The fourth session of the 13th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club titled "The world after the recent major migration", was devoted to the impact of migratory flows on international relations and the internal development of states.
One participant noted that migrations always played an important role in the history of humanity, and it would be naive to believe that they are gone away. In 1950-2015 the world population increased by 4.8 billion people (nearly threefold).
The demographic imbalance between the Global North and Global South continues to grow, causing a rapid increase in migratory pressures on the developed countries of the North and a multiplied number of international migrants. In fact, the explosion of global migration has been going on for a long time, but the experts have not paid enough attention to it because originally it was a resettlement of residents of countries with a rapidly growing population from rural areas to urban areas.
In 2008 an important event happened - the urban population exceeded the rural one and the gap continues to grow. The transformation of rural residents into urban citizens increased mobility of millions of people and the loss of traditional way of life that leads to serious social and political problems.
As one participant noted, all extremist movements, from the "Khmer Rouge" to ISIS, were established by first generation urban dwellers who broke away from the rural areas but could not assimilate in urban environment. According to him, the problems associated with mass migration lie exclusively in the countries of migrants exodus.
Another participant referred to the deep economic reasons of the mass migration. He noted in his speech that the world today has 250 million international and 750 million internal migrants. Every seventh inhabitant of the planet is migrant, and every fourth is representative of the working class. The fundamental reason for migration is, according to him, the uneven development of states associated with the domination of monopoly capital in the global economy. Migrants play a crucial role in the economies of developed countries. For example, in the US, they provide over 40% of GDP growth, and if the second and third generation migrants are included, this figure increases to 60%. However, the existing unjust capitalist system considers their position of being little more than slaves advantageous. To make migration free and voluntary, radical changes in the international economic system are needed, he added.
One more participant of the session stressed the importance of migrants in developed economies. The aging populations of developed countries, primarily Western Europe, provide the growing demand for young working population, and this need can be satisfied only through the reception of migrants. However, the related political decisions are too risky, so at the political level there are no developed procedures that would ensure an adequate implementation of this process.
Among the causes of mass migration one panelist mentioned the weakness, and in some cases, a complete collapse of states and environmental degradation. According to him, it is necessary to establish cooperation between countries providing and receiving migrants that goes beyond the classical understanding of security and takes into account social and environmental factors.
Another participant suggested moving from understanding the fundamental causes of global migration processes to the understanding the specific problems that migrant workers and their host countries are facing today. According to him, the portrait of the modern migrant should be clear: an informed person who adapts quickly to changing circumstances. The first question he asks the representatives of humanitarian organizations is "Do you have Wi-Fi?». The strength of migrants is that they think faster than the state machine, which takes time to understand the processes and decision-making, he added. According to the participant, any actions to resolve migration issues should be directed to allow the migrants to freely decide to remain in their own countries. We must forever part with the idea of getting them to stay, no amount of deterrence will work, he added.
The participant suggested a specific measure to achieve this goal, no matter how utopian it may seem at the present stage, when Syria, Afghanistan and other countries supplying immigrants to Europe are in a state of war. According to him, it is necessary to establish cooperation with local and municipal authorities which better understand what is happening than governments and non-governmental organizations. City mayors are the people who can help in understanding of the migration processes, he said, and their points of view must be heard, including at such forums as the Valdai Discussion Club.
