Roger Vickerman (University of Kent) will be presenting his findings to an audience of academics, policymakers and Europe watchers in a workshop on Enlargement and the New Borders. He will tell delegates in Church House, Westminster, that there is a new trend towards planned short-term movements across borders. "Typically the migrants are young, male, better-educated workers from urban areas," he says.
"On moving they often have to accept jobs below their skill levels, so this does not cause unemployment in their destination countries. In fact, it often allows indigenous workers to move to better jobs."
Unexpectedly, Vickerman's research also found that labour mobility was also positive for the home country, firstly because workers return large amounts of money to their families and secondly because they often acquire new skills abroad which enable them to contribute to an increase in productivity when they return home.
In the same workshop, Professor Judy Batt of the University of Birmingham will tell the conference that Europe's new border regime could have a destabilising effect on states left outside the EU after enlargement. "This could open up divisions between border regions and those in the interior or east, exacerbating centrifugal pressures and tensions between regions and the national capitals of fragile, poorly integrated states like Ukraine, Romania and Yugoslavia," she says.
Batt's research shows that in the borderlands, the EU's external border and visa regimes are seen as a threat, not only to their economic survival but to their aspirations to act as 'gateways' between the enlarged EU and its new neighbours. "The EU needs to develop new policies to offset the impression that its border controls serve mainly to protect and exclude, and demonstrate that it is genuinely interested in promoting greater co-operation and interchange between EU members and their neighbours," she says.
Professor Steven White of the University of Glasgow will also warn of potential instability in "outsider states" after enlargement. "Until now, these states have had open borders with some accession states," he says. "For instance, over five million cross between Ukraine and Poland each year. The creation of a new, deep barrier, with immigration and trade restrictions as well as a physical presence, will seem like a new iron curtain to them. The consequences could be economic and political instability."
The Glasgow project also reported that more than a decade after the end of the Cold War, former Soviet citizens still see NATO as the main threat to their security and that public opinion in Russia, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine identifies NATO with America and has only the sketchiest notion about the aims and activities of the European Union. . "One senior military man told us that a European Union 'would be a very good idea', while clearly unaware that one already exists," says Stephen White.
For further information:
Contact Roger Vickerman - Work: 01227-823495 Home: 01227 471324 Mobile 07710 288931
Judy Batt - Work: 0121 414 6360 (Available Friday afternoon) Home: 0121 449 8569
Steven White - Work: 0141-330 5352 Fax: 0141 330 5071 Email: s.white@socsci.gla.ac.uk
Or Iain Stewart or Lesley Lilley at the ESRC Press Office, telephone : 01793 413032/413119
NOTES FOR EDITORS
1 The ESRC is the UK's largest funding agency for research and postgraduate training relating to social and economic issues. It provides independent, high-quality, relevant research to business, the public sector and Government. The ESRC invests more than £76 million every year in social science and at any time is supporting some 2,000 researchers in academic institutions and research policy institutes. It also funds postgraduate training within the social sciences to nurture the researchers of tomorrow. More at http://www.esrc.ac.uk
2. REGARD is the ESRC's database of research. It provides a key source of information on ESRC social science research awards and all associated publications and products. The website can be found at http://www.regard.ac.uk.