These mutually-enhancing
propensities are likely to yield a giant and venal welfare state with a
class of aged citizens in the core countries of the European Union
living off the toil of young, mostly Slav, laborers in its eastern
territories. This is the irony: the European Union is doomed without
enlargement. It needs these countries far more than they need it.
The strategic importance of western Europe has waned together with the
threat posed by a dilapidated Russia. Both south Europe and its
northern regions are emerging as pivotal. Enlargement would serve to
enhance the dwindling geopolitical relevance of the EU and heal some of
the multiple rifts with the USA.
But the main benefits are economic.
Faced with an inexorably ageing populace and an unsustainable system of
social welfare and retirement benefits, the EU is in dire need of young
immigrants. According to the United Nations Population Division, the EU
would need to import 1.6 million migrant workers annually to maintain
its current level of working age population. But it would need to
absorb almost 14 million new, working age, immigrants per year just to
preserve a stable ratio of workers to pensioners.
Eastern Europe - and especially central Europe - is the EU's natural
reservoir of migrant labor.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87