is a delicate balance to be drawn between a number of countervailing concepts and political realities. On the one hand, a general tendency can be noted towards the development of multinational and multicultural societies. Within Europe, positive interpretations of multiculturalism are probably strongest in north- ern EU countries like Sweden and the Netherlands. On the other hand there are obvious worries if the quantity of persons of different races and religious creeds reaches what are perceived as threatening proportions: Moslem populations are particularly invested with la- bels of "otherness," an issue which is complicated, often unneces- sarily so, by the activities of Islamic fundamentalists. On the side of pragmatics, the administrative costs of controlling immigration are extremely high, especially for Italy and Greece which have the longest land and sea frontiers with immigration supply countries.

The political costs of "pólice" as opposed to "policy" may also be high, particularly in terms of external relations; and economically the tourist industry may be compromised. Finally, it has to be pointed out that no serious labour market or social conflicts have developed thus far, and trade unions have up to now reacted rather mutely to the increasing presence of foreigners—this may be because they face a moral dilemma between defending their (overwhelmingly indige- nous) members' interests (wages, employment safeguards) and their traditionally left-wing or liberal stance towards social issues, includ- ing immigration.

In terms of EU policy, all four Southern European countries are members of the Schengen group, a group of EU countries on a fast track towards immigration policy harmonisation (the other members are France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg).

The "free movement zone" within "Schengen-space" carne into

practice on 26 March 1995: there is no need for travelers of any nationality to show passports as they pass between these countries.

The policy will not be immediately effective for Italy and Greece whose governments still have to complete certain arrangements.

This is an indication of the EU's worry about the permeability of the external borders of these two countries, since the corollary of abol- ishing internal borders is the need to strengthen Schengenland's frontiers with the rest of the world, and Southern Europe is still seen in immigration policy terms as the 'soft underbelly' of the European

"fortress." In fact Montanari and Córtese (1993a:229) see immigra- tion as the main source of tensión dividing Fortress Europe from the East and the South in the post-Cold War era.

Immigrants have also become a highly-charged political issue within the countries of southern Europe (and in other EU states, notably France). In a situation where high unemployment and other social problems prevalí, it is all too easy to use immigrant peoples, espe- cially those who are manifestly different in terms of race and culture, as scapegoats or "others" in a "them and us" mentality which rein- forces immigrants' already marginal position.37 Thus they become exploited not only for their labour power but also for their political significance as right-wing politicians see that they can gain popular- ity on a "ban immigration" ticket.

In response both to internal socio-political pressures (notably a hardening of public opinión towards immigrants) and to external pressures from Schengen partners, the Southern European countries have been imposing increasingly rigorous controls on illegal immi- gration over the last few years. In Spain, a few weeks before the Schengen Treaty was signed in June 1991, entry visas were required of Maghrebi nationals. In Italy the liberal gloss of the February 1990 Martelli Law encouraging regularisation of illegals and offering funds for the social integration of immigrants hid a tougher stance on policing entry-points, stiffer criteria for renewing work and residence permits, and a crack-down on those remaining in an irregular situa-

37In Italy the term extracomunitari legally refers to all non-EU immigrants. In its practical use, however, the term exeludes Eastern Europeans and North Americans and is limited to denoting migrants from Africa, Asia and Latin America. The popular image of the extracomunitario is the black African street-hawker or the dark-skinned Moroccan farm labourer.

tion (Foot 1995). An even tougher migration control bilí was under discussion in the Italian Parliament when the Berlusconi government fell in late 1994.

The "emergency" character of recent control policies in Southern Europe has certainly diverted attention away from decent social policies towards immigrants who have been resident—officially and unofficially—for many years and those who continué to arrive. Many of the funds theoretically available under the Martelli Law in Italy have not been released because of bureaucratic obstacles and the lack of a proper plan for immigrants' welfare. In all four countries, one of the most difficult problems concerns housing for immigrants (Montanari and Córtese 1993a). Most migrants from developing countries in Southern Europe live in conditions of poverty and degradation. Typical housing environments include collections of self-built shacks, which recall the notorious bindonvilles oí Vrench cities in the 1950s and 1960s, caravans, squats in disused property and extreme overcrowding involving ten or even twenty persons to a room. As an example, King and Knights (1994) have described the circumstances surrounding the occupation of the Pantanella, a dis- used pasta factory in Rome, by 3,500 immigrants in the early 1990s.

