Immigrants as motor of development

At this moment I am starting my preliminar investigations for my Master thesis project, which will talk about the participation of immigrants in Cooperation projects with their home countries.

The debate that links migration with development constitutes a relatively new focus and has caused the reformulation of Migration as well as Cooperation policies in several countries. This because, migration can be considered as a potential motor for development of both the host country and the home country. Therefore several cooperation projects have been developed involving the active participation of immigrants and focused on the development of their home countries. Their participation has been both in the development of policies or in the implementation of the projects themselves, many times in the mark of promoting circular migration.

I hope with this investigation to show the success of these projects and with it to stress the possitive contributions of immigrants. Instead of focusing on a closed Migration Policy, we should better focus on improving situations which cause people to leave their countries. Now economic migrants are the majority, the lack of development is definatively one of the most important issues to adress. Closing the borders instead doesn't change anything about these situations and therefore just moves migrantion from legal to illegal streams.

Europa al revés

Desde hoy también esta disponible en formato PDF el articulo "Europe Upside Down" o " Europa al revés" en Español. Usted lo podría descargar haciendo click aquí.

Europe Upside Down

Confederation of the European Regions

The evolution of the European integration has been without any discussion remarkable. Just half a century ago millions of Europeans were being killed during two World Wars by their own European neighbours, and even much more recently a wall and an Iron Curtain divided the old continent. Now most of these countries are member of the very same European Union. Economically the EU has become one of the most important international actors and it has made many diplomatic efforts in important conflict situations all around the world. But of course this is only a part of the truth! On many major issues it seems still impossible to get to a consensus and that weakens the European position in the International scenery.

In this small essay, I would like to share my opinion about how to tackle these problems, constructing Europe upside down, taking into account the tendencies in the international scenery.

Tendencies in the international scenery

At the international level we could identify three important evolutions: Globalisation, Regionalisation and the disintegration of the nation state. Some of these tendencies might have existed before, but all of them at least intensified after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.

Globalisation is both a trendy word and an issue of discussion and protest. But one thing is for sure; it’s a reality we cannot ignore. It is of course a very broad issue, but maybe its most important impact is on the economic level. Nowadays products are manufactured not in one place, but in several parts of the world, companies move as fast as the light; markets fall because of a crisis’s in third countries, Etc.

A second factor is the regionalisation, which could be seen as some sort of reaction to globalisation. Integrating various states, in several aspects, enforces the member state’s positions and makes it able to keep playing a significant role in the world scenery.

And last but not least, there is the disintegration of the traditional Nation States. Many now sill existing states have been founded in history just for the convenience of others. Many of those are strange constructions of several ethnic, linguistic, religious and/or religious groups and as a consequence today many of its inhabitants question these constructions. These claims for independence or autonomy are not limited only to the Basque country, but are present in many more places, such as Flanders, Corsica, Scotland, … Not to name all those outside Europe.

Europe Upside down

It might sound as if these three evolutions are completely incompatible, but they are not at all. They are instead connected one to each other. Regionalisation is as we already said, in some way, a reaction to globalisation. But also the disintegration of nation states should not necessarily contradict the other two developments. What we do have to do is starting to think upside down!

Our political systems should not be constructed from top to bottom, but the other way around. Logically than, the local level should come in the first place and the power of the following levels will be distributed according to the subsidiary principle. The nation state would become in this case an unnecessary level. Instead there would be a 3 level system: the municipality, the region and the European level. In this political system people could feel more involved in politics than anytime before.

The idea of a United States of Europe where Victor Hugo, Winston Churchill, Jean Monnet and more recently the former Belgian Prime Minister, Guy Verhofstadt, wrote about is out of date.

Instead of a European Union with member states such as France, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, … we would have a European Confederation of about 100 different regions (the number is of course discussible). In this system cultural, linguistic and religious diversity would be guaranteed, but within one unified European Union fully responsible for several important issues.

That means that we convert separatism into independentism. Although many politicians and journalists use both concepts as a synonym, there is a very important difference! While separatist movements only claim independence for their group or region, indepenentists don’t see their region or group totally isolated from their neighbours, but in a much broader context.

Conclusion

To counter the problems the European Union faces both from the inside and to guarantee its place in the international scenery a significant reform is necessary. The only way to succeed is to turn the EU structure upside down, whereby the local level will be somehow the most important, followed by the regional level and in the third place the European Union as a whole, forgetting about the nation states as they exist today.

Wilders' Anti-Islamic film

Recently a lot of controversy was caused by the online publication of the anti-Islamic film, Fitna, made by Dutch politician an MP, Geert Wilders. A lot of public figures, including the Dutch Prime Minister and the UN Secretary General, have already condemned the movie. If you have seen the full 15 minutes long video, you might understand that Wilders has brought us only a very populist and incomplete work of investigation. Enough, so I think, for a brief comment.

Wilders quotes in the movie several verses of the Sura’s, a part of the Holy Koran, more specifically he used the Sura 8, verse 39 and 60, Sura 4, verse 56 and 89; and Sura 47, verse 4. All, I have to admit very violent phrases. But Wilders forgets however to mention a lot of important things.

First of all these verses are only a very small part of the Koran (Qu’ran). Furthermore they can vary depending upon the translation and especially interpretation you are quoting. With other words not every Muslim will understands these verses the same. Especially taking these parts out of the Koran, not taking into account its context, could lead to wrong interpretations. Some of the verses, for example, refer actually to historic battles instead of to general history.

