Documents and analysis on migration

Gabriel Badescu Romanian labor migration and citizenship

National surveys conducted between 2002 and 2004 show the proportion of migrants is close to 5% (0.8-0.9 millions). We do not know from these data what is the total proportion of Romanians who are or have been migrants, only that their number could be significantly higher than one million. It is worth to notice that the proportion of people who are directly affected by labor migration is much higher, given the fact that 17% (about 3 millions) of the Romanian adults declare (in October 2002) that someone from their household worked abroad.

Labor migration from post-communist countries has been investigated mostly from the point of view of economic outcomes. This study focuses on the effects of migration on political culture and on civic activism ... At one positive extreme, there is the case of migrant communities who got the right to elect their own representatives (such as for local council in Rome, where a Romanian immigrant was elected). At the negative extreme, migrants are most often exposed to situations that decrease their trust and desire to get involved politically. They face hostile authorities, sometimes unsympathetic local population and unfriendly co-workers. There are many stories with employers hiring illegal migrants and refusing to pay afterwards the promised amount. Because migrants experience separation from the rest of the population, they are less trusting of authorities and more accustomed to rely on informal networks.

The proportion of those who worked abroad and declare that speak a foreign language at a good or very good level is surprisingly low, 19% (Table 4). Some of them are probably speaking a language that was not helpful in the country they worked (e.g. German in Italy). So, more than 80% worked abroad without speaking the local language.

When age is taken into account, an interesting dynamic of the relationship between migration on the one side, generalized trust and optimism on the other side, can be noticed (Figure 2). Younger people who worked abroad show less social trust than younger people who were not labor migrants. People in their forties who worked abroad are much more trusting than the rest of the population, irrespective of age and migrant status.

The analyses in this paper tried to provide an answer to the question of the influence of migration on civic activism, based on a pooled sample of 11221 cases. One of the general finding of this study is that migrants are no better or worse than others with respect of most measures of political culture. Neither bad experiences, which are very common as we know from qualitative studies on communities of East European migrants living in Western countries, nor positive ones, expected by many policy makers and political commentators do not seem to leave a significant mark on former migrants' political views. The fact that most of the migrants do not speak a foreign language makes the "no effect hypothesis" entirely plausible. However, there are several important differences that may be attributed to labor migration. Optimism and social trust, two attributes that are central for the social capital theories of civic engagement, are higher for migrants in their forties and fifties than for other people. These results are consistent with the fact that at least in the case of people longer exposure to labor migration significant change in attitudes and norms that facilitate success of collective action can be observed.

Ana Bleahu, Institute for Quality of Life, Romanian Academy, Bucharest Romanian migration to Spain: Motivation, networks and strategies

Romania is a “peasantry country” – more than 47% people live in countryside. The rural Romania is characterized by a high rate of un- and under-employment, survival agriculture, low level of education and health services, informal activities, return migration from urban to rural, less livelihood diversification and poverty. In official statistics the working population from rural consists of 5.6 millions of people; approximately 4.1 million are people who work in agriculture, 98% from these in private agriculture and just 1% from these are wage earners (80,000 persons). Most of the people in rural Romania areas are familial unpaid workers. That means that in fact they don’t have any kind of financial resources, so they may be considered as belonging to unemployed category. “Officially, just 2% are considered unemployed but in fact 90% is unemployed. So, a lot of people from rural Romanians areas choose to emigrate.

There are different motivations and explanatory factors in the light of major theories of international migration. A lot of studies on migrants stress the importance of economic aspects in building a sustainable motivation for emigration – cost-benefit theories which assume that migration occurs from labor abundant to labor scarce countries (as the supply and demand of labor market related to wage differences). Other macro theories emphasize the role of relations at international level, (such as world system theories advanced by Wallernstein), which explain international migration through the penetration of capitalist economic relation into peripheral non-capitalist societies and its disruptive consequences which create a mobile population prone to migrate. The newest micro theories introduce elements such as (1) prestige and status - migrants maintain links with the society of origin from which they derive their status, (2) the role of household or extended family in the process of initiation and perpetuation of migration, (3) or the spatial aspects or the selectivity of migrants (age, education, occupation, family status, home ownership, race, ethnic origin).

Most migrants begin as target earners, seeking to earn money for specific goals that will improve their status or well-being at home – building a house, paying for school, buying land, acquiring consumer.

“I left [Romania] because it was impossible to have a house of my own there. If I had a place to live there, a point to start, I wouldn’t have gone. My wife and I had been working for more than 5 years in the best factories in town. Our situation was way beyond average. But still we had no access to a place of our own. We used to live in a rented room belonging to the factory.” (man, age 31)

On the other hand the motivations for circulatory migration and definitive migration are very different. At the beginning the motivation was clearly definite, but during time the relationship became more complex.

“My husband came first, because we couldn’t make the ends meet although he worked for an employer in Romania. We didn’t want to settle here until 4 months ago. All we thought about was to send money for the children. Now the children are here. We said to ourselves, let’s stay a few years and then we will go back. But now I don’t think we will ever go back…maybe only us… not the children. We don’t know what the future will be like.” (woman, age 33)

Other motivations for migration are likely to include laws and policy in both countries, though the information about these is sometimes inaccurate:

“I have chosen Spain because I learned that it was the only country in Europe where in a few months I could get a permit to stay until a court sentence would be issued either to grant me residency or to expel me. The Roma people I came with declared that they are persecuted in Romania because of their ethnic origin.” (man, age 29)

“They come to Spain because they are not informed. They have received a fake phone number to call when they get here, and so they arrive and sleep in the streets, in the railway stations. The little money they had is spent. 5-10 Romanians come every Sunday to our association with the same story.” (Leader of Romanian Migrants Association, Barcelona)

Some migrants come because they consider the Romanian business environment to be very corrupt, inefficient and restrictive, especially small entrepreneurs in Romania.

“I used to have a counter in the market in Romania. I worked there from morning till night and barely earn enough to live, my wife and me.” (man, age 34)

“I had a firm in Romania, 2 cars and a house. Here I have an 8 hours/day job and a motorcycle, but I wouldn’t change my life here with the one I had in Romania. All day long I had to bribe to make things work. I had no time for my family, for the children. Here I have a normal life, I am more relaxed.” (man, age 40)

“I used to have a shop in Romania, I sold it and I came here with my two children. A person of good faith wasn’t allowed to make money back there. Everybody expected a bribe, the police, the mayor, the health department, and the tax collectors.” (man, age 31)

“The health system is weak, all corrupted. In Romania all is arranged if you have the money, it is corruption everywhere. If you receive a ticket but you know somebody, you will get away with it.” (man, age 33)

“After the revolution, we waited for 10 year to see something changing. I was 20 back then, now I am 30 and I achieved nothing, I wasn’t able even to earn enough for the daily living. In Romania, one can achieve something only if he steals, sells drugs, from prostitution, or if he works for the government – people with nothing sacred. We, who are Christian people, we cannot.” (man, age 30)

