Every day it becomes clearer that the issue of migration is weighing on Europe, and barely a day passes without those who follow the matter encountering fresh evidence of the intensity of the anxiety gripping the old continent. It is evident that whoever gave the European continent the name "the old continent" was, in one way or another, reading its future, because while approaches to the migration issue differ within the continent from one country to another, there is a single thread running through all the news related to this matter.
One example is that the German Economic Institute (IW) published a report this month stating that the gap in the workforce inside Germany will reach 4.3 million workers, that this will be at its most acute in 2036, and that this gap is attributable primarily to the growing number of elderly people among Germans relative to the young or those of working age.
Among what the institute observes and highlights is that migration to Germany is declining, and the sole reason for this decline is that the government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz has adopted broadly anti-immigration policies — policies inherited from the government of the previous chancellor who succeeded Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Had Merkel remained in power, migration would not have declined in the manner recorded by the economic institute, and the institute would not have felt compelled to warn of the gap looming on the horizon that will affect the labour market within years — years that the published report specifies rather than leaving to guesswork.
Merkel had championed policies that were sympathetic to migrants, and as we followed events during her time we imagined she was doing so for humanitarian reasons, but it later became clear that her sympathy was driven by purely practical considerations — that she saw in migrants a capacity to add to the labour market and to productivity, rather than viewing them as a burden on the state, the government, or indeed the labour market.
Alongside the news of the institute's report, we read in parallel about the referendum to which the Swiss government called its voters on the 14th of this month. The referendum concerned a proposal to prohibit the population from exceeding 10 million by 2050. It was the right-wing Swiss People's Party that called for the referendum, and its intent was clear: like other far-right parties across Europe, it stands against migrants, regards them as an unwanted burden, and calls for limiting their arrival in the country.
From what the media reported before and after the referendum, we know that Switzerland's current population stands at 9.1 million, and that the continuous population growth concerns the right-wing party in particular, and no doubt concerns the other parties to a lesser degree — and perhaps concerns the population itself — but this is something we will learn from the referendum result when it is announced.
We have heard before of remarkable referendums organised by the Swiss government, but over time we have grown accustomed to repeated calls for referendums, and we are no longer surprised that one is held simply to ask people their opinion on capping the population at a certain figure that must not be exceeded. Switzerland continues to distinguish itself from the rest of the continent's nations by its insistence on sending voters to the ballot box whenever there is a matter that concerns them, however simple that matter may appear to observers outside Europe.
As we can see, there is a slender thread connecting the Swiss referendum and the German report, and that thread is migration — which the Swiss fear, prompting them to organise the very referendum in question, while the Germans are alarmed by its retreat and read the report issued by their institute with an unspoken sentiment: had Merkel remained in the chancellery for longer, the early signs of the gap the institute warned of would not have appeared so clearly on the horizon, even if that horizon remains relatively distant.
Moderates in the West had been hopeful on the day Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán lost his electoral race a few weeks ago. The reason for that optimism was that his government had been hard-line right-wing, and the hope was that his defeat might trigger other right-wing losses across the continent, perhaps easing the intensity of this far-right wave somewhat — but that hope still appears to be some way off.
Egypt had signed the Four Freedoms Agreement with Sudan in 2004, and the freedoms in question were: movement, employment, residence, and ownership. The intent was for the populations of both countries to enjoy these rights, but circumstances did not allow the agreement to live long. Europe today appears to be in greater need than ever of a similar agreement, because closing its borders in the manner we are witnessing is not a solution — and if it represents a solution today, it is unlikely to remain one tomorrow, because it runs against the nature of things.