{"id":2251,"date":"2015-09-06T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/?p=2251"},"modified":"2015-09-24T12:30:17","modified_gmt":"2015-09-24T11:30:17","slug":"immigitrion-europe-needs-these-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/2015\/09\/06\/immigitrion-europe-needs-these-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration: Europe needs these people!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Millions-of-empty-apartments-and-villas-in-Spain\"<\/a>Over the last few months\u00a0thousands of immigrants have died trying to come to Europe\u00a0<\/strong>and yet many parts of the continent are\u00a0slowly emptying\u00a0out. According to CNN<\/a><\/em>, Italy has 6,000 so called ghost towns and another 15,000 villages which have lost so much of its population that their viability is under question<\/strong>.\u00a0The Guardian<\/a><\/em> estimates 3.4 million empty apartments in Spain alone and 11 million across Europe. The Economist<\/a><\/em> says that cities in Eastern Germany have\u00a0lost \u00a0as much as \u00a0fifth or their populations since re-unification and the Baltic states \u00a0have suffered even more.\u00a0Over the last few years, analysts<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0political leaders and even Pope Francis<\/a><\/strong> have called attention to\u00a0Europe’s demographic crisis.<\/p>\n

A gift<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"Screen<\/a>As I write, there are hundreds of thousands of immigrants risking life and limb\u00a0to come to Europe and millions more at home thinking about coming<\/strong>. They come from Syria<\/strong> and Iraq<\/strong>, from North Africa<\/strong>, from\u00a0sub-Saharan Africa<\/strong>. They are white, black and every shade in between. They are Moslem, Christian and profess\u00a0other\u00a0faiths.<\/p>\n

They all seek a better life for themselves and their children<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

European leaders are slowly getting around to thinking about what to do <\/span><\/a> and quibbling about how to distribute a portion of the people<\/strong> who are trying to come.\u00a0The Washington Post<\/em> reports<\/a> that there are 46.3 million displaced people in the world today <\/span><\/a> thanks to the situation in Syria (9.6 million), in specific African countries\u00a0(8.3 million) and other conflicts.<\/p>\n

Lets welcome them.<\/p>\n

A plan<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"Wien_-_V\u00f6lkerwanderung_am_5_Sep_2015,_Westbahnhof\"<\/a>
Migrants on a platform of the Vienna Western Railway Station on September 5, 2015 (\u00a9 Bwag\/Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lets see this wave of humanity not as a problem but as a millennial opportunity<\/strong> to jump start Europe’s economy and solve its demographic crisis, at least for the next few decades.<\/p>\n

Lets repopulate the ghost towns and fill up the empty apartments with people who need somewhere to go. They are ready to work and will till the fields, work in factories and workshops, open small businesses<\/strong> and do whatever they need to do to learn local languages and get their kids into local schools.<\/p>\n

Such an effort will cost money but my guess is it will be cheaper than going to war in the Mid East \u00a0and Africa and stemming the tide at its\u00a0source. As these people become productive and join the consumer society, they will have a tremendously\u00a0positive economic impact. They will also rejuvenate\u00a0european society and make it broader and more interesting from a cultural perspective<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"imgres\"<\/a>What is needed is an Ellis Island<\/a> like solution for Europe perhaps in Lampedusa<\/strong> or in several locations. People need to be screened for health and criminal\/terrorist affiliations but my guess is that most of the people trying to come are relatively healthy and honest and just looking for a better life.<\/p>\n

Other options?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

With all of the commentary and articles around, what I do not hear is a reasonable, moral and practical alternative <\/span><\/a>. There are writers like Caitlin Moran in The Times<\/em> who agree that immigration<\/strong> is a net plus but most of the comments see the economic pie as fixed and argue that immigrants will somehow compete for our slice.<\/p>\n

How can we morally stand by as people drown in the Mediterranean and camp out at train stations across Europe. Like the ridiculous proposa<\/a>l of Donald Trump to deport 11 million people from the United States, the idea of somehow keeping all of these people out f Europe is simply impractical.<\/p>\n

Europe’s leaders should pay attention to the Mayor of Barcelona and get in front of this issue and use this opportunity to re-start the european project and have it stand for its ideals!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"images\"<\/a>To raise funds for the pedestal under the stature of liberty in New York’s harbor, Emma Lazarus, \u00a0wrote a sonnet called The New Colosses. The ending line sums up what I believe Europe needs to say to the world!<\/p>\n

“Give me your tired, your poor,<\/strong><\/em>
\n Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,<\/strong><\/em>
\n The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.<\/strong><\/em>
\n Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,<\/strong><\/em>
\n I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Europe has been facing a demographic crisis for years and has a reported 11 million empty apartments. At the same time there are millions of people enduring hardship and risking death in an effort to come into Europe and the regions political leaders should seize this moment and solve two problems in one stroke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":788,"featured_media":2259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-immigration","megacategoria-mc-globalization"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/788"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2251"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2273,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions\/2273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iese.edu\/doing-business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}