Migrants find a lot of irregularities on the labor market on the receiving countries, but sometimes these are more acceptable when compared to the conditions in Romania. The most frequent situations are: (1) First, very often they don’t have the work permits and they work on the black market, without any official instruments to constrain the employers to respect the work contract, but still they agree to work because they receive a lot of money comparing with the country of origin. (“We work as slaves from dawn to dusk for a few pennies, but anyway it’s more than we could earn in our native country.”(woman, age 27); (2) In a second phase they have the correct documents, official work contract and they accept to work even though they feel they are discriminated (“you can see it in their [Spanish workers’ and employers’] eyes that they don’t consider you an equal”, man, age 35)

The movement of capital, goods, and information, however, has been liberalized to a larger extent than the movement of people, whose mobility continues to be heavily regulated. While national borders are being constantly crises-crossed by processes of communication and exchange, the actual bodily movement of people remains restricted. During the years the restrictive policies transformed Europe in a real “fortress”. Conventional wisdom holds that in liberal industrialized countries, times of economic recession and high unemployment create pressures for restrictive immigration legislation, proposals which will be supported by trade unions as a means of safeguarding their interests. In fact there are two levels of opposite interests of two important actors: the states and the labor market. The state organizations want to keep the control of border while the labor market, which has its free rules and mechanisms, push up in order to attract young, qualified brainworkers or black collar migrants.

In central rural Europe (like Romanian rural areas), there is a relatively low political, social and economic activity among inhabitants, low percentage of people belongs to formal organizations. Most rural inhabitants do not trust political, administrative, or economic institutions and feel they have no influence on the course of events in their own country. When the institutions of the state – industrial protections, separate workplaces, regulated markets and a tightly organized agricultural system – collapsed, what was left was this private, invisible or hidden world. Both these factors (the restrictive legislation and the withdrawal of the state in Eastern Europe) create the condition for the emergence of a lot of informal or illegal channels which adapt themselves to the migration phenomenon. Recent studies on migration emphasize the centrality of family and kin networks in migration decision and behavior.

Between 1990 and 2002 the Romanian border was closed, the legislation permitted to Romanian citizens to enter in European Union countries only with a visa. Social actors invented alternative and informal institutions in order to follow their interest, like illegal border crossing or buying a Shengen visa on the black market. During this time Romanian migration networks had three important kinds of flows: information flow, money flow and people flow. The first role of these networks was to inform people from Romania about the migration strategies. The second major role was to support with money and advices the newcomers. The third aspects is that the pioneers of migration – those who already have “targetas por residencia y trabajos” assured the newcomers places for living and introduced them to the black labor market.

After 2002, after the liberalization of the borders, this network became weak and faced helpless huge mass of Romanian migration. The tendency was to become more selective and more impermeable for most of the new migrants. The core of each network is a pioneer, because only he has the legal condition for renting an apartment. So, a few months after liberalization, a lot of Romanians lived in crowded apartments, three or four families, more than 10 persons in two or three rooms. Therefore the network became saturated and the tendency was to reduce itself, to become more family oriented, to close for the latest migrants. The consequences were that they suspended a part of remittances for Romania and began to decline their open attitude for the sending communities.

It is a well-known fact in migration theory that there is a mismatch between the official labor market policies and realities. In Spain, the state policies forbid the economic agents to use illegal migrants. During the years there were a few regularizations that granted the enactment of „Ley de Extranjeria” (Ley Organica 7/85): in 1995 (44000 illegal immigrants were regularized), in 1996 (around 14000 illegal immigrants were regularized), in 2000 (116,000 illegal immigrants were regularized). The demand, especially in construction, for qualified and cheaper black collar migrants put a constant pressure on the “comunidades autónomas y las organizaciones sindicales y empresariales” to raise the number of legal migrants. “The employers are very happy with the arrival of the migrants. We are a work force easy to handle and manipulate, because we accept any condition of work, we accept long hours and low wages. The like us.” (man, age 34)

The main strategies for finding a job are: legal Romanian workers who recommend their relatives or friends, or through official agencies, or through religious groups, or by approaching a Spanish person on the street or in shops, starting a spontaneous dialog asking for work. Because foreigners are more highly concentrated in Spain and this has also led to the growth of mafialike structures of authority which control access to work.

“There was a gang of gypsies from Bucharest. They had papers, they came many years before, and they would take advantage of people like me. They would find jobs for us, take us there by car and drive us back at night. We couldn’t work on our own. We wouldn’t be able to work on our own. All the Romanians there did it. And the police knew. We paid them, not a percentage; we were forced to pay them. About a quarter of one day’s earnings would go the gang.” (man, age 28)

“These young girls or the younger kids going blindly in Spain are usually taken by the gangs from Romania and forced to steal or to prostitute. Some of them begin to sell drugs. One guy from my village sent his brother home because he had begun to sell drugs. From what I heard, he also started to consume.” (man, age 33)

A job in Spain is not perceived as low status, no matter what kind of job it is, because the migrant does not see himself as being a part of the receiving society. Rather he sees himself as a member of his home community. At individual level, migration means for most of the people extreme experiences, irreversible decisions, important trauma like departure from the loved ones, unfamiliar culture, climate, and religion, combined with the usual conditions for migrant labor, namely racial, ethnic, and other forms of discrimination, and xenophobic attitudes in receiving countries. In Spain there are “social voices” (like the Association of Romanians from Barcelona and the Association of Employers from Catalonia) that begin to rise asking for the legalization of migration. A policy adapted to the new realities is needed both in the country of origin and the target country.

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Eugeniu Burdelnii New Guidelines for East-West European Migration ... the Republic of Moldova

[This article reviews migration trends in Europe in the light of European Union’s “Wider Europe – Neighborhood” policy concept, focusing on Moldova (most of the migrants from Moldova are working in Russia or in Italy). But there are some useful general statistics about migration during the last decade...]

In spite of the fact that the mass movement of people at long distances had been an inseparable characteristic of the historic development of mankind, the real migration boom began only with the end of the Cold War, the beginning of formation of a new world order. The collapse of the former Soviet block, the failure of the regime of apartheid in South Africa, the outbreak of civil wars and of local and regional conflicts, continuous famine, extreme poverty and economic collapse in many countries of the world, particularly on the African continent, rapid economic development of a number of Asian countries, the replacement of many regimes in Latin America by governments depending on external financing, the extension of the process of economic and political integration in Europe – all these factors led to unprecedented scales of world mass movement of people. According to the recent findings of specialists, there are approximately 120 million international migrants in the world, which makes up almost 2 per cent of the world population (Castles, Miller 1998: 5). In spite of the fact that the figure does not seem significant on the global scale, the influence of transnational and interregional migration on the new global architecture is immense. Migration is also becoming increasingly feminized – in the past men made the majority of labor migrants, but beginning with 1960s this tendency has gradually begun to change.

