By Vestnik Kavkaza
When the association agreement and the free trade area with the EU is signed, Ukraine will benefit in the sphere of labour migration. This is an opinion of the deputy head of the department for organization and support for retail business Ukreksimbank, Andrey Gaydutsky. “Due to our migrants who are already present in the EU and will go there after liberalization of the visa regime, Ukraine’s adaptation and integration in the direction will be quicker,” Gaydutsky thinks. “Ukraine should pay attention to the organization of the labour migration process in all direction: from a support in entrance to recommendations on investing money in motherland.”
Russia has different migration problems which are not settled effectively. Yesterday the Moscow police detained more than 600 people during a wide-scale inspection at the ‘Sadovod’ market. The Ministry of Education wants to replace the Russian language exam for labour migrants by a simpler variant of the USE. Experts believe that this measure can lead to a growth of corruption in the process of checking migrants’ knowledge. However, Russia still has no complex approaches to optimization of foreign labour force.
“Our population demands purely prohibitive measures which are not effective,” Yevgeny Tarlo, member of the Committee of the Council of Federation on Economic Policy, states. “It is an illusion that the majority of migrants steal the jobs of Russian citizens, I mean external migration. It is an illusion that we will manage to fill jobs of builders, road workers, dishwashers, milkmaids, crop growers and many others, if we today restrict the number of migrants.”
Tarlo doesn’t think that migration problems come from 'evil' businessmen wanting to save money and find a cheap labour force: “It is simplification. First of all we should distinguish between a criminal problem and an economic problem. If we want to solve it, we should have the same number of native citizens who are ready to work at horticultural markets under the same economic conditions. I don’t think we have them. It will lead to an increase of working expenses, including expenses on salary; indirectly it includes the fund payments, expenses on accommodation, utility payments and so on – all these moments will be reflected in producing costs. So, I don’t see an opportunity to replace this huge number of migrants at our constructions and our hard and dirty works.”
“We have planned to build new Moscow. I don’t think that people who live in the center of Moscow or even in Moscow bedroom districts will build the new Moscow, will be workers: welders, crane operators – these jobs require skills; but there are less skilled jobs – concrete workers, unskilled workers, loaders. I doubt we have such a reserve. So, when we start such big construction project or we want to provide Moscow with food, we should think over who will work at constructions, roads, horticultural markets. We have to face the problem. We have to solve the problem and first of all we need legalization. I think the germ of the problem’s settlement is in simplification of migrants’ legalization,” Tarlo says.
He points at Western Europe and the U.S.A. “The police system is more effective there. Nevertheless, there are hundred thousands of illegal migrants in Europe and America, I don’t mention legal migrants. Many of you have visited Paris and have seen these districts around the center. Probably the majority of migrants living there are legal, but military activities in Libya, the breakdown in Somali cause huge, enormous illegal migration. It is a huge problem for Italy, for instance. They are separated by the sea. We have no guarded borders which we could close for the countries where the labour force inflow comes from. Our borders are open. Israel built a fence which separates it from Egypt. It cost billions, but the country is tiny. And you know migrants dig tunnels. We cannot build such a fence and separate ourselves from neighboring countries.”
Tarlo says that “we shouldn’t forget an important thing: we were born in one country and we still have a common language for communication. We still have common grounds of our cultures, including such distant countries as Kyrgyzstan, for example. They are still striving to come to us. What will happen, if we break this down? I don’t think Russian citizens’ security will be improved by this. Life shows that it will be vice versa. Our borders will continue to drain. Any instability in neighboring countries will cause strongest migration. And due to humanitarian norms, historic ties, and geopolitical problems, we will have to provide refugees with support; we will have to welcome these migrants.”`
