By Vestnik Kavkaza
British Prime Minister David Cameron stated that if the Conservative Party stays in power after the elections of 2015, the government will encourage a restriction of migration from Eastern Europe and potentially new members of the EU. The British population is worried that migration from Bulgaria and Romania has doubled. Since 2014 citizens of these countries will get free access to the UK, and many of them plan to move to the country for higher social benefits.
The problem of labour migration is urgent today not only for Russia, Europe, and the US. This problem is global, but countries settle the problem differently. Vladimir Volokh, the Social Council under the Federal Migration Service, urges people to stop exaggerating the situation over labour migration in Russia.
“Everyday about 11 million foreign citizens are present on the territory of Russia. And when the number is voiced, people think that it’s a lot. But an absolutely majority of these foreigners stays in Russia for a short period of time. And only 700,000 foreigners reside in the country; this is 0.5% of the whole generation of the country. 0.5% of the whole population of the country – it is the number which can be controlled. As for other foreigners who stay in Russia for medium and short terms, it is great. They are people who visit their friends and relatives, these are athletes. We know that soon the Olympic Games will take place. A lot of athletes, coaches, journalists will arrive in Russia – they are migrants as well, short-term migrants. And I believe that the fact that foreigners visit our country with short-term goals means that Russia is a powerful and attractive country.”
At the same time Volokh admitted that migration problems became tense: “Of course when a big amount of foreigners come to us to live with their families, to find a job, the process should be professionally controlled. We developed a strategy in the sphere of migration processes to 2025. The concept defines three main goals. The first goal is connected with providing national security in the migration sphere. The second goal touches on demographic situation in Russia. Our population is not growing; and natural increase is reducing; only due to migration we can stabilize our population size. And the third goal concerns encouragement of socio-economic development of the country by means of migration processes. And these goals determined directions of our work on labour migration, migration control, educational migration, and so on.”
Volokh says that there is no lack in initiatives in the sphere of migration policy: “There is plenty of proposals. Many ideas have sense and concern improvement of laws and process management. There are radical proposals which should be eliminated. But in general the majority of proposals in the sphere of migration policy are sensible.”