One of the most important reasons for labor migration is disparity in the level of development between countries not only in the European context but on the world scale as well. It is completely proved by statistics and concentration of modern migration flows along the line “South” – “North”. Thus, in 1993 the number of absolutely poor people in the world made up 1,3 billion, approximately 800 million people suffer from malnutrition. The income of 5% of the richest people of the world exceeds the income of 5% of the poorest people in 114 times. The proportion of income of the United Kingdom to Bangladesh is 100:1. A girl born in Japan has 50% chance to live in the XXII century, while her peer in Afghanistan - one chance in four to die before she is 5. In the second half of 1980s 30-32 million people all over the world died of famine, at the beginning of 1990s – 40 million, in 2000 – 80 million children died before they reached the age of 16. In the world the gap in incomes of the poor and the rich has doubled for the last 30 years. For many countries of the world mass migration is the manifestation of different aspects of social and economic crisis that accompany their effort to integrate in the globalizing world market.

Today, more than 21.5 million foreigners live in the 25 member or acceding states of the EU and represent roughly 5.2% of the population. In absolute terms, the principal host countries are Germany, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Relative to their population size, however, Luxembourg, Germany, Sweden and Austria have the highest percentage of immigrants relative to the native born population (NATO PA, Sub- Committee on transatlantic economic relations, draft report: 2004). New members of the EU are the poorest in the union. An average level of GDP per capita makes up 47% of the index of 15 old members of the EU. While the population of the European Union grew by 20%, the total GDP increased by 4%. In the past even poor, in terms of European measures, countries were relatively richer. Thus, in1973 at those time poor Ireland joined the EU with the GDP that made up 60% of the average EU GDP. Currently Latvia and Lithuania with 40% GPD per capita became members of the EU (?oksharov et al 2004: 4). And the newest members are getting less than equal treatment. In the European Union the apportioned funds are of a very contradictory character. In the following years Polish or Hungarian farmers will get only the quarter of the agrarian subsidies that farmers in France or Spain are getting. The freshmen of the EU will not get a lot from the structural funds - it is 10 times less per capita than per capita in Spain or Portugal. The lack of agrarian subsidies can have negative results on their agriculture. For example, in Poland the agrarian sector involves 27% of the employed. The crisis in this sector can lead to the fact that Polish farmers will increase the rate of unemployment that makes up 17,5% of the population able to work (?oksharov et al 2004: 4). According to the estimates of research center Economist Intelligence Unit, the process of measuring up with their European neighbors will take Cyprus - 20years, Estonia - 30 years, Slovenia - 30 years, Malta - 35 years, Hungary - 35 years, Slovakia - 35-45 years, Czechia - 35-40 years, Lithuania - 50 years, Latvia - 55 years, Poland 55 years, Bulgaria – 65 years (on the condition that it will become the EU member), Romania – 80 years (on the condition that it will become the EU member) (?oksharov et al 2004: 4).

In the middle of 1990s there were 30 million labour immigrants who sent approximately US$67 billion to the countries of their origin annually (Castles, Miller 1998: 5). Remittances are funds immigrants or naturalized citizens earn in host countries and then repatriate to their country of origin. They have become one of the most important sources of foreign exchange for poor countries (twice the amount of foreign aid in 2001). According to the data of IMF, the portion of money transfers, for example in the Republic of Moldova, made US$320 in 2003 or 17% of GDP. The experts of IMF arrive at the idea that annual volume of transfers will soon reach US$600 million or 31%of GDP.

According to the IOM report about 600 000 citizens of Moldova work abroad. In data of the IMF, referring to the Department of Migration in Moldova, at least 240 000 citizen of the Republic of Moldova are employed as unskilled labor force in the Russian Federation, while the maximum figure can reach 270 000 people. According to this very source, 150 000 people work in Italy, 40 000 in Czechia, 30 000 in Portugal, 20 000–50 000 in Turkey, 20 000 in Spain, France, Israel (Argumenty i facty 2004: 3) About 100-200 villagers in every village of Moldova work abroad. There is only half of the population left in some of the regions. Unfortunately, the tendency to mass exodus has recently stabilized at a constant level. From the data of the Department on the Development of Tourism 10 000 people monthly go on tours, but they do not come back, they turn into illegal “gastarbeiters”.

Jonathan Chaloff, Fondazione Censis, Rome Current Research into Education for Immigrants in Italy

Immigration is a recent phenomenon in Italy. Net migration became positive in 1974 and increased sharply starting in 1990. The foreign presence in Italy, once mostly visitors from other developed countries or Church-related visitors, has become much more similar to the labour migration and settlement in other European countries. In 1998, outgoing remittances surpassed incoming remittances for the first time, and Italy surpassed France to become the number two European country, after Germany, in terms of numbers of new immigrants received.

Most of these immigrants were single and young, and the gender composition of each nationality tended to be sharply imbalanced according to the sector of the labour market into which they migrated (Filipinos were predominantly women in domestic care, and Moroccans were almost all men in manual labour). The last few years have seen a sharp rise both in the number of married immigrants and the number of requests for family reunification. This has led to lesser gender imbalance within single nationalities and a rise in the number of foreign children born in Italy. In some cities, such as Milan, 10% of the births in 1997 were to non-citizens. There are now almost 200,000 foreign minors in Italy, and at least 50,000 Italian minors of immigrant origin.

The rise in immigration and the presence of foreigners takes place in a context of sharp demographic decline. The Italian fertility rate has been about 1.2, the lowest in the world, for more than a decade, and the population is now in decline (at a rate of 0.1% annually). Demographers predict that the population will drop by about 5.3% in the next two decades, with the segment under 20 years old dropping by an astonishing 32.3%. This means that the current presence of immigrants, about 2.2% of the population, at the current rate of immigration, will triple to about 6.2% in 20 years. Among the under-20 population, immigrants should make up about 7.7% of the overall population.

Italians continue to use “foreigner” (straniero) and “immigrant” (immigrato) interchangeably. Although free use is made of terms such as multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial, without much attention to the meaning of these terms. The primary term used by Italians to refer to immigrants from developing countries is extracomunitario, which means a citizen from outside the European Union. Although used in statistics and policy to refer to citizens from Switzerland, Senegal, the USA and China without distinction, in public discourse it means immigrants from poorer countries, without distinguishing skin color or religion.This distinction is important because Italy does not have ethnic minorities, but rather immigrants. Citizenship is rarely granted to foreigners (of the circa 9000 citizenships granted in 1998, almost 90% were to foreign adults who married Italian citizens), and children of immigrant origin are considered non-Italian regardless of their citizenship status.

The immigrant population in Italy has risen sharply, followed by a sharp rise in school population. In contrast to other European countries, the immigrant population comes from all continents. The two largest school populations are Moroccans (17.7%) and Albanians (15.8%); in more general terms, the largest populations are from North Africa (22.3%), East Europe excluding Albania (21%), and South America (8.2%). Within the country, migratory chains have led to concentration of certain nationalities in specific regions: Moroccans in the industrial north, Chinese in the area around Florence and Prato, Senegalese in the small cities of the North East. Nonetheless, it is impossible to find schools where a single immigrant population represents more than 15% of the school population. These children are not only entitled to school enrollment but required to do so. Of course, effective access is not the same for children of immigrants as it is for native Italians. Much depends on a specific school’s experience with absorbing newly arrived children.

