ABSTRACT
International migration poses some fundamental challenges to all European societies. Western and eastern Europe, departure points for the Americas, Africa and Asia for several centuries, have, over the past 20 years, become immigration destinations themselves ( Box 11.1 ). Europeans have only recently become aware that the situation has changed; having long considered immigration as a provisional response to temporary labor bottlenecks or political crises, they are reluctant to accept it as part of their national or European identity. Immigration in Europe.
In 2000 nonnationals accounted for 5.1 per cent and non-EU nationals for 3.5 per cent of the total EU population. In the same year positive net migration (annual inflows and annual outflows) totaled 700,000 migrants (i.e., 0.2 per cent of the EU population, three-quarters of whom came from third countries).
Turkish nationals are by far the most common foreign nationality in the EU, with 2.7 million people, followed by nationals of the former Yugoslavia. The Maghreb, more specifically Morocco, is another major region of origin, with 2.3 million migrants from the region living in Europe, while sub-Saharan Africa is represented by one million and Asia by 2.2 million migrants.
Some 1.5 per cent of Europeans live in another member state of the EU, and 47 per cent of Europeans claim to know only their own mother tongue.
Asylum seekers represent 400,000 annual entries.
European enlargement in 2004 added ten more countries and another 75 million inhabitants to the European Union. The gross national product (GNP) per head of the new entrants amounts to a mere 40 per cent of that of the current member states, but only 335,000 migrants are expected (i.e., 0.1 per cent of the current EU population).
Source: European Commission (2002).