Current international migration trends and the national security of Ukraine

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The article:

Current international migration trends and the national security of Ukraine

Olga Novytska, First Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine

Abstract

According to the UN statistics, the last couple of years became the period of massive legal and illegal migration, first of all due to military conflicts. The activity of ISIS and the like terrorist groups is a huge challenge for the security of Europe. Migration processes have several aspects to them: international political, domestic political, economic, social, cultural and namely security. The article tries to analyze the situation with different migrant categories to the EU from the countries of Africa and the Middle East during the last years and to forecast the possible influence of the deeper communication of those migrants with Ukrainian ones.

Key words: migration, refugees, Ukraine, EU

Introduction

The issues of migration and security today is gaining more and more importance due to numerous crises worldwide, that result in millions of people being forced to leave their usual habitat in search of more secure places elsewhere. Due to the introduction of a visa-free regime with Europe, which currently undergoes a massive “refugee crisis” (which some experts think is the main reason of the downgrade of the relations among the EU members, especially the “old” and the “new” ones), and a huge domestic migration due to the annexation of the Crimea and the military aggression in the East, Ukraine now has to deal with the problems it actually has never faced before. Even the spread of religious extremism cannot be considered a foreign issue any more as huge numbers of people (over 1.6 mln according to the UN statistics) moved around our country, in and out of it. The below work is dedicated, in view of the above, to the research of the current international trends in migration - which should be given closer consideration.

Analysis of recent researches and publications. It should be noted that there are two aspects to the topic of interdependence between migration and security: the spread of extremist philosophy and the social-economic infuence of migrational trends. The most comprehensive publications on the migration are issued by the International Organization for Migration: the materials for the course of Essentials of Migration Management Training, the guides for policy makers and practitioners, leaflets, press-releases, reports etc. The list of Ukrainian authors interested in the issues of the influence of migration on security on different levels includes such researchers as A.Platonov, O. Rovenchak, M.Yavorskiy, O.Piskun, M.Romanyuk, I.Serova. Separate attention is paid to different aspects of illegal migration, such as rights of the migrants, implementation of international law (V.Denysov, V.Butkevych, Y.Todyka).

The main document in Ukraine dealing with the main challenges and dangers of migration in today's world is the Strategy of the National Security of Ukraine, the last version of it dating 20151. The more active migration as a result of the military campaign in the East of Ukraine is named there as part of the economic crisis which is ranked fourth by importance of the Current challenges to the national security of Ukraine (after Russia's aggression, ineffective security system and corruption). While the control over migration (including the illegal one) rests upon the Ministry of internal affairs - and namely on the State migration service of Ukraine as its integral part - there are scarcely any particulars as for how “effective control over migration flows” or “fighting illegal migration” should be performed. This is especially challenging taking into consideration that literally absent borders with Russia and transparent ones with Belarus and Moldova, together with now void visas with the EU make Ukraine an attractive transit territory for supplying arms, drugs, other types of smuggling and human trafficking (both illegal migrants and terrorists) to and from Europe.

Another important document pertaining to the migration sphere is the Strategy of the State Migration Policy Until 2025, adopted in July, 20172. Its main goals, as declared, are to draw the society's attention to the migration issues, to ensure the migration policy is connected with other spheres of governmental activity and to change the approach - from reaction to outside and inside challenges to the more active and aimed one.

The most acute problem connected with migration is deemed to be the draining of high-skilled human resources, family problems and possible cut of inflow of finance due to the decision of the labour migrants or students to stay abroad and to move their family there. Special attention is paid to the rights of the migrants, especially victims of human trafficking, to the needs of emigrants willing to return to Ukraine and to the needs of the refugees finding new home in Ukraine. - It should be noted that the document, while not widely discussed in the media, is rather comprehensive and well-prepared, which may in part be attributed to the extensive preliminary analytical work done, for instance, by the apparatus of the National Security Council of Ukraine together with researchers and hands-on professionals in the migration field.

Previously unsettled problem constituent. Most publications date several years ago, mostly before the Maidan and the events that followed, therefore not taking into account the latest developments in the domestic situation in Ukraine and lacking the complex analysis of the problems of migration as a challenge to the national security of Ukraine.