The increased presence of immigrants has had an impact on the educational system. At the moment, the primary challenge presented by these incoming students is language-related: Italian as a second language was never part of teaching or training, nor were there any IL2 textbooks or guidebooks. While language acquisition remains the priority for both students and teachers, the rising presence of incoming students from other cultures also caused the appearance of “interculturalism” as a priority in teaching and in training teachers. In the course of the Child Immigration Project, a 3-year, 7-country interdisciplinary research project funded in part by the European Commission DGXII Targeted Socioeconomic Research (TSER), the situation of minors of immigrant origin in Italy was considered, with special attention to their presence in the schools and the strategies implemented at a local level.

The current priority stated by teachers and teaching personnel is to reach the point where they are capable of supporting the insertion and participation of new immigrant children in the classroom. A study conducted in Lombardy in 1994 by the regional IRRSAE identified four “teaching styles” in dealing with newly arrived children from other cultures: resistance and minimal acceptance of the student’s presence; an attempt to meet the student’s needs without awareness of the specificity of the student and the need to change teaching practice; affectionate welcome and a protective stance towards the student, but without an awareness of the specific linguistic and cognitive needs of the student; and recognition of cultural, developmental, and social differences, on which both the treatment and educational programme for the child must be based. The first two styles were more common in middle and secondary schools, while nursery and elementary schools were more caring or intercultural.

In 1993, with support from the Ministry of Education, a comprehensive analysis of textbooks was conducted. Non-Western societies were found to be represented as “primitive”, with very little detail offered as to their cultural content or the specifics of their practices. The textbooks examined included not only history and geography texts but also grammars, anthologies, readers, and art books, where superficial treatment of other cultures was found. While elementary school texts were often rich in images of other cultures, the images often lacked explanatory text or even titles. Where non-Western cultures were presented in detail, the information was often confusing, difficult to interpret, and without clues on how to find out more. The 1993 analysis was repeated in 1999. In the meanwhile, textbooks started to problematize the issue, and use such phrases as “our society is heading towards becoming a multiethnic society (composed of people of different races) just like the USA”. Immigrants are recognized as present in Italian society but only as “those who are most needy” or “those forced by poverty to leave their homes”. One 1996 elementary school text, assigns, as an issue for discussion: "Europe has become a destination highly sought after by immigrants. The European peoples have to deal with different races and cultures. AND YOU? How do you behave towards children of other races that you know? How can you deal with each other and affect each other reciprocally and pacifically?" Aside from the terminology, one wonders how the “children of other races” answer this question. In fact, not a single textbook seems to have recognized the possibility that “children of other races” are using the same text in Italian schools, and immigrant children are singled out by diffent texts. The standard texts reveal a lack of inclusion of immigrant children. Further, some Islamic associations have launched campaigns to modify textbooks covering the Crusades or describing Islam.

[The rest of the article is very long, detailed analysis of schools, so I skip it, but the following table is useful]

Communities by Enrollment in All School Levels, 1997-1999

Nationality 1997-8 1998-9

Morocco 11086 15133 Albania 8312 13551 China 4178 6148 F.Yugoslavia 5263 5443 Peru 1691 2663 Romania 1408 2299 Philippines 1274 2216 Macedonia 1307 2057 Bosnia-H. 1754 2052 Egypt 1447 1919 India 1138 1693 Tunisia 1115 1652 Ghana 1189 1539 Poland 1121 1525 Brazil 1084 1382 Croatia 1074 1360 USA 1077 1035 Germany 864 954 Russia 637 923 Sri Lanka 483 887

Total top 20 nationalities 47502 66431

Ecuador 540 815 Pakistan 426 809 Columbia 510 759 Nigeria 559 743 DominicanR 532 701 Argentina 563 620 France 572 580 Turkey 470 575 Somalia 491 521 Ivory Coast 269 474 Bangladesh 182 425

Total top 31 nationalities 52616 73453

Total enrollment 63199 85522

Florentina Constantin Migrating or Commuting? The Case of Romanian Workers in Italy

The research was conducted in Venice in the months of June and July of 2003 and aimed at documenting the life and activities of Romanians in Italy; their reasons for coming to Italy; their conditions of stay and work; and intentions of Romanian workers active in the Venice area. The analysis comprised a series of semi-structured in-depth interviews, supported by informal discussions and direct observation. Focusing on the case of Romanian workers in Italy, I intend to challenge the traditional approach towards migration in the European Union. When analysing the situation of Romanian workers, the term "migration" becomes more and more inadequate in addressing the problem of migrant workers in the EU. Instead, I will make use of the more specific term "commuting", which international organisations and academic literature have previously used to describe short-term labour migration. Short term labour migrants do not remain in the country for long, they may come on a seasonal basis for short periods of time to work either legally on contracts or illegally as tourists. If migration in modern society is seen as a form of geographical mobility, which aims at the (re)inclusion into the functional subsystems of the economy, law, politics, health or education and their organisations at a different place, labour commuting, quite to the contrary, does not lead to inclusion and integration in different spheres of the host society.

In 1997-1998, Italy gradually becoming the leading destination of Romanian labor migration. According to the preliminary data of a survey conducted by the Centre for Regional and Urban Sociology (CURS), in April 2003 almost one million Romanians were at work abroad, legally or illegally. The poll showed that in 12 percent of Romanian households at least one member of a household had gone abroad to work, legally or otherwise, as of April 2003. Annual capital entries in Romania, as a result of Romanian workers' remittances, were estimated at approximately 2 billion euro for 2003, while the Romanian National Bank confirmed a similar estimate in 2002 as well. At present, the region of Moldavia (the poorest and most rural region in Romania) provides the biggest flow of international migration from Romania to Italy.

Several advantages favour a massive movement of Romanians to Italy, as opposed to other European Union countries, in search of work. First, is the lack of a language barrier. The similarity between the Italian and Romanian languages makes it possible for even someone with a low education level to assimilate basic knowledge of the language within a matter of weeks. Salary levels and Italian work and stay regulations are two other important reasons why Italy has become one of the most popular targets for labour commuting from Romania. Hence, although salaries are lower than in Germany, workers perceive that this lower level of income is generally compensated by more relaxed regulations in terms of stay and work. In addition, relatively lax regulations make Italy an attractive labour commuting destination.

The price of permits to stay is comparatively low, just 10 euro (in Poland, by contrast, the price of the stay permit is 75). The application procedures are lengthy and bureaucratic (sometimes it takes almost a year to obtain a permit to stay), but a significant advantage comes from the fact that the workers legal status in Italy is not affected by the length of the procedure. At the time of application they receive a receipt (ricevuta), which is accepted as a legal document during police controls.

