Analysis: US-EU split over migrants

Migrant workers are high on President Fox's agenda

By BBC world affairs correspondent William Horsley

While Mexico's President Vicente Fox is in Washington this week, he and US President George W Bush are expected to announce their agreement on plans for liberalising American laws.

This is intended to give amnesties to many illegal Mexican immigrants and make it easier for Mexicans to get work in the US.

The main lesson may be that immigrant workers, even largely unskilled, can greatly boost economic growth

The European Union faces challenges very like those of the US over immigration policy.

It has set itself the target of overtaking the United States in the next ten years as the world's most dynamic economic area.

New immigration

But the Mexican president's visit to Washington may well show that the US is ahead of western Europe in accepting the need for substantial new immigration, for both economic and social reasons.

President Bush has been much criticised in Europe for his America-first way of doing things.

But he has shown an open mind in discussing immigration with Mexico.

The signs are that during President Fox's visit he will unveil plans for changing US laws, so that over the next few years many illegal Mexican immigrants will be given the right to stay, and Mexican workers will be allowed to take more jobs in the US.

In addition, more aid will go to help Mexico's own economic development.

Traditions

The European Union, which lacks the immigrant traditions of North America, has been struggling in the past decade to respond to migration pressures which are now just as large as those faced by the USA.

Europe is facing waves of new immigrants

Recently the European Commission announced its support for measures to make it easier for immigrants to fill jobs as needed.

But change will be slow because real policy decisions still lie with individual member-states.

So European leaders may have something to learn from this American pragmatism.

The main lessons may be that immigrants, even largely unskilled, can greatly boost economic growth.

So immigration can be an opportunity as well as a problem.

Contrasts

The US has the ability to decide and enact one policy across the whole country.

In the EU by contrast some countries, like Italy, Spain and Portugal, are accepting substantial numbers of immigrants because their industries need the manpower.

Others, like Germany and France, want strictly to limit immigration to workers in fields where particular skills are needed.

Yet many experts say western Europe, with its fast-ageing populations and falling birthrates, needs to evolve a radical new approach - one in some respects matching what the United States has always had.

This would mean letting in a steady flow of immigrants, who help to ensure the dynamism and diversity for which the United States is known.