Main purpose of the article. The author's primary interest is that of a governmental employee - to give an overview of the scientific articles, publications and dissertations pertaining to the topic, which could be used in the everyday work by fellow bureaucrats as a reference material.

Results and discussions

Today one can get an impression that the European problems with refugees, who try to reach its shores in huge numbers from the Northern Africa and the Middle East, are over. Partially this is due to continuous election processes in a number or countries, as the media's attention focus is switched to it, but with time the question what to do with those people looking for a better life will become acute once again.

According to the UN statistics, 22.5 mln persons were displaced as of 2016. The overall number of people under the care of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reached over 63 mln per- sons3. As a result of the conflicts in Iraq and Syria alone more than 15 mln people were forced to flee their native habitat. The Middle East and Africa still remain the main regions of origin of the Muslim refugees. Unlike the times of Saddam Hussein and Muhammar Gaddafi who prohibited their citizens to emigrate, there are very few places in the Middle East that could be called calm and stable. Of course, not all emigrants can and will reach Europe or North America or other countries - Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey provided refuge for hundreds of thousands of them. Turkey alone became a new home for over 3 mln refugees.

For a very long time Ukraine kept aside from all that instability. However, the annexation of the Crimea and the separatist movement in the East resulted in over 2 million Ukrainians leaving their homes. Mostly they are of Christian faith, but there are many Muslims as well.

All this coincided with the introduction of a visa-free regime with the European Union. Now this aspect is not accentuated, but some time ago the EU leaders made it clear that in order to get closer, Ukraine has to do its share of dealing with refugees. Some European experts reported, that according to their calculations, Ukraine is capable of providing haven to about 100 thousand immigrants as a country with very fertile soil and a considerable territory available to the refugees. However, it is not so clear to Ukrainians as to European experts whether Ukraine is really capable of accommodating such numbers of immigrants. The internal migration and the near failure of state authorities to deal with it efficiently and to tend to the needs of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) in a timely and corresponding manner make such forecasts highly doubtful. Apart from that, Ukraine has a problem with rather high unemployment rates (including the “grey” one), so there's not too much work available for the new immigrants.

For a rather long time the most visible trend in Ukraine itself has been emigration, and the events after 2014 only strengthened it, especially the visa-free regime. For instance, there are over 1 mln official Ukrainian workers in the Russian Federation, the overall number of labour emigrants being about 7.4 mln persons4. According to polls, approximately 35% citizens would like to leave Ukraine in the nearest future5, presumably there are more who would not skip an opportunity to travel illegally. Of those people 19% would like to go to Italy, 15% - to the USA, 12% - to the UK and Russia respectively. Some experts estimate the financial input of Ukrainian workers abroad to the Ukrainian economy amounting up to 17 bln USD or more. This is only the known, official migration: according to the IOM data, in 2015 the percentage of the illegal migrants from Ukraine was about 40%.

Unfortunately, during the years of independence Ukrainian state failed to establish legal channels for labour migration abroad and mechanisms of controlling it. There's still hope it will be done now after the visa-free regime, otherwise very soon the refugee-overloaded Europe will find a way to close its doors on us again. In view of the above we can only imagine what could happen if thousands of African and Middle Eastern refugees do come on our territory, taking into consideration the state of affairs in the Western European countries after the so- called “refugee crisis” of 2014-2015.

Partially those problems originate from the after-World War II time when many European countries were in dire need of a numerous workforce. However, the Europeans, while using the work of the immigrants, paid little attention to their assimilation in the receiving societies, thus indirectly stimulating the establishment of the immigrants' ghettos and enclaves trying to preserve their habits and culture. Their birth rate was and still is usually higher than that of the locals, and the access to better medicine than at home results in a rapid growth of population of certain ethnicities, predominantly Muslim today.

According to many forecasts, in 2050 the 28% of the population of the EU will reach the retirement age - which includes the former labour immigrants who probably will stay in the receiving countries instead of going home. - Again, rises a need for a new input of workforce, and that was the primary reason why Angela Merkel was so open to refugees from Africa and the Middle East. However, the good social support level in the European countries together with modest requests of most new immigrants result in many young refugees choosing to live on state support that strive to get an education or a job.

