GASTARBEITER - RESCUE FROM A DEMOGRAPHIC CRISIS?

Konstantin Romodanovskiy, the head of Russia's Federal Migration Service (FMS) has come out with a very unusual plan to liberalize Russia's migration policy (a draft concept of migration policy up to 2025).

The Russian-based Kommersant newspaper concluded that the new concept is, essentially, about immigration, in other words it is actually aimed at attracting new workers from other countries, both for permanent residence and for temporary employment. The head of the FMS wants an end to the foreign workers' quota system and proposes to replace it with various programmes of short- and long-term labour migration, seasonal migration, organized selection programmes and so on.

Another major initiative is "broadening opportunities for resettlement to a permanent place of residence" i.e. abolishing the temporary residence permit (TRP).

"In order to obtain Russian citizenship, a foreigner has to go through three stages in an eight-year period: obtaining a temporary residence permit, obtaining a residence permit and, finally, obtaining citizenship, and in all three cases he has to submit the same documents. The mechanisms to determine temporary residence permits are more often than not corrupt, because one authorized person decides everything," explained Romodanovskiy.

In the new plan anyone applying for a residence permit in Russia will have to complete a form and acquire a certain number of points - for example, he will be assessed on his knowledge of Russian, his higher education, place to live, source of income and so on, something like the immigration procedures for the US or Canada.

The report explains that it was "Russia's gloomy demographic prospects" that induced the drafting of this new concept, as the country is threatened with a reduction in able-bodied people in the future. It points out that unless there is an inflow of migrants, by 2030 the population of Russia could be reduced by 9 million. According to other forecasts, by 2030 working migrants and their offspring will comprise up to 30 per cent of the Russian population. Various reports state that there are currently about 10 million gastarbeiters (foreign workers) in Russia, working mainly in the construction and public utility industries.

In view of the "prospects for the modernization of the Russian economy and the transition to innovative development scenarios", plans for the development of company towns and so on, discussed more than once by the president and prime minister, the demand for manpower must increase in Russia.

Voice of America reports the UN's prediction that over the next 40 years Russia will lose more than a million people a year and by 2050 its population, if trends continue, will be less than 100 million. Nicholas Eberstadt, an American researcher and author of 'Russia's peace-time demographic crisis', said at an international conference organized by the SAIS international studies institute that research shows that the mortality rate for able-bodied males aged 20-54 in Russia was double that of European countries. At the same time, there are only two births for every three deaths. Russia will become a country of elderly people aged 65 and over by 2030. So has the Russian FMS decided that the demographic hole in Russia, which will lead directly to holes in the economy, can only be patched up with the help of migrants? 

At the same time, one may reasonably ask - how come there is a shortage of manpower in Russia, a country with a relatively high level of unemployment? The Russian media says that in 2011 the overall level of unemployment (using the methodology of the International Labour Organization) exceeded the pre-crisis figure by 400,000 and had reached 5.7 million. The economically active population in the 15-72 age bracket increased over three years from 74.8m to 75.2m, and the level of employment fell from 66.8 to 62.7 per cent. According to Tatyana Golikova, Russian Minister of Health and Social Development, 1.6m unemployed are registered at unemployment centres. So why does Russia need so many working immigrants?

As Romodanovskiy noted, effective use of Russian manpower "is unlikely because of the low spatial mobility of the population due to low wages, a lack of housing, administrative barriers to moving and other factors". For example, Eberstadt talks about a "catastrophic depopulation of the regions of the Far East", compared with which the "Sahara could be considered a densely-populated region". "Collective farms have gone to ruin, villages are empty, people are fleeing from small towns and there is no work. It is all doom and gloom", one reader wrote on the Voice of America website.

Experts also say that in recent years Russia has faced a reduction in the number of people with higher education… At the same time, the new concept which Romodanovskiy proposes does not say exactly how many migrants Russia needs. And, of course, it says nothing about whether Russia's indigenous population will accept and absorb millions of foreigners. How does the Russian government intend to tackle demographic problems with an inflow of migrants while there is such a high level of inter-ethnic tension in the country? Or is Moscow prepared to simultaneously toughen its policy with regard to nationalists and radicals of various hues? For it is not only between ethnic Russians and labour migrants from the near abroad that there are huge socio-cultural differences - at times these also emerge between ethnic Russians and members of other Russian peoples and ethnic groups, for example, from the Russian Northern Caucasus. The average inhabitant of Moscow of Slav origin is scarcely able to tell a Chechen from, say, a Georgian, or someone from Altay from a Cossack. However, despite such problems, there is, essentially, no coordinated state policy in this sphere. The influx of migrants, despite numerous laws, is virtually unregulated. For example, it is clear that many experts and public figures in Russia believe that only those workers who can realistically be offered certain jobs should be invited into the country. It was precisely on this principle, among others, that a programme was developed to assist voluntary resettlement of compatriots to the Russian Federation; it was, frankly, a disaster. With their bureaucratic hurdles, terrible conditions and general hit-or-miss attitude, its administrators frightened away those who had no socio-cultural differences from its indigenous population, spoke excellent Russian, had a higher education and were of reproductive age. They included ethnic Russians…And so the vacuum is being filled by 'independent activity'. For example, Konstantin Poltoranin, a former representative of the Russian FMS, is confident that Russia ought not to follow the example of Western Europe in attracting migrants. In his opinion, Russia has a special way, and its relations with foreign manpower should be built "in such a way that the mixing of bloods is done correctly". In an interview with the BBC, Poltoranin said literally the following: "What is basically at stake is the survival of the white race, and this question is palpable in Russia." 

