People power: Factual, ambitious, over-optimistic?

Writing a well-researched, evidence-based book on European migration policies during an unexpected pandemic, must not have been fun. Writing a review of said book in the midst of Europe’s worst security crisis since World War Two, and against the backdrop of mounting inflation and a looming energy crisis, is not either. So many of the things we took for granted about the EU before 24 February 2022 are not true any longer that reading anything written before then becomes almost like a historical exercise. And yet, most of the forces at play in Giles Merritt’s People Power: Why We Need More Migrants are still there. Maybe they are just less acute than they used to, or some tenets may have changed, but the author’s main thesis—that migration is not only inevitable but also desirable—remains one of this mad world’s few immovable truths.

People Power begins with a necessary disclaimer about the COVID-19 pandemic, which seems to have taken the author as much by surprise as the rest of the world, with the additional difficulty of trying to predict what labour markets, or even European borders, will look like once (or if) the pandemic abates. Merritt then bravely endeavours to dispel ten myths about migration that we all have heard at family gatherings, in the supermarket, at work. From “migrants steal jobs” to “migrants are a security risk” to “migrants are costly to the taxpayer”, the first chapter of the book tries to debunk pre-conceived ideas while making a strong economic case in favour of more, and not less, migration. In later chapters, Merritt delves deeper into the merits of migration, by explaining how the economics of migration (we need more migrants and that is a good thing) have nothing to do with the politics of it (we want zero migration). But the author does not forget that migration has a third, sociological angle: newcomers have an impact in their host societies, so it is important to look at how European societies have been integrating migrants over the past century and whether their respective models—“assimilation” versus “integration”—have worked (scoop: they have not, at least not all, all the time).

Merritt knows that more often than not, those wary of migrants are so not because of facts, but because of feelings. That is why he was careful to build a well-constructed, pragmatic argument throughout the book to back his policy proposals. For example, he acknowledges that many of those newcomers who are not young and uneducated will not get educated in time to solve Europe’s productivity problems; but they can contribute through lower qualified jobs. He urges European countries to instead focus on providing an education to the newer generation of migrants. Likewise, while explaining that migrants can have a panoply of backgrounds (from Nobel-winning scientists, to lorry drivers, to writers), he recognises that criminality can sometimes be a problem in migrant communities. The author bravely tries to forecast the future of labour markets after the pandemic (and before no one even knew a war was just around the corner) and tries to assess whether the resulting mix will be more or less favourable to migrant workers. He concludes that, “reconciling short-term job creation pressures with long-term labour shortages, is a new policy problem foretold by few economists, if any”. The problem maybe “summed up by saying we need more migrants, but not yet? Perhaps”.

The book finishes with Merritt’s suggestions for a realistic migration policy. He divides them into three different categories: short-term, ready-actionable proposals for the next five years, like scrapping the difference between economic migrants and asylum seekers; medium term measures to be adopted over the next two decades, like a clearer EU migration agenda; and, finally, long-term policy proposals “for mid-century", which include tax and pension reforms to balance European ageing societies with input from newcomers.

Merritt’s central point, that ageing European societies will need someone to do their jobs and pay their pensions, and that it is better to invest on building newcomers’ skills to do so than to get entangled in a never-ending spat about redistributing migrants across the EU, is fair and well-supported, with plenty of hard data and abundant anecdotes. Perhaps the book’s main shortcoming is its optimism. Merritt imagines a world where national governments come to their senses and decide that migration is better dealt with rationally, and together. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case right now, nor have recent events made it any easier for such a comeuppance. Let us hope that the next crisis does not come back to remind us of all the lost opportunities.

Camino Mortera-Martínez

is the Head of the Brussels office of the Centre for European Reform, a think tank. She specialises on EU law and politics, migration, rule of law and internal security.