Interview

with Paul Stubbs, The Institute of Economics, Zagreb, Croatia on migration and Croatia Jutarnji list, 28 January 2013-01-25

1. Lately, there has been a lot of speculation about how many people left Croatia during the crisis. Do you have reliable figures and what do they tell us? If there are no figures, are their trends you can point to that would suggest the migration of some the population during the crisis. Let me first of all say that there are massive problems with standard migration statistics, not only in Croatia but in most EU countries as well. In our own study (Silva Meznari and Paul Stubbs (2012) The Social Impacts of Emigration and Rural-Urban Migration: Croatia, report for European Commission) we found that statistics on those leaving Croatia and settling in Germany are quite different on the German side and on the Croatian side. The problems are technical and I will not go into them in detail but they relate to what we define as migration and whether all emigrants actually declare themselves as such. Nevertheless, whilst there was considerable emigration from Croatia when it was part of former Yugoslavia, and there was mass forced migration during and immediately after the war events, I think we can say that in the last 10 years, migration movements, into and out of Croatia, have normalised and, on the whole, been quite low. There is little evidence that the crisis has led to any significant increase in people arriving in, returning to Croatia, or leaving Croatia. In 2010, there was a sharp reduction in recorded immigrants (down to 4,985), mainly as a result of reductions in quotas for particular jobs, but it rose again to 8,534 people in 2011. It is true that in 2011, for the third successive year, more people left Croatia than arrived, after 9 successive years in which the picture was the opposite. But, in all cases, the numbers are very small. The highest number of recorded emigrants since 2000 was in 2011, reaching 12,699, almost 3,000 more than the year before. Without more evidence, I would be reluctant to attribute this to the crisis.

It may that more would like to migrate. However, although it is true that there are networks of Croatians abroad, there is considerable limitation on labour migration and, do not forget, many neighbouring countries are also in an economic crisis. In the future, if the crisis continues and there is real recovery and a demand for labour in neighbouring countries and/or in traditional destination countries, then the situation might change. Although it is not in any way a recent phenomenon, and probably has not been made worse by the crisis, the decline in population, particularly of skilled and educated adults, in rural and isolated areas, is far more worrying for Croatias long-term development than international migration. The counties which have suffered significant decreases in population over the last 40 years are those which have the highest rates of poverty and are in the middle of vicious circle of low human capital, low investment, poor services and so on, which is likely only to increase out-migration in the future. 2. What are the experiences of other countries in Europe? In the last few years there have been some new trends? There have been suggestions that, for example, the Portuguese moved to countries such as Mozambique. It is extremely hard to generalise. The large study which I was involved in covered 25 countries in the EU, in South East Europe and the former Soviet Union. There does seem to be a general trend that those countries with lower overall GDP and/or with the greatest decline in GDP, do have a larger propensity for migration. However, I would say that the crisis has to be long-term and deep to have an impact. The phenomenon you are referring to is interesting but, so far, quite small scale. It relates to migration which is linked to the crisis in Europe on the one hand and the possibility of living and

working, or in some cases, retiring, in a former colony, where conditions are improving on the other. On the whole, though, migration is still taking predictable forms, involving different groups of workers moving in search of a better life, whether this be Latvian doctors working in Norway, Polish care workers moving to the UK, or Albanian construction workers working in Italy. Another important phenomenon is what some sociologists have called liquid or fluid migration, with people maintaining links, and moving between two or more places in a relatively short period of time whilst keeping residence in each of them. 3. Are there any assessments of what will happen after the Croatian accession to the EU? What will be the impact of the moratorium by Germany? Is it realistic to expect a greater outflow of the population, especially the highly educated? How does the Croatian situation today compare with when other new members joined the EU? There are assessments but all are really speculations. Do not forget that one of the reasons why there is now the moratorium on free movement of labour in the EU for new member states is that no one predicted the very large movements which occurred from some new member states after enlargement in 2004. There is no basis for suggesting that when Croatia joins the European Union, or when the moratoria are removed, that there will be high levels of out migration. Part of this is because there is a kind of structured immobility built in, and people are reluctant to leave without clear evidence of improving their life chances. At the same time, as your question suggests, membership of the European Union certainly opens up opportunities for highly skilled and highly educated people to work abroad. Again, though, there should be no dramatic change as most of the barriers to mobility for these groups have already been removed. We would expect more circular migration of the highly skilled and, perhaps, in specialist fields where Croatia cannot match richer EU

countries in terms of investments in research facilities, some kind of brain drain of natural scientists. Another uncertainty, of course, relates to those who may hold a Croatian passport as well as another passport from the former Yugoslavia, and whose permanent address is outside of Croatia. Some of those may take advantage of the EU passport to migrate to richer EU countries. In our study, we call for a strengthening of information and support to potential emigrants and potential returnees, as well as more opportunities for Croatians living abroad to invest in and support sustainable development in Croatia. In addition, do not forget that Croatia is an ageing population and it may well have to look, in the future, for labour from abroad, not just from neighbouring states but from further afield. 4. How could Croatia resolve the long-term negative effects of migration trends? I would say that it is negative demographic trends that need to be addressed of which negative migration trends are, really, only a small part. I have already suggested that greater attention to immigration will probably be needed, which would necessitate not only more flexible policies but, crucially, a change in cultural attitudes to foreigners and, in particular, to difference. Croatia needs to develop policies on migration which encourage circular migration; it needs to build stronger links with its neighbours to help to create regional labour markets so that shortages in one country can be met by people from neighbouring countries. There is a real need to work on this in terms f seasonal work, in agriculture and, crucially, in tourism. Croatia needs to also do much more work on different migration scenarios, as well as address the depopulation and decline of war affected, rural and isolated areas. Without much more mobility, within and outside Croatia, and without support for migrants and returnees, much of the positive effects of migration may not be realised.