The German ambassador acknowledged that “[m]aybe the benefits of legal migration were over-emphasised and we forgot about the challenges… we underestimated the need of communities that above all want to see migrants integrate”.
But Louise Arbour, the UN’s special representative for international migration said in response to the mass withdrawal of countries from the Compact: “I think it reflects very poorly on those who participated in negotiations… it’s very disappointing to see that kind of reversal so shortly after a text was agreed upon.”
Arbour believes that the states backing out will not be “harvesting the benefits” of migration. “There are many, many countries in the world today that will need to import a part of their workforce… The demographics are suggesting that if they want to maintain their current economic standards or even grow their economy, they’re going to have to receive well-trained foreigners to meet the labour market demands in their countries.”
She added that, “To foster a culture of exclusion” is “entirely counterproductive”.
As Reuters reported, Brussels will soon be forcing EU member states that refuse to host the “well-trained foreigners” in their countries, into adopting “alternative measures of solidarity”. According to diplomats, these “alternative measures” are apparently EU-speak for “paying into the EU budget or paying toward development projects in Africa”.
“The document,” Reuters noted, “said the European Union would need a proper mechanism to avoid a situation in which all EU governments opted to pay their way out of any hosting responsibilities and would set an eight-year period for any arrangements”.
Already in October, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani had said that EU countries who refused to host refugees could instead pay more for EU migration and development projects in Africa. “No relocation – (then) more money for Africa,” Tajani said.
The EU has, in fact, been paying countries like Morocco to keep migrants away from the European continent, especially through funding to the Union of the Mediterranean. The effort seems to have yielded extremely limited results in terms of stopping migration to the European continent.
As recently as September 2018, the EU agreed to pay Morocco $275 million in aid “to stem illegal migration to the continent” because Morocco had been blackmailing Brussels by threatening to send even more illegals to the EU.
Ironically, according to figures released by Eurostat on Thursday, Germany topped the list of attempting to return migrants to other countries with 63 326 in 2017, followed by France (41 243), Austria (10 482), and Greece (9 559).
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was the leader that issued the call for unlimited numbers of migrants to flood into Europe in 2015.
