Europe's Implosion

When Europeans speak of integration, they are usually referring to nations, not immigrants; political entities, not individuals. Last Saturday, the European Union celebrated the integration of 10 new countries into what is now the largest trading bloc in the world. From Ljubljana to Lisbon, officials heralded a new era of peaceful and prosperous international cooperation. But if Europe is to continue to thrive, Europeans must begin to understand integration in a whole new way.

In a word, Europe is imploding. With their aging populations and declining birthrates, the nations of the EU have been forced to look beyond their borders to build a labor force large enough to sustain long-term economic growth. In the 1990s, an average of 857,000 immigrants a year changed the face of the original 15 nations in the EU, and the migration will continue.

Italy, for example, has the dubious distinction of having both the oldest population and the lowest birthrate in the world. Without immigrants, its population will shrink from 57 million today to 41 million in 2050. In Germany, the EU's largest nation, the number of senior citizens is projected to increase by 50% over the next three decades. A 2000 study by the United Nations concluded that if Germany did not accept 500,000 immigrants a year, it would have to raise its retirement age to 77 in order to have enough workers to finance pensions for the elderly.

A recent poll commissioned by the European Commission revealed that although 56% of Europeans understood the need for more immigrant labor, 80% favored more stringent immigration laws. Part of the problem is that most Europeans, with the exception of the British and the French, cannot grasp the idea of assimilation, the process by which "they" become "us." There is no civic myth -- like the U.S. "melting pot" -- that would enable them to envision unity in diversity. Nor is there an acceptance that minority and majority cultures can converge and influence one another. Immigrants are often seen as threats to social stability and national identity.

Until four years ago, for example, German naturalization law was based on blood rather than soil. A Russian-speaking ethnic German from Kazakhstan could automatically acquire German citizenship, but a German-born child of long-established Turkish immigrants could not. Now that the law has changed, Germans have only begun to expand the idea of "Germanness." The press uses such clumsy phrases as "Turkish co-citizens" and "Turks with German citizenship" to describe their new compatriots.