Romodanovskiy said that Poltoranin's statement "runs counter, not only to the position of the Russian state service, but also to universal principles". However, many observers believed that there was a reason why Poltoranin expressed himself at the same time as his chief who, incidentally, sacked him…

The problem of the inflow of migrants and the level of inter-ethnic tension in Russia is debated most openly on the internet - in various chat forums and blogs. Everyone, of course, remembers that during the events in Moscow last December it was the internet that became the main forum for a prompt exchange of information, urging the angry masses to go to the squares, calls for retribution and, at the same time, a site on which people try together to sort out what is happening and where one can see not just shifts of opinion, but also understand the rules and objectives of the games being played by certain political forces.

One gets the feeling that an atmosphere of inter-ethnic tension is, being specially heated up in the Russian blogosphere at the moment. For example, one aggrieved blogger writes that "Chechens beat him up on Kadyrov Street" in Moscow. Apart from a photograph showing bruises and blood there was no other evidence that he had been beaten up, never mind by Chechens. But his blog is at the top of the most popular lists. And everyone is happy to blame the 'Caucasians'. A few days earlier, one of the most popular entries on the 'Live Journal' blog-platform in Russia was one by a "girl student of the department of journalism at Moscow State University", also about a "fight between Caucasians and Slavs". According to her, the 'Slavs' were beaten up "mercilessly".

However, it appears that some people have already been able to spot the truth. For example, this was one comment: "…for some reason I am starting to get the impression that all this is a provocation to keep the people in a permanent state of nerves and to exacerbate ethnic conflicts within the country. And to be honest, I am getting fed up with it…"

Meanwhile, an official demonstration under the eloquent slogan "No more feeding the Caucasus!" was held in Moscow on 23 April. The participants' main demand was to "stop the uncontrolled excess funding of the North Caucasian republics, which is encouraging the corruption and impunity of the local elite". About 500 people - mainly students and school pupils, as well as various party activists, for example the leader of the LDPR - decided to tell the authorities that they were fed up with the 'asymmetric federation' and the 'privileged status' of the ethnic republics and the 'lawlessness' of Russia's regions. The meeting was organized by the little known 'Russian Civic Union' movement.

'Kommersant' also recently published the results of research on 'Inter-ethnic intolerance among urban youth', carried out by the 'Politekh' agency of social technology, in conjunction with the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, by instruction of the Russian Social Chamber in the wake of the events in Moscow's Manezh Square in December. Some 1,600 people aged 15-30 in Moscow, St.Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Nizhniy Novgorod, Novosibirsk and Chelyabinsk were questioned. Some 78 per cent of them described the events in Manezh not as a nationalist demonstration, but as a protest about corruption and so-called ethnic crime (58 per cent). The activities of the Movement Against Illegal Immigration (MAII) won the approval of 32 per cent. And hardly any of those questioned doubted that there would be a repeat somewhere of the December events in Manezh Square.

Clearly, there is no special need to get people onto the streets of the Russian capital shouting nationalist slogans. Perhaps some people will make a special effort to play the Caucasus card in the run-up to the very intriguing presidential and parliamentary elections in Russia? In Europe, where the collapse of multiculturalism is the subject of stormy debate, and which fears a flood of migrants from North Africa, a number of political careers will most surely now be forged. On the other hand, as is evident from what has been said, the situation is more confused in Russia than in any EU country. That means there is huge scope for initiatives, both from the authorities and the opposition. For example, 'lightning rods' for urgent social and economic problems have never bothered the Kremlin. That said, it was certainly no accident that the "No more feeding the Caucasus!" demonstration was suddenly supported by Aleksey Navalnyy, the well-known 'opponent of partition', on his blog…

There is clearly much to ponder here, because the 'Caucasus' and 'migrants' issues are so 'flexible' in Russia that each easily binds to its 'sphere of interests' nationalism, the fight against corruption, sham patriotism and so on. The one thing one should never forget is that such games can easily get out of control.