Everyone: Migrate!

The discussion on issues of migration and demographics proved to be one of the most contentious during the Interstate Program I attended this week in Brussels. Paraphrasing one of the speakers, pharmaceuticals industry must take all the blame for producing the birth control pill and now we need to deal with the issue of greying and dying population in many western countries. Let's look at the graph showing us projections of the working population numbers in selected European countries:

Provided the numbers are correct there are several corollaries:

• Germany needs to start investing heavily in funeral business
• Slogan "Make love not war" needs to be changed to "Make love and babies"
• People over 70 need to be lined up and shot

The next graph proves that people will insist on living longer and Ireland is in deep trouble:

Politicians are really in a hot spot. On the one hand, they realize that immigration is the only way to face the approaching crisis, which is as certain as a hangover; on the other hand, every single politician for some weird reason wants to be reelected and therefore nobody in their sane state of mind will go to their electorate in, let's say, Italy or even more so Britain and start advocating for releasing the pressure on the borders. We all remember the "flocking immigrants" story.

At the same time, good old Europe is squinting its eyes towards the States and sees that the best and brightest are moving across the Atlantic. Hence the Blue Card Program, a single work and residence permit for qualified immigrants, which

would create a "one-stop-shop" for skilled migrants hoping to work in the EU.

The blue card would grant a range of social and economic rights, including family reunification. According to current plans, the blue card would be issued for a renewable period of two years. If renewed, the migrant would have an opportunity to move to another EU state.

The blue card scheme would also allow a worker to gain permanent residence after five years by adding up the time spent in the European Union, not just in one member state.

I am extremely curious how this is going to work, particularly the requirements for obtaining one. At the moment, the European Parliament is thinking along the lines of a tertiary degree and last paycheck at least three times bigger than the national average. But everyone understands that countries like Romania and Lithuania will be flocked with such requests, while the UK and Germany will be putting pressure on those in order to prevent immigrants targeting weaker-economy countries.