Apart from that, a certain number of immigrants find, that Europe is not the promised land they expected, they fail to find their place in the receiving societies. Some experts estimate that in 2025 some Western cities may become predominantly Muslim - which is a fertile ground for the spread of extremist ideas, as there are hardly any legal and satisfactory ways to channel the frustration and crashed hopes of the mostly young people. Moreover, because of cultural and religious differences many Muslim schoolchildren or students studying in, say, UK, feel they have much more in common with their peers in Africa and perceive they are estranged from the British society. However, with time they realize they are estranged from African society as well, which leads to the feeling of being lost and that's where the idea of “pan-Islamist ummah” comes in handy. As those kids frequently have a very decent education, the overall intellectual level of the extremists (including the terrorist networks) is rising. To top it all, many of the new immigrants have been through military operations in Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan and other conflict zones - even at the young age. Frustration, military experience, knowledge of local culture, religious piousness and good education make an explosive mix - as prove some of the terrorist attacks in the USA and Europe, carried out with assistance of local citizens.

According to the Italian researcher S.Allievi6, the phenomenon of Islamic immigration in Europe creates the effect of “horizontal integration”, which will probably result in the formation of a “transnational Islamic community”. The intensive use of English, in his opinion, as a lingua franca while there are no accepted Islamic centers in Europe is a precondition for more technically savvy European and Asian Muslims leading that community. A renowned Islam researcher B.Tibi7 considers the integration of European Muslims in the Western society depends on whether they choose the form of Islam that can accept the Western values: democratic civil society, church separate from the state, pluralism and tolerance. He insists there can be no “third way” between the “Euroislam” and “ghettoization” of the minority - irrespective of what some European officials might hope.

It may seem that the topic of interdependence between the international terrorism and migration is not very urgent for Ukraine, as it is obviously not so notorious for the Muslim extremists as the countries of the West, and is not so attractive for the immigration as European countries. However, some experts urge that for instance ISIS is using our country's territory as a transit point for its thugs or new mem- bers8. There is also information about Ukrainian citizens also fighting for ISIS and up to 2500 Russian citizens. As far as the confrontation with ISIS is not over and it does not have to go undercover and look for new ways to carry on, there hardly is a reason to speak about possible establishment of its network in Ukraine.

All the mentioned above is closely connected with the notion of national identity as one of the basic components of the national security. Without clear and understandable national identity, a state cannot be certain its society is united and therefore cannot guarantee the security of its borders, its culture etc. In a certain way that's what happened in Ukraine when the separatist groups took hold of the Eastern regions: during the independence years we failed to create a clear national identity and to unite the citizens. The constant undermining work of Russia's agents undercover different “culture centres”, of course, did its share, but the main reason was the absence of unity in the society. The interests, psychology and differences in culture and habits of the enclaves of Russian-speaking Russia-inspired people created by years of migration policies of the Soviet Union were fully neglected.

However, the influence of migration on the national security of Ukraine is not limited to the possibility of radicalization of citizens. Some researches underline, that the main problems of migration sphere in Ukraine include but are not limited to such aspects as:

negative social-economic results, namely growing social tensions in the families of labour migrants, loss of labour and human potential due to the structure of migration flows;

spread of illegal migration;

imperfect informational support of migration policies;

undefined priorities and lack of clear official position in the sphere of regulating migration processes;

lack of national model of migration policy.

Generally, the problems of labour migration differ depending on a country's status as a donor or recipient. The most visible effect of migrations abroad is the growth of citizens able to work in the receiving country and their shortage in the donor country. Ukraine as a donor country since the introduction of visa-free regime witnesses sharp decrease in the number of skilled workers of certain professions that are popular abroad, in the neighbouring Poland in the first place (Polish people as EU passport holders travel in large numbers to work in other European countries, thus creating shortage of professionals at home, which is filled now by Ukrainians).

Apart from that, an additional point of pressure in Ukraine are large ethnic communities, sometimes living near the border with a country of the same ethnicity, like Hungary for instance. Extensive financial aid from such contries, active labour and educational migration strengthen ties of those regions with the neighbouring states, and their governments, especially after the example from Russia, seem to caress the plans of returning the lands they once lost as a result of perturbations during the XX century.

