By Bruno Waterfield - 6th July 2006
“Fortress Europe” is losing out as skilled immigrants head to a more open US, EU officials have warned ahead of a key migration summit on Monday.
All 25 EU member states are attending a summit in Morocco’s capital Rabat, alongside 27 African countries, to address migration and development issues.
The European commission – which called the conference with Morocco, Spain and France – is pushing hard to combine development aid with legal migration routes to win African aid to tackle illegal immigration.
Many African countries are reluctant to accept deported illegal migrants or to secure borders when legal avenues for their people to work in the EU remain firmly closed.
Commission officials are warning that unless the EU finds a way of opening labour markets to migrants aging Europe will miss out on the skills of a new global pool of workers.
Officials highlight figures showing that as Europe’s population grows older EU labour force is set to contract by up to 88 million people over the next three decades.
Skilled workers from Africa and Asia are heading west to Canada and the US, societies more open to immigrants, as the EU raises the drawbridge with crackdown followed by crackdown.
“Europe is losing out to Canada and the US on the global labour force that is emerging,” said a commission official.
“There will be a population explosion in Africa’s labour force over the next 25 years for jobs that are not there.”
"Let's try and make use of this labour force for labour markets in member states."
“We need to have inward migration. We would like to influence the inflow… to make a link between labour need and labour inflows.”
The commission is set to table, in early 2007, proposals to set EU rules for the admission of students, engineers, medics and other highly skilled staff.
Officials are also concerned that without agreement at the EU level, and without accord with countries such as the US, Africa will be hit by a “brain drain” in a free-for-all for skilled workers.
Africa’s medical services have been hit hard as trained staff head for the west to fill healthcares gaps in Europe and the US.
“There are more Malawi doctors working in Manchester than Malawi doctors in Malawi,” said an official.
“African countries say ‘it is nice that you choose migrants but a problem you choose all our doctors’. It is fair to say the brain drain will be a major issue at Rabat.”
EU officials have approached the US to find agreement on measures to soften the impact of selective migration of skilled workers from Africa.
But officials reveal the US is not interested in talking while America, in comparison to a closed EU, has the pick of the best migrants.
“What is good for the US is good for the world, is the view. If the US takes all the brains it is good for America,” said one official.
Commission officials are frustrated that national governments, sensitive to media headlines and an ingrained anti-immigrant political culture, are missing the point.
“One day we would like to see the same kind of mobility between Africa and Europe as we see within the EU today,” said an official.
“But that remains a distant prospect, we officials are taking the long view of in 30 years or so.”
“The problem with politicians is they are all thinking to election timings and there is always an election at hand every couple of years.”
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