All accounts made by the interviewees point to the existence of strong informal networks that have taken shape in Italy over the past decade. The main occupations are predominantly low-skilled ones and exploit a particular extensive need in the area. Veneto, where this research was conducted, is a region with a large elderly population with relatively high income, and is one of the main tourist areas in Italy, with superior economic development compared to the Southern regions.

Accordingly, Romanian workers try to occupy a sector by building networks of relatives and friends to activate in the same branch and thus fully exploit the niche. However, in terms of working conditions, labour rights are minimal as the main reward for work is money and employees concern with their own rights is obscured by the profitability of the job. In some cases, well-established networks impose discriminatory, protectionist practices against other Romanians attempting to make a living within the same line of work: "Those which came a long time ago have priority - they have their set area and interdiction for the rest, that is their area and nobody else enters." The most popular occupations in the Veneto area, determined by the features of the region are: care for the elderly (this is the most popular activity, performed mainly by women), working in construction (mainly men's occupations) and performing as public artists.

When invited to talk about her work and payment conditions, a woman responsible for taking care of an elderly well-to-do Italian woman related: "She gives me euro 800 a month. It's not that much, I heard some people get even 1,000. But I don't have to pay for anything, I have my own room and she is not mean or arrogant. She is always content with what I cook for her."

All interviewees and discussants without exception express longing for home. Their presence in Italy is first and foremost related to accumulating higher resources in order to improve their life at home. An interviewee speaks his mind on the topic: "The majority of Romanians come because this is paradise, I made it and after that I met a man who had bought himself a Mercedes because he dreamt once he would return to his village in a Mercedes. He cannot go home now because he doesnt have papers and he waits for his papers so that he can."

In addressing the problem of his relationship with Romania and Italy, an interviewee relates: "I stayed in Venice for 3 weeks and afterwards I went home, I got certain that I couldn't take it any more here. At home I can take it, but here I cannot take it after a while. Next year I want to come to have money to stay in a hotel, to eat in a restaurant. That's all for next year, ¦next year I don't want to return as a slave."

The research points to the existence of a Romanian community in Italy, which is fragmented, composed of strong small networks with a relative low level of integration in the community. Approaching the question of the inclusion of Romanian workers in Italian society, analysis shows that Romanian workers do not fit the profile of long-term migrants trying to make a new life in the country and obtain permanent residence or citizenship. Many Romanian workers have been working in Italy for more than ten years in the same workplace and have a long-established pattern of regular commuting between Romania and Italy. The non-existence of language barriers and relaxed legislation policy encourages the phenomenon of long time commuting. The case of local commuting raises problems regarding, for example, the access of workers to healthcare benefits and to education and their potential for social mobility.

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European Commission, European industrial relations observatory on-line Industrial relations and undeclared work > country focus Romania

In 1998, the European Commission issued a Communication on undeclared work, which was designed to launch a debate on the causes of such work and the policy options for combating it (EU9804197F). According to the Communication on undeclared work, the main motivation for employers, employees and self-employed people to participate in the undeclared economy is economic. Working in the informal economy offers the opportunity to increase earnings and to evade taxation on income and social contributions. For employers, the incentive is to reduce costs. At that time, studies estimated the average size of the informal economy at between 7% and 16% of the GDP of the then 15 EU Member States. In October 2003, the Council of the European Union adopted a Resolution on undeclared work (EU0311206F), calling on Member States to address this issue and to work together to improve the situation. Suggested actions include preventative measures and sanctions aimed at eliminating undeclared work. In June 2004 the EIRO national centres in 23 European countries were asked, in response to a questionnaire, to give a brief overview of the industrial relations aspects of undeclared work, looking at: the nature and extent of undeclared work; the regulatory framework; the role, activities and views of the social partners; and partnerships between social partners and public authorities to tackle undeclared work. The Romanian responses are set out below. Based on these studies, in July 2004, the European Commission issued a new report on Undeclared work in an enlarged Union (EU0407204F).

Findings:

A study conducted during 2003 by the Alliance for Economic Development of Romania (Alianta pentru Dezvoltarea Economica a Romaniei, ADER) and the National Association of Craft Cooperation (Asociatia Nationala a Cooperatiei Mestesugaresti, UCECOM) estimated that undeclared work involves around 1.8 million-2 million people, and that the underground economy represents 20% of gross domestic product (GDP).

The 2003 annual report of the Ministry of Labour, Social Stability and Family (Ministerul Muncii, Solidaritatii Sociale si Familiei, MMSSF) states that the sectoral profile of undeclared work is diverse, including first of all agriculture, forestry, construction, commerce (especially markets), textiles and the food industry. In April 2004, MMSSF estimated that undeclared work involved at least 600,000 people. The most recent study (June 2004) puts the extent of the phenomenon higher, involving around 1 million people, representing 11% of total employment.

The gender breakdown of workers engaged in undeclared work is generally not included in estimates. The only such breakdown is provided by the 2003 report of the Labour Inspection (Inspectia Muncii, IM), but it refers only to the results of control and inspection campaigns. Thus, during the campaigns carried out in 2002 and 2003, 0.46% and 0.43% respectively of all workers were found to be working illegally. Of these proportions, women represented 0.25 percentage points in 2002 and 0.18 percentage points in 2003.

There is little empirical evidence on the relationship between undeclared work and illegal migration but it has been argued that the number of Romanians working abroad illegaly is much larger than the numbers of those who find such work through public or private employment agencies. Legal outward Romanian labour migration increased by 70% during 2003. Also, inward migration for work seems to register an upward trend. As compared with 2002, the number of foreigners granted work permits in Romania in 2004 has increased by 18%, reaching 3,396.

International cooperation with the aim of combating undeclared work is generally conducted by the government. Many bilateral agreements addressing migrant workers, seasonal workers, repatriation, traineeships etc have been signed with both countries to which Romanians migrate and countries of origin of immigrants to Romania (Moldova, Hungary, Bulgaria, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and Switzerland). Some of the agreements (which involve either the government itself, MMSSF or the Labour Inspection) provide only for a general collaboration, some develop common procedures to deal with 'circular' migration for work by stimulating legal migration, fighting illegal migration and supporting voluntary returns, and some establish annual quotas for legal temporary migrant workers. The government has also signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), on cooperation in the field of assisted humanitarian returns of irregular migrants staying in Romania.The National Trade Union Bloc (Blocul National Sindical, BNS) has been involved in supporting Romanian workers in finding a legal job abroad and even in recruiting personnel with specific qualifications.

In respect to undeclared work, trade unions and employers’ organisations share a common position. They both call for a sharp reduction in labour taxation, which is considered as being by far the most important cause of the problem (RO0401106F). Stefan Varfalvi, the vice-president of the General Union of Romanian Industrialists (Uniunea Generala a Industriasilor din Romania, UGIR), argues that taxes on profits are currently a third of taxes on labour, and that a 2% reduction in social security contributions that the government intends to introduce in 2005 will not be of much help in this matter. The National Union of Romanian Employers (Uniunea Nationala a Patronilor din Romania, UNPR) has also criticised the government’s proposal to reduce the taxation rate on wages in 2005, arguing that: 'the maximum tax rate on wages is 29% in Bulgaria and it applies to wages higher than EUR 320 a month, in the Czech Republic it is 32% and it applies to wages higher than EUR 916 a month, while in Romania it will be 38% and it will apply to wages higher than EUR 365.'