As things stand at the moment in the countries of Southern Europe, low-cost social housing cannot even satisfy the demands of deserv- ing sections of the indigenous populations. The shortage of housing and the virtual complete lack of reception facilities for immigrants when they arrive have forced them into the most marginal types of accommodation, reliant on charitable organizations and on their own ethnic community networks for support.

Any future policy for immigration into Southern Europe should also consider the new demographic context of the región. Sharply declin- ing fertility in recent decades combined with improved medical re- search and health care has produced a population structure which is rapidly aging and which therefore poses an increasing welfare bur- den, both financially and in terms of a sharply rising demand for care-workers. For Southern Europe, demographers predict continu- ing aging in the future and the probable persistence of sub-replace- ment fertility (see e.g., Lutz 1991). Even if fertility recovers (as it is currently doing in Sweden) there remains the bottlenecks of the small cohorts born in the last 20 years or so. Yet, whether for reasons of policy or ignorance about the future, no Southern European

country (or Western European coimtry for that matter) is willing to project increased immigration, in spite of low fertility, potential population decline, and pressure from less developed countries (Wils

1991:293).

Predictions of the growth in labour supply and demand for the four countries over the period 1987-2000 show considerable shortfalls.

The following predictions are by the Prognes Agency and are re- ported in Werner (1993). Estimates for labour demand (employ- ment) are for growth rates of 16 percent (Spain), 14 percent (Portugal and Greece) and 10 percent (Italy); but the labour forces will only grow by 12 percent (Spain), 9 percent (Portugal) and 6 percent (Italy and Greece). Labour economists would point out that these shortfalls could easily be taken up by the unemployed and by more women entering the labour market; however labour market imperfections may severely limit this transfer effect. Longer-term projections show a more dramatic shrinkage of the total labour forcé.

In 1990 the Fondazione Agnelli predicted that by 2057 the active population of Italy would fall by one third from 24 to 16 million (quoted in Foot 1995:139). Medium-term projections of total popu- lations from 1992 to 2025, i.e., over one generation, show more or less static populations for Spain (+1.7 percent), Greece (+1.0 percent) and Portugal (0 percent) and a very significant decline (-10.5 percent) for Italy (Salt, Singleton and Hogarth 1994:164).

The argument for immigration to relieve these demographic and labour market trends rests on a double effect: the direct import of young economically-active adults; and, if both-sex and family migra- tions are allowed, the contribution to future population growth by the immigrants' higher fertility, accentuated by their age-concentra- tion in the reproductive years. Models developed for Europe up to 2025 on various scenarios tend to indícate an approximately equal sharing of immigrant population growth due to the "migration ef- fect" and the "fertility effect" (Wils 1991:297). However, the strength of the fertility effect will depend on the policies towards family mi- gration and family reunión which are developed in Southern European countries.

Whilst the idea of immigration may seem an obvious and easy solu- tion to the problems of low fertility, aging, and possible labour forcé shortages in the decades to come, there are additional catches apart

from the already-discussed issue of the social and political accept- ability of continued large-scale immigration. The first of these is the empirically demonstrated fact (from the experience of other European countries) that immigrants' fertility quite quickly adjusts downwards to approach that of the host population. Downward pressure on immigrants' initially high fertility comes from the demonstration effect of the host society's demographic behaviour, and from the high female activity rates amongst immigrant popula- tions. The second problematic aspect of regarding immigration as a remedy for declining populations is the obvious, but often over- looked, fact that the immigrants will eventually become oíd them- selves, merely adding to the top-heavy age structure of the total population. Gesano (1993:83) expresses rather eloquently the scep- ticism as well as some of the practica! problems of immigrants being viewed as a "parachute" for falling South European populations:

The aim of breeding up a parallel population to mend the demo- graphic defectiveness of the internal one would entail specially di- rected interventions, first of all in housing, schooling and economic and social support; would cause the enlarging presence of foreign, basically closed populations; would encourage ethnic regrouping, causing a "casbah effect" and contradicting all the assimilation and integration programmes; and would strengthen social contrasts and xenophobic altitudes, especially among the lower social class who direcüy compete, or think they compete, with immigrants.

Gesano concludes his argument by stating that the use of one popu- lation to solve another's problems appears somewhat unrealistic, even cruel—people are not pawns to be shuffled around a demo- graphic chessboard!