The European Union Gets Tough On Immigration

Who on earth doesn't know about Europe's worse demographics, its worse future for its own retirement-related social-spending programs, and the much higher, much more politically unacceptable immigration levels that would be needed there for "replacement migration" to meet future labor shortages and to raise the ratio of taxpayers to beneficiaries of retirement programs?

And that's not including what kinds of immigrants are coming to Europe.

The same kind of single-thought-capacity arguments seem to be occuring on Michael VDG:s site as are likely to occur here. There are the widlest, craziest assertions on both sides of the argument.

I tihnk that the first thing to recognize is that increasing immigration is a global problem, even between neighboring countries in Africa and the ME. When Iraqis flee their country, the host countries are put under stress to acomodate them, for example. Refugees from Darfur affect neighboring countries, as well.

Then enters xenophobia, nationalism and a lot of other issues, and tempers flare and burn out of control.

I've pleaded for years that rather than shout and fight, people should just accept the reality and spend their energies figuring out how best to deal with this global phenomenon. As food shortages and globar warming take an increasing toll, it's only going to get worse. Since we can't turn the clock back, it would be far wiser to plan for an inevitable future.

I could make a bundle by betting on the odds of people taking the pragmatic, reasonble view.

Regarding the EU, a lot depends on how this new directive is implemented by vaious countries.
The fight has just begun.