Migration, money, markets and morality

Abstract

Editorial Over the last year, the pressure of economic migration and vast numbers of people on the move who have been destabilised by conflict, instability and deprivation has impacted dramatically upon Europe and particularly the European Union (EU). Pictures of drowned children washed up on beaches, boat swampings, human flotsam, dead bodies of those suffocated and rotting in trucks of those who died being smuggled into the EU from suffocation and heat exhaustion. These are not the pictures of a civilised society and show the gang masters, wretches and gangsters of society taking advantage of human desperation. A coherent policy on economic migrants and political asylum seekers for the multi-state union has shown that one policy fitting all has buckled, broke and does not work. One has to be focused on supporting the weak and the vulnerable and giving clear guidelines on the numbers and quality of migrants that are needed in an economy. This works well in Australia, Canada and New Zealand and should be adopted more widely across the EU. Conflict and instability in the Middle East is fuelling much of this migration and the search for safety by asylum seekers. The instability of Africa and the North Coast of Africa is not helping. Long-term answers and care for immediate needs must be the answer. Europe like America has benefitted from economic migration and the wonderful contributions that asylum seekers and the persecuted have made in the past. We must make policy for refugees and migrants a public affairs and policy priority. This is a general issue of the journal and shows the breadth of thinking across the discipline.