Another important fact we have to take into consideration, is that the violent content of religious works, is not something exclusively preserved for the Koran. Also the Bible we find a lot of violence, both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. We could actually easily do the same with the Bible, as did Wilders with the Koran.

The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)

The Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was already approved in the other partner countries years ago. Last year, also Costa Rica ratified, however not overwhelmingly, the CAFTA by a referendum. Nevertheless the "complementary agenda", proposing necessary changes in legislation and linked directly with the agreement, is still in Congress (Competition in the mobile telephony, the possibility for private insurance ). Wetter you agree or not with its content, without this agenda there is no CAFTA! The logic would of course be, if CAFTA was aproved in referendum, these projects should pass without further discussion. This is however, not what happened. Endless discussions and tons of motions have slowed down the process and even obligated the government to ask for more time in the ratification process. All other projects in Congress have been delayed because of this!

Instead we should focus on an other agenda, meant to counter the negative effects of CAFTA. Because with that I agree; CAFTA will help some sectors in the country or is even a matter of live or dead (think of the textile industry for example), but for others it could have negative effects. Thus instead of fighting over things we will have to approve anyway, it would be better to discuss in a constructive way about how to confront the future and how to assure that Costa Rica will maintain its position or even improve and especially about how to help sectors who might encounter negative effects of CAFTA.

The text below I wrote some time ago, based on two very interesting publications made by the international center for sustainable Human development (CIDH). This investigation center works together with international organisms, such as the World Bank, the UNDP, the IDB to promote sustainable human development through investigation and dialogue.

Note: In the text below the Complementary agenda refers to an agenda to counter CAFTA's negative effects.

1. Introduction

The Free Trade Agreement between the United States of America and the Central American countries was already ratified in most of the involved countries, except of Costa Rica. In the light of future negotiations over an association agreement with Europe, from which a Free trade agreement will be a part, it is necessary to analyze the possible negative as well as positive effects of the CAFTA in the region.

2. Actual problems

For the Central American countries there exist several problems and challenges it will have to face when ratifying the CAFTA. If these problems are not resolved in time the social disparities could increase and government income could fall, causing a collapse in its social expenses.

• The tributary income of the Central American governments is at this moment much to low (about 14% of its regional GDP) and could be further reduced with free trade agreements, eliminating most tariffs on imports. Unfortunately many of the fiscal reforms planned seem to be too much a compromise and will do little about this problem.
• As a consequence of the limited tributary income, the social expenses are reduced and could be even further reduced. That however, especially, education expenses should be increased to be more competitive in these new realities.
• Effects of economic policy changes have been very limited in time. The growth has been fragile, because of persisting economical problems, such as the fiscal deficit and low growth rate. The economic growth has not been sustainable.
• While unemployment is considered quiet low in most of Central America, the informal labour market is averagely almost 40% and thus problematic. These workers receive mostly very low income and without any social insurance.
• A last, but however, very important problem in Central America is the high social asymmetry and inequality illustrated by a regional GINI coefficient of 0,564.

3. Possible effects

In short term it is difficult to predict any effects of the presence of the CAFTA-agreement. In medium term however we could say that competition will be harder than ever before and that in these circumstances Costa Rican companies should be much more dynamic than they are now.

The group of Central American companies who benefit from the CAFTA is conformed in first place by the "Agribusiness", responsible for 35% of the regional GDP, 70% of export and 50% of employment in the region. Other sectors such as the textile industry, the High Tech industry and some other smaller sectors such as the chemical sector, Tourism, ethnic products and wood production are also considered to be beneficiaries of the Free Trade agreement with the US.

But the list of companies considered as "fragile" under the CAFTA-agreement is much longer. Most industrial firms do not have any experience in more competitive markets. But the biggest problem is with the small, micro and medium sized companies, since they mostly don't have the capacity to compete in these new realities. Most companies in Central America we could classify exactly under this segment. Actually there are only 1% of all Central American companies considered as big non agricultural companies.

An extra difficulty is the existence of opposite analysis over the effects the CAFTA will have on for example employment. Some say the CAFTA would bring more jobs, while others say the contrary. It is however certain that in some sectors jobs will be lost, while in others the CAFTA will bring new jobs.

4. Complementary agenda

A complementary agenda to counter the negative effects and help the most vulnerable is a must. Without these policies disparities might increase. As part of this complementary agenda we could think of:

• An impulse to change the production system into a more sustainable and competitive system, as it is now based on low labor cost, deficient social and physical infrastructure and a not sustainable exploitation of the natural recourses.
• Special support to the little, medium and micro companies
• A Fiscal reform is necessary to counter not only the already existing fiscal deficit, but also to face a possible further decrease of fiscal income, caused by the elimination of many import tariffs
• There must exist a program to stimulate Foreign Direct investment
• It is very important to increase attention and resources for Scientific and technological development.
• Education is one of the most important elements in a process to make the country more competitive. But besides increasing quality of the traditional education, there should also be given more importance to training at the work floor

5. Conclusion

As Central America's first trade partner is still the United States of America, the importance of the CAFTA-agreement should not be underestimated. But it is also necessary to make an integral analysis of both positive and negative effects. A complementary agenda is definitely required to make sure the insertion of the Central American economies in a much more competitive system.

Welcome

Of course first of all I wish to welcome you on my little blog! In this blog I will give my personal view on issues of the international relations, about recent events in the international scenery and the future we might expect.

Jan Willem Melis
Master Student International Relations