A special circumstance in the case of Romania is the high level of employment in agriculture. In this sector, more than 3 million people work without any kind of contract - they may be self-employed, unpaid family workers, or members of an agricultural holding or a cooperative - and can barely cover their daily subsistence. This is regarded as a main source of supplying the non-agricultural part of the domestic economy with undeclared workers, as well as for illegal migration.

In non-agricultural activities, apart from people who are actually employed but without any kind of legal contract (which is most commonly encountered in small family businesses or in medium-sized companies), a large number of employees, especially in the private sector, are formally employed but are registered as receiving only the national minimum wage, while in fact being paid a much higher wage 'off the books'. The latter phenomenon is quite a common practice, which amplifies the share of the underground economy in GDP and also may be the cause of disparities between different evaluations of the scale of undeclared work. Since rights to social protection benefits are linked to contributions actually made, both kinds of undeclared workers will eventually suffer by receiving inadequate social assistance, but the lack of other means of subsistence forces people to accept unofficial jobs despite these major inconveniences.

European Commission/IOM Project: “Migration Trends in Selected Applicant Countries" VOL IV – Romania More ‘Out’ than ‘In’ at the Crossroads between Europe & Balkans Written in 2003 by Sebastian Lazaroiu (research team: Monica Alexandru, Mihaela Raduca, Nicoleta Boiciuc Alexandru Larionescu)

This country report on Migration Trends in Romania forms part of a publication series of six volumes, which have evolved under the roof of the European Commission funded project “Sharing Experience: Migration Trends in Selected Applicant Countries and Lessons Learned from the ‘New Countries of Immigration’ in the EU and Austria” managed by the International Organization for Migration Mission with Regional Functions for Central Europe in Vienna, Austria. Publisher: International Organization for Migration. Project co-ordinator: Pier Rossi-Longhi, Scientific co-ordinator: Martin Kunze

With the accession of 10 new member states to the EU in May 2004 (and two more in 2007), these countries are likely to follow the path of the previous EU accession countries and, in turn, become countries of immigration. With increased global mobility and a growing number of severe conflicts and wars, people seeking shelter from Africa and Asia have become a growing source of migrants in recent years. Their paths of migration are directed to the EU and often lead through the accession countries. In this process, in spite of fortified border protection and the “safe third countries” rule, which has become a standard in the states of the EU, accession countries are increasingly becoming target countries of migration. This scenario requires preparation and careful planning. On the other hand and on the background of demographic trends, this may be a rather desirable change. According to projections of the EC, the population of all accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe has a tendency to decrease, a fact likely to pose significant problems to economy and society in the future.

Migration is a rather new phenomenon in Romania after 1990. The difference between in-flows and out-flows is significantly in favour of out-migrants in terms of volumes and experiences. However, it is expected that immigrants from Middle East, Africa and Former Soviet Union republics will decide to settle on the Romanian territory. This moment is likely to happen close to 2007, the Romanian accession year to the EU.

> OUT-FLOWS of migrants from Romania

At the beginning of 1990, suitcase trade was the dominant migration stream. People from different social categories travelled in countries like Turkey, Poland, Hungary, Yugoslavia and even the Republic of Moldova trading small things for other merchandise or merely buying things that they re-sold in the Romanian market. Student mobility represents less than one-fifth of the total volume of migrant workers after 1990s. After the mid 1990s, labour migration became the main form of out-migration of Romanians. The first destination countries for labour migration were Germany, France and Israel. Germany was the destination for Romanians living in former Saxon communities (Sibiu, Brasov, Timis counties) and the flows have been based on friendship networks of Germans repatriated from Romania. France was a specific destination for northwestern Romanians (Maramures county) and Israel soon became a destination for Romanians all over the country (especially east and southeast parts) due to repatriated Jews who established labour-mediating companies in Romania. Turkey also became a destination country for some Romanians, especially in agriculture and construction sector. But the first destinations outdated soon, and new countries replaced them in the following years. As Germany increased control over migrants, only people with strong connections abroad were able to find a job in this country. Migrants in Israel reached the highest figure when the relationship between Israel and Palestinians started to deteriorate (labour replacement was then sought in former communist countries and Asia). By the late 90s, the Israeli market became less attractive, especially because of the restrictions imposed by the government and the large number of workers discovered in the black market.

In the midst of the 1990s, Yugoslavia attracted not only workers in agriculture, but also small traders who tried to benefit from the economic crisis as a consequence of the war. Traffic networks have started to establish in that very period. First, people traded oil and other small merchandise, but then trafficking in women became quite widespread. As soon as the Hungarian economy recovered, it became an attractive place for Romanians from the Western part of the country (especially Hungarian ethnic population concentrated in few counties in central and western part of Transsylvania). Other countries from the eastern communist block were only used for transit: Czech Republic and Poland for instance. This might have explained the large number of Romanian citizens seeking asylum in Prague.

Italy and Spain have become the new destination countries for labour migration since the end of the 1990s, and especially since the visa requirements were lifted in 2001. The case of Italy is probably the most meaningful as it has attracted mostly Romanians from the northeastern part of the country (the Moldavia region of Romania, not the Republic of Moldova). There is a bulk of data to prove that, due to the economic characteristics of the region, there were first the Italian companies that penetrated the area and facilitated the information and contact between the eastern Romanian region and Italy as potential destination for work. Spain became a major destination for people from Southern counties of Romania and some central and northwestern regions (IOM Bucharest 2001).

Regional characteristics of migration can offer partial explanations for destination countries. If there is a consistency between Transsylvania (western part of Romania) and Hungary or Germany as main destinations, the link is not so straightforward in the case of Moldova (eastern part) and Italy. There were different hypothesis to explain why Moldavians chose this south destination of the EU - the Catholic background of Moldavia, which might account for some religious affinities or even networks, or the low social capital and international connection that Moldavians have with other western countries. The third hypothesis, which might explain in our opinion more of the favoured destination of Moldavians, is related to the world system theory (Massey et all 1993). Scholars have long ago noticed that in some cases movement of people follows the same route, but in the opposite direction, as the movement of capital. Moldavia was that part of the country where the communist regime and its planned economy favoured the textile and shoes industry. After 1990, most of this industry collapsed, but Italian companies have chosen to massively invest in this area as they already have skilled and cheap labour. This does not mean that Moldavians who afterwards headed to Italy are working in the same sector of textile industry. The hypothesis remains at the level of cultural contacts and information. The presence of Italian companies in Moldavia after 1990 has encouraged contacts and information about the destination country for migration. In other cases, the high percentage of migration to Italy cannot be explained based on the same figures. For instance, the high migration rate to Italy from Timis and Tulcea should have the rationale in the Italian minority having populated those specific regions, but it appears that is not the case.