Speaking about religious extremism and fundamentalism, we often forget that these phenomena are not limited to Islam only. Of course, there are no known Orthodox Christian terrorist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIS) yet, but our territory has a history of clashes between different religions. Lately we could witness aggravating relations between adherents of Moscow or Kiev patriarchates, which also does not add to the national security. Migration flows can also influence religious landscape, adding complexity to the intricate enough religious situation in our country.

Russian scholars G.Vitkovska and S.Panarin defined 4 stages of interconnection between migration and ethnocultural security:

increased load on the social-cultural infrastructure of the territory, increased competition on the labour market;

increase of the number of migrants, closed ethnical communities form accompanied by growth of xenophobic acts by locals - this is the most wide-spread stage in today's world;

rise of nationalist, xenophobic movements and parties, different forms of ethnocratic rule, some manifestations of ethnical cleansings, which leads to the mobilization of immigrants and sometimes leads to violence;

possible move to military forms of opposition as a result of one of the ethnic groups lobbying separatist projects.

Cooperation between states that can boast successful policies in the sphere of managing migration flows and ensuring the rights of the migrants, receiving societies and the general international community is vital for tending to the issues of security on a wider regional or global level. Today there are many new ways of thinking about managing migration outside of the usual “limit or stimulate” box - those that expand the scope of such policies, like foreign aid, foreign investments and trade policies aimed at curtaining the mass emigration from donor countries. By stimulating economic growth and stability in the poorest regions the advocates of such “indirect” ways of migration management strive to eliminate the economic reasons for mass migration such as poverty and lack of access to the basic services. This is especially helpful for the countries that suffer most from the latest refugee inflow, such as Jordan or Lebanon, their infrastructure being strained enough by own political or economic situation. Preventing or regulating local or international conflicts is another way of indirect migration management, but it's even more difficult for implementation to be efficient and to have a long-time effect. In the meantime, international agreements, limitations or stimulation of immigration and emigration as well as programs aimed at the integration of the migrants into receiving societies remain the main ways of migration management.

Conclusions and further researches directions

security migration ethnocultural

Taking into consideration all of the above, we may draw the conclusion that Ukraine today remains a donor country which puts us a little aside from the most common international migration trends and gives chance to concentrate more on tending to the needs of internally displaced persons and on curtaining the drain of skilled workers. However, we also need to prepare ourselves for other possible scenarios via participation in international programs and agreements in the sphere or migration management and this can be done only in close cooperation with the EU and international organizations. There is still need for comprehensive and continuous efforts of all the agencies and maybe NGOs involved, aimed at improving the migration management system which could be the focus of the forthcoming research. In a few years we will also be able to give a more detailed evaluation of the influence of the visa-free regime on various aspects of the national security of Ukraine.

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Анотація

Згідно з статистикою ООН, останні роки стали періодом великомасштабної законної та незаконної міграції, зокрема з огляду на збройні конфлікти. Велику загрозу для безпеки Європи становить діяльність різних екстремістських організацій як ІДІЛ та їй подібних. Міграційні процеси мають кілька вимірів: міжнародно-політичний, внутрішньополітичний, економічний, соціальний, культурний та власне безпековий. У статті проаналізовано ситуацію, що склалася з різними категоріями мігрантів до Європи з країн Африки та Близького Сходу протягом останніх років, та спрогнозовано можливі наслідки неминучого поглибленого спілкування з ними мігрантів з України.

Ключові слова: мігранти, біженці, Україна, ЄС.

Аннотация

Согласно статистики ООН, последние несколько лет стали периодом массовой законной и незаконной миграции, в первую очередь спровоцированной вооруженными конфликтами. Большую угрозу безопасности Европы представляет деятельность различных экстремистских организаций вроде ИГИЛ и ей подобных. Миграционные процессы характеризуются несколькими аспектами: международно-политическим, внутриполитическим, экономическим, социальным, культурным и собственно уровнем безопасности. В статье делается попытка проанализировать ситуацию с разными категориями мигрантов в страны Европы из Африки и Ближнего Востока в течение последних лет, а также спрогнозировать возможные последствия тесного общения с ними украинских мигрантов.

Ключевые слова: мигранты, беженцы, ЕС, Украина.

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