THE EU AND IMMIGRATION
As the EU lurches from one crisis to the next, with a falling euro, both Italy and Germany considering withdrawing from the euro, the fallout from the Dutch and French referendums, and the attacks on the British rebate, the fundamental difficulties created by the single currency are being ignored.
The EU is not a single country. It has a varied economic and political background. It is unstable in that it has recently admitted a large number of former communist countries from eastern Europe which have much more backward economies and far lower standards of living. There are plans to admit even more countries, including the Muslim Turkey.
It is therefore not surprising that the creation of the single currency has also created widespread unemployment and recession. The re-unification of Germany was sufficient to wreck the ERM. The unification of a large number of countries such as Poland, Lithuania etc into the EU eurozone, is having a similar effect on the euro. This is all predictable.
The present crisis is what happens when economic decisions are taken for political reasons.
One example of the disparity between the different countries in the EU was recently revealed. The average annual income across the EU is 26,850 euro. But this figure is made up of wide differences.
In the UK the annual income is an average of 36,180 euro (albeit in sterling), and the figures for Luxembourg and Germany are 35,010 euro and 34,620 euro respectively. The annual incomes for Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are 4,440 euro, 3,600 euro, and 3,240 euro respectively.
Given such huge differences in incomes, it is a nonsense to talk about a single market. Nor is it any wonder that the UK has witnessed yet another wave of mass immigration from eastern Europe, when people from those countries can earn so much more by coming to the UK and undercutting British wage rates.
Other western EU countries had sufficient sense to maintain restrictions on immigration from eastern Europe.
Many are arguing that the admission of so many eastern European workers is a good thing as there are supposedly skills shortages, and that there are jobs which the idle British are no longer prepared to do at the wages being offered. It is to be noted, that these supposed skills shortages have only occurred after the admission of the eastern European countries into the EU, and have occurred despite the continuing high levels of unemployment and the large number of job losses in manufacturing industry (most recently Rover).
Even if it is the case that the eastern Europeans are undercutting British workers for wages, and that this allows certain businesses and the NHS to save wage costs, this is still not in the national interest. The cost of immigration is not solely the wages which the immigrants are paid. It also is the cost of the extra infrastructure (eg housing and roads), the extra cost on public services (such as the NHS and education), and the extra cost of the failure to employ those British people who cannot get a job.
Yet those businesses which are drawing in the immigrants are not paying these extra costs. They are happy for the taxpayer in general to meet these costs. In other words, such businesses are expecting a freebie.
The employment of 3rd world nurses does not save money overall. The failure to employ British nurses costs the country in benefits, the extra housing and other infrastructure costs, and the extra costs to be born by public services all has to be met from other government and local government departments. All that Labour are doing by importing nurses and doctors from the 3rd world is to switch costs away from the NHS budget and onto other government budgets (eg transport).
This is apart from depriving those 3rd world countries of desperately needed skilled medical staff.
There is no case for mass immigration into the UK, certainly not as a facade of creating a single EU market.
The EU is not a single country. It has a varied economic and political background. It is unstable in that it has recently admitted a large number of former communist countries from eastern Europe which have much more backward economies and far lower standards of living. There are plans to admit even more countries, including the Muslim Turkey.
It is therefore not surprising that the creation of the single currency has also created widespread unemployment and recession. The re-unification of Germany was sufficient to wreck the ERM. The unification of a large number of countries such as Poland, Lithuania etc into the EU eurozone, is having a similar effect on the euro. This is all predictable.
The present crisis is what happens when economic decisions are taken for political reasons.
One example of the disparity between the different countries in the EU was recently revealed. The average annual income across the EU is 26,850 euro. But this figure is made up of wide differences.
In the UK the annual income is an average of 36,180 euro (albeit in sterling), and the figures for Luxembourg and Germany are 35,010 euro and 34,620 euro respectively. The annual incomes for Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia are 4,440 euro, 3,600 euro, and 3,240 euro respectively.
Given such huge differences in incomes, it is a nonsense to talk about a single market. Nor is it any wonder that the UK has witnessed yet another wave of mass immigration from eastern Europe, when people from those countries can earn so much more by coming to the UK and undercutting British wage rates.
Other western EU countries had sufficient sense to maintain restrictions on immigration from eastern Europe.
Many are arguing that the admission of so many eastern European workers is a good thing as there are supposedly skills shortages, and that there are jobs which the idle British are no longer prepared to do at the wages being offered. It is to be noted, that these supposed skills shortages have only occurred after the admission of the eastern European countries into the EU, and have occurred despite the continuing high levels of unemployment and the large number of job losses in manufacturing industry (most recently Rover).
Even if it is the case that the eastern Europeans are undercutting British workers for wages, and that this allows certain businesses and the NHS to save wage costs, this is still not in the national interest. The cost of immigration is not solely the wages which the immigrants are paid. It also is the cost of the extra infrastructure (eg housing and roads), the extra cost on public services (such as the NHS and education), and the extra cost of the failure to employ those British people who cannot get a job.
Yet those businesses which are drawing in the immigrants are not paying these extra costs. They are happy for the taxpayer in general to meet these costs. In other words, such businesses are expecting a freebie.
The employment of 3rd world nurses does not save money overall. The failure to employ British nurses costs the country in benefits, the extra housing and other infrastructure costs, and the extra costs to be born by public services all has to be met from other government and local government departments. All that Labour are doing by importing nurses and doctors from the 3rd world is to switch costs away from the NHS budget and onto other government budgets (eg transport).
This is apart from depriving those 3rd world countries of desperately needed skilled medical staff.
There is no case for mass immigration into the UK, certainly not as a facade of creating a single EU market.
posted by erc @ 11:27 pm
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