Focus-Migration

The Netherlands has a long history of immigration. Both refugees and economic migrants have come to the country in large numbers. Currently almost 20% of the Dutch population are immigrants or children of immigrant parents.

Since the 1960s, Morocco has evolved into one of the prime source countries of labour migrants to Europe. Increasing immigration restrictions in Europe did little to stop migration, and have led instead to the increasingly irregular character of migration and to the exploration of new destinations beyond the traditional ones of France and the Benelux countries. Since 1990, low-skilled Moroccan emigrants have increasingly headed to Italy and Spain, while the higher-skilled increasingly migrate to the US and Canada.

Mexico is a country of immigration, transmigration - mostly from Central America to the United States - and emigration, mostly to the United States. For the past century, emigration has far outweighed the other forms of international migration, yet the influences of all three forms of migration have been felt.

Lithuania, the biggest of the three Baltic States, borders Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and Poland and the Russian oblast Kaliningrad to the south. It therefore lies on the eastern border of the EU, to which it was admitted in 2004.

In terms of area and population, Israel is quite a small country. Its national territory roughly corresponds in size to that of the US state of New Jersey and, with about seven million inhabitants, it is similarly densely populated. The amount of attention that the Middle East’s strongest economy has always attracted bears no relation to these somewhat unspectacular figures. Israel is constantly present in media and political discourse, primarily attributable to the often war-like conflict between Jews and Palestinians that has been smouldering for more than 60 years.

Traditionally Ireland has been a country marked by a declining population and high rates of emigration. Within the last two decades this situation has reversed dramatically. Immigration has increased significantly in the context of rapid economic growth. At first, flows were driven by returning Irish emigrants, but from the early 2000s non-EU nationals began to arrive in significant numbers for the first time, mainly to work but also to seek asylum. The scale of these developments put Irish policy-makers under pressure and the response was often ad hoc.

Germany was mainly a country of emigration in the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Since the mid-1950s, however, Germany has become one of the most important European destinations for migrants. The recruitment of guest workers, the influx of (Spät-)Aussiedler (ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet states), as well as the reception of asylum-seekers have led to the growth of the immigrant population in the country.

The immigration situation in France has been strongly influenced to the present day by the legacy of colonialism of earlier centuries as well as the long tradition of recruiting foreign workers. Overall, there has been a steady increase in immigration over the last century, and this has had a strong impact on the nature of French society. Although immigration has been regarded as a success story in economic terms, in the past three decades it has increasingly been perceived as the root of social problems.

Since the 1980s, Canada has accepted more immigrants and refugees for permanent settlement in proportion to its population than any other country. In the course of the twentieth century, the country’s immigration policy was transformed from a mechanism for keeping people of non-European origin out into a tool for meeting economic, demographic, social and humanitarian goals.

Brazil, the fifth biggest country in the world in terms of area and population, is primarily known in Europe as an attractive holiday destination and former immigration country. Between the first Portuguese settlement in the 16th century and the Second World War, more than four million people migrated to the country, most of them Europeans. In the 1980s the situation reversed. An estimated three million Brazilians have left their country to date; initially their primary destination was the USA, but increasingly they also aim for Europe and Japan.