Seventeen percent of all Romanian households reported at least one member having worked abroad between 1990-2001, which means about 1.2 million households. After 2001 lifting visa restrictions in EU countries there is an increase of number of Romanians who found a job abroad. The percentage is fluctuating according to seasons: in April 2003, 13% households reported at least one member working abroad at that particular moment, while in August 2003, only 7% households reported the same fact (CURS survey April 2003 and CURS survey, August 2003). Labour migration has become more and more important for the Romanian economy. 2002 official figures show that about USD 1.2 billion entered the country from migrant workers. The volume has increased since 2000 (source: Romanian National Bank). But this figure accounts only for official transfers through official channels (commercial banks transfers). Banking experts acknowledge that taking into account the diversity of informal channels to remit money to families and the savings that migrants themselves carry on the way back, the volume might be much higher. A representative survey carried out in April 2003 evidenced that the 930,000 households having at least one worker abroad might benefit from a constant flow of remittances up to EUR 2.0 billion a year, which is almost double the volume of foreign investment (CURS April 2003). All these amounts of money from migration are meant to show how important remittances can be for Romanian households.

The national trend is becoming circulatory short-term migration or irregular migration. Legal, long-term emigration has been decreasing as people cannot stay for longer period if they do not have contract. Permanent emigration has become very difficult in economically developed countries. Nowadays, people stay for as long as they can avoid the police control. Since the availability of short-term jobs is not very widespread and the legal conditions for long term stays have become more difficult, a new job-replacement strategy has developed. Usually there are two or three persons “sharing” the same job each three-month period of time as to avoid overstaying. That means that one migrant worker work for 3 months and then come back to Romania. A friend or relative replaces him/her for the next 3 months and so forth.

It is hard to produce an estimation of the ratio of documented and undocumented migrants. The reports of family members from national representative surveys are not reliable due to perceived risks in exposing relatives illegally working in a foreign state (only 25% admitted in 2003 that their relatives do not have proper documents to work abroad (Mercury August 2003)). What is already known is that most of the migrant workers leave Romania and enter an EU country as tourists, but they already have arrangements for work in the black market. As legal measures against irregular migrant workers become tougher and tougher in Romania (starting from interdiction to leave Romania for determined number of years to other more serious penalties) after lifting visa restrictions, overstaying 3 months period as tourist becomes problematic.

One of the most interesting facts in the last 2 years in Romania is that some major trade unions involved themselves in mediating labour. An example could be BNS (National Union Block) and ALFA, which signed agreements with their counterparts in Italy for sending Romanian nurses to work abroad. The advantage of bilateral trade unions’ agreements for labour mediating is the assurance of protection and equal conditions as for other native union members. This is unsual, since trade unions in western countries are mostly opposing foreign labour.

Academic mobility is another form of circulatory migration, but it accounts for a very small share of the total circulatory migration volume. After 1990, most of the Romanian universities have connected to the international research networks through partnerships with Western European and U.S. universities. Different programmes funded by the EU or World Bank have allowed movement of students, teachers and researchers all over the world for conferences, summer schools, training and academic programmes. Unlike labour movement student mobility was strongly supported and financed by the destination countries. Hence, academic mobility is more related to brain-drain phenomenon from peripheral countries to more developed countries. Another difference between labour mobility and academic movement is that the first one results in a financial capital movement in the opposite direction, while the second one transfer in the origin country knowledge and human capital.

Migration flows are male dominated (close to 70 % of migrant workers from 1990-2003 have been male), composed of average educated people, young persons, skilled workers from big cities and Bucharest. Seasonal contracts for workers is Germany, Spain and Switzerland have also mostly been for male workers. Most of the male migrants are working in the construction sector or agriculture, but it is not necessary that they have skills for these jobs. Most of the female migrants are working as nurses, baby-sitters or housekeepers in the country of destination. In terms of age it seems that most of the migrants are from 18-30 years of age category and in terms of gender migration is highly masculine.

Romanian migrants abroad concentrate generally in homogenous communities. A specific trait of these communities is the use of the new communication technologies for finding about the opportunities there or for identifying and meeting the co-nationals (chat rooms, sites, and mobile phones). An important as a source of information concerning the migration opportunities, legislation in the destination countries, labour market, etc. is created by the Diaspora websites. A Romanian that is presently in Ireland may chat with Romanians currently in Germany and even find a job there without even leaving Ireland. There are sites in countries where the number of Romanians is estimated to be around 300.000 – like in Italy, but also sites in countries like Finland where the number of Romanian citizens there revolves around 500. These sites include short briefings on the legislation, reflections on the practice and procedures and comments made by important politicians or Romanian citizens.

> IN-FLOWS of migration (business) and refugees

Romania is not an attractive destination for tourism, which means that most tourists are actually disguised immigrants. It is easier to get a sort-term tourist visa and that is why most immigrants in Romania are likely counted in official statistics as tourists. Arab countries’ nationals are the most numerous immigrants in Romania. The most numerous foreigners on the Romanian territory (Arab countries like Syria, Turkish, Chinese) are mostly business immigrants. They are running their own business and hardly seek for labour. The Republic of Moldova and Ukraine are also two countries of origin for many migrants, but Moldavian citizens’ situation is different from that of the Ukrainians due to the fact that it is the same language. The immigrants coming from the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine, also in large numbers, are staying in Romania for studies or business, but sometimes they have an employee status.

The legislation for business migration changed dramatically since the beginning of the 1990s. The amount of money business immigrants are supposed to invest, which was initially only starting from USD 100 has increased to EUR 50,000 in the new law passed in 2003. The new law on foreign investors actually affected the Asian community, because many of these investors could not afford the amount of EUR 50,000 that they needed to invest in their business. Representatives of the association envisaged that more Chinese would have to leave the country as a consequence of this high threshold.

There are also around 1000 refugees in Romania, who mostly come from Iraq, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. The top figures somehow differ from one year to another, depending on periods of crisis (Afghanistan and Iraq basically changing the first place from 1997 to 2002). Asylum seekers generally resort to Romania as a step on their way to arriving to more developed countries, only few of them intending to ask the Romanian state protection for well-grounded reasons. They leave their origin countries basically for economic reasons and it happens sometimes that they have in Romania a lower salary and status than they used to have. It is worth noting that there were not so many refugees from the former Yugoslavia during the years of war.

Romania seems to be a major transit country, located at the “last” eastern EU border, on the crossroad between North-South migration axis (African countries as main reservoir) and East-West route (Far East, Middle East and former Soviet Union states as main sources). As the Romanian economy is less attractive to foreign immigrants, most of these groups just adjourn on their way toward more developed west side of Europe.

