The European Union is in the midst of a controversial humanitarian and political refugee crisis. This crisis became relevant in 2015 and had persisted in significance as tensions continue to rise in the Middle East and Africa, especially in Syria. The war in Syria has forced a large portion of innocent civilians to flee the country in search of a safer life. According to Eurostat, the number of first-time asylum applicants more than doubled from 563,000 in 2014 to approximately 1.26 million in 2015. Each country in the European Union has experienced a different demand of individual’s seeking asylum. This uneven distribution of demand has caused controversy among European Union members. Not only is there an issue of the huge number of refugees applying for asylum, but also the need for relocation of refugees EU-wide. There are smaller and more isolated countries in the European Union that haven’t been hit by an overwhelming amount of asylum applications, specifically Portugal and Lithuania. The number of emigrants exceeds the number of immigrants for both of these countries, which contributes to their relative openness to accept migrants. Portugal and Lithuania have similar economic, geographic, and sociological barriers that have limited the number of asylum applicants each country has received from refugees. Despite their situation, they have willingly expressed openness to immigrant accommodation in their countries. While their precedence is, attractive and has been touted as a very generous move. Most refugees have expressed reservations in settling in these countries since they believe the economic climate is not favorable. To increase the attractiveness of these destinations, the governments of these countries should lay out a strategic settlement and employment plans to ensure that immigrants find comfort and security in these countries.
Portugal is in the south-western part of Europe, far west of the Iberian Peninsula. It is a coastal nation that borders Spain on its Northern and Eastern parts. Lithuania, on the other hand, is a small country located on the Eastern shores of the Baltic sea and is bordered by Latvia, Belarus, and Poland. In terms of popularity and preference as ideal destinations, these countries have registered an appallingly low score. It is believed that immigrants don’t really have these countries in mind when they set out for Europe in search of Asylum from their war-torn countries (Mansfield, 2016). The refugees have been known to target countries with fledgling economies representing better opportunities for improvement and employment in the future. This is believed to be the reason these regions have recorded relatively low turnout of refugees in their countries despite showing friendliness and hospitality to the refugees. Recently, Portugal and Lithuania have scaled up their openness to refugees putting up better structures to accommodate them when they arrive.
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Portugal, for instance, has been renovating various apartments and hotels to create a welcoming environment for the immigrants. Similarly, Lithuania has adopted refugee-friendly policies meant to be an act of solidarity with the European Union in their quest to resettle the hundreds of thousand refugees pouring into their borders. The plan was to share out the refugees among its member states, an initiative that both Portugal and Lithuania have taken seriously and are implementing. Out of the 160, 000 people the European Union hope to relocate, Portugal has expressed interest in taking up to 10,000 refugees into their country. Lithuania, a smaller country has also pledged to settle just over a thousand refugees in the next two years. This brings us to the underlying reasons why these countries are opening their borders to immigrants.
The population crisis has rocked the EU for a while now and continued to dog most of its member states. Immigration and acceptance of refugees have been encouraged as a way to which these countries can counter this trend. Following this recommendation, most of the smaller countries have shown willingness to take in thousands of refugees in a desperate attempt to solve their growing demography crises (EurActiv.com.,2016). It is no wonder that Portugal even has a range of empty apartments pending occupation by immigrants. Immigrants have also been known to boost economic conditions of the regions they settle in (EurActiv.com, 2016). it is believed that the strong desire to settle down, get a job and make a living makes immigrants passionate, hard workers capable of greatly improving the economic conditions of the areas they settle in. In the wake of this openness to accepting immigrants, Portugal and Lithuania have been greatly disillusioned in their noble cause. The numbers of refugees have been conspicuously low while in some cases where refugees manage to get into the country, they have left in search of greener pastures in other European countries (Mansfield, 2016).
This low turnout has been attributed to the economic prospects of these two regions. Lithuania especially has been known to have one of the lowest Gross Domestic products of the EU’s 28 member states. Estimated to be about 75% of the EU average, their gross domestic products rank as the ninth lowest in the region. Portugal has also been said to have the same economic prospects. For refugees, the grim economic prospects of these countries have been the deal breakers in their quest for better conditions. They seem to have had a list of countries they wanted to settle in before they set out on their journey to Europe. As it is, various refugees have expressed disappointment on being settled in the Iberian countries as opposed to more attractive destinations such as Germany, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, and France. And this has been seen in the sheer number of refugees hoping to settle in the central European countries. A brief comparison of the unemployment rates in Germany and Portugal gives numbers to the fear that the refugees have expressed.
Over a period of 15 years from 2000 to 2015. The unemployment rates in these two countries have changed considerably. In the early 2000s, Germany had a higher unemployment rate than Portugal giving it better prospects in terms of economic outlook. These numbers shifted over the years with Germany surpassing Portugal in the period between 200 and 2007 barely two years before the mortgage crisis of the US hit the world. ever since the unemployment rates in Germany have soared to 17.5% and settled at 12.3% recently which is still seen as a high number when compared to Germany’s just over 4.3% (Lima, 2016). These figures explain clearly the reasons why the immigrants have expressed fears in settling in Iberian countries. There is an overarching fear of suffering and possible starvation if they settle in a strange and poor country (Mansfield, 2016). The strangeness of a country has also been a factor in the low numbers. Lithuania is a mundane country which most immigrants have never heard of. Its location is also relatively hard to pinpoint on the map. When refugees have turned away from their choice destination countries and redirected to strange countries with grim economic prospects, they feel even more insecure to the point that some of them opt to return to their war-torn countries. This situation has brought about growing concerns especially on the prospects of resolving the issue of refugees in the Eurozone.
The lack of attention that is being experienced in the two countries, Portugal and Lithuania can be mitigated first by education. Educating the refugees on the resources and opportunities in destination countries will have a positive impact on the people that are willing to travel to these destinations (EurActiv.com.,2016). When immigrants see these opportunities, they will share them with their kin and thus have a snowballing effect on the numbers of people willing to settle in these areas. As time goes by this will be required if these countries genuinely are bent on giving sustainable solutions to the immigration crisis. The more economically advanced countries have been under pressure to from receiving too many immigrants forcing them to turn most of them away due to lack of facility to accommodate them (Lima, 2016). The facilities being provided by Iberian countries can be in turn put to great use by increasing interest in these seemingly unattractive destinations.
The best way to start this is to find a way to reduce the high emigration numbers in Portugal first. The country has been losing its citizens to other countries in the period following the global financial crisis (EurActiv.com.,2016). So, despite the noble cause and intent that can be seen in the desire to take in more immigrants, the destination countries such as Portugal and Lithuania should put their house in order before opening their doors to refugees.
References.
EurActiv.com. (Feb 2016). Portugal wants more refugees to help revive dwindling population. EurActiv.com. Retrieved from https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/portugal-wants-more-refugees-to-help-revive-dwindling-population/
Lima, J. (April 2016). One Nation in Europe Wants Refugees but Is Failing to Get Enough. Bloomberg. Retrieved from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-28/one-nation-in-europe-wants-refugees-but-is-failing-to-get-enough
Mansfield, K. (Nov 2016). Refugees REFUSE to live in eastern Europe: EU relocation program branded a FARCE. Express. Retrieved from http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/737356/eu-migrant-relocation-refugees-refuse-live-eastern-europe-lithuania .