> PROBLEMS associated with migration

- in many villages more than 30% of the population is working in a foreign country, and there is a constant trend of population aging, which already have a dramatic consequence for agriculture – which has mostly become subsistence agriculture. in this context young people leaving for working abroad has a negative impact unless they return and they are eager to invest money in agriculture. - migration often means that local authorities find themselves in a strange situation of diminishing the base for taxes since money from migration is in most of the cases invisible - as most of the population remains poor and migrants do not contribute to economic growth and development, there are seasonal fluctuations of the housing market; it happens that during the summer, when most of the migrants come home for vacation, prices for houses become prohibitive for the rest of the population. in a medium and long term, housing market might stabilise at a level that is not going to be affordable for non-migrants. - a large number of private companies for mediating labour abroad have sprung up; many of these are now under strict scrutiny of state bodies due to frauds and cheating Romanians who wanted a job abroad, but also due to lack of guarantees for working conditions - as there are many Romanians working in the black market in EU states, sometimes they become dependent on employers - the employers hire them with no contract, and it could happen that if they are not satisfied of their work just fire them without notice, sometimes not paying the salaries. Irregular migrant workers cannot actually complain, because they try to avoid as much as possible contact with authorities, as they might be punished for overstaying visa or not abiding the labour legislation in that country. - there are problems with the transport and tourism agencies, whose number gets higher every year, and who are often operating on the border of legal regulation. Many travel agencies are making money on the side while transporting Romanians across the border, because drivers “loan” EUR 500 to passengers just to show the needed amount to the border police. Then migrants return the money back and they are on their own in a EU country. Last year, sanctions were imposed against 5268 transport agencies.

International Organization for Migration, Romanian office The Border Within The Border Within, a TV feature co-produced by the IOM office Romania as part of its programme Preventing Irregular Migration from Romania to the European Union, received awards for Best Documentary and Best Photography at SIMFEST, Romania’s festival of TV broadcasters and media freelancers. As part of the programme, IOM carried out research on the perception amongst Romanian adults on the risks of irregular migration to the European Union. The research highlights the prevalence of temporary labour migration within the larger context of migration flows from Romania. Fifteen per cent of respondents expressed a wish to travel abroad for work, and 4% said they intend to leave the country permanently. Of the total number of Romanian who have worked abroad up to 2003, over 50% had travelled to Italy, Germany or Spain. The research shows that the same three countries will continue to be the preferred destinations for Romanians in the near future. The perceptions of potential Romanian migrants on the prerequisites for working abroad reveal three individual priorities: jobs, individual capital (social connections, money, language proficiency) and documentation. Forty-one per cent of Romanian migrants think that getting an employment contract is the most important prerequisite, while obtaining a work permit is significant for only 11% of the respondents. Based on the conclusions of the research, a nationwide information campaign was put in place to inform potential migrants of the possibilities for legal migration, as well as to provide objective information on the risks of irregular migration. As part of the campaign, a radio spot was broadcast by three national radio stations, 1.1 million Romanian leaving the country received information cards distributed by the Romanian Border Police, and more than 100,000 persons received leaflets of the information campaign when obtaining their new passports. IOM and its partners in Romania also distributed 10,000 posters. IOM and TVR Timisoara, a station of the Romanian Public Television, produced the documentary. The documentary features officials, experts and the public at large recounting their migration experiences.This IOM programme is funded by Government of Belgium.

Antonio Ricci Migration from Romania into Italy in the new Europe

[only the abstract is available online] Romania, which used to be the immigration territory from the North East regions of Italy, is now a land of emigration, with Italy as the favourite destination point. By 2000, following the Moroccans and the Albanians, the Romanians had become the third largest immigrant group in Italy: Caritas estimated the legal figure at about 85,000. But Romanians are also involved in illegal migration to Italy and they represent one fifth of Central East European immigrants currently in Italy. Romanians are also migrating to other large countries, such as: Germany, the United States and Canada. Romania itself has also become the transit point of a growing migration flow from other countries interested in settling in Western Europe. Almost half of the Romanians seem to prefer settling in the central regions of Italy, mainly in Rome and the Lazio region. A significant share (67%) migrate in the hope of fulfilling job expectations; more than half of them hold a secondary education diploma. Crime is a serious issue: the Romanians account for 10% of the police reports of aggression against foreign citizens, but among the legal migrants the percentage is much lower. Romania is also a very important country for the Italian economy: there are 10,634 Italian companies (13% of foreign companies) in Romania, employing almost half a million people (while only 1,000 Italians live in Romania). It is not coincidental that Italy is Romania’s first business partner. The immigrants’ remittances are contributing to their country’s growth and development; only a fraction of them, however, is transacted through the banking system (4.4 million euros). Even more now than in the past, migration plays a crucial role for both countries: it matches the business interests of Italy and it favours Romania’s economic development.

Dumitru Sandu Emerging transnational migration from Romanian villages

Transnational migration is a quite new phenomenon, associated with globalisation processes, with the development rationale of contemporary capitalism. Migration is not only circular or recurrent but it is also transnational to the extent to which it succeeds to associate transnational cultural models, "dual" life styles and to develop itself within life areas that are defined most appropriately by transnationalism. Migration movement between the United States and Mexico is illustrating the new type of phenomenon. In this case, multiplication and durability of migration communication forms between the two countries played a considerable role for the structuring of life areas. During the decades similar migration areas have also been developing in other parts of the world, such as Turks in Germany, Swedish in the United States, Algerians from France, etc. Emergence of new democracies in Central and Eastern European area after 1989 has entailed an unprecedented high migration movement between Eastern and Western Europe. To what extent migrants from post-communist states in Eastern Europe develop a new type of "regional transnationalism"?

This research focuses on circular migration from Romanian villages to foreign countries during the period 1990-2001, and on the role played by the village, as local community - due to its location, resources and population - in conditioning the flows of transnational circular migration. The data is based on the community census on migration (CCM) that was carried out by IOM and gathered through the Ministry of Public Information and the Ministry of the Interior during 2001. The recording has the nature of a census because it considered all Romanian villages. The data was gathered through a form sent to all 2686 communes of the country, out of the total of 2686 communes of the country, 2661 answered the questionnaire and out of the total of 152 small towns (with less than 20 thousand inhabitants) 148 filled in migration forms; there were filled in and accepted as valid migration questionnaires for 12357 villages in the rural areas of the total of approximately 12700 villages existing in this residential environment.

By the time of the poll, in December 2001, there were departed from Romanian villages to foreign countries, with different motivation, approximately 200 thousand persons. It is a quite high rate of temporary migration (19‰). Almost 59% of the total number of persons from rural environments who had left for foreign countries returned at least once time to the locality of domicile and 37% at least two times. 47% have returned in the country for at least two times during the period of their residence abroad.

The community census performed through local experts identified categories of migrants traveling abroad. The best represented category is the one of circular migrants staying more time abroad. Due to this basic fact, the longer stay, they act as agents of communication between the society of origin and domicile and the societies of temporary destination. Their migration is, very likely and predominantly, of transnational type. Their situation is very different from that of the persons moving abroad definitively (definitive emigration) and from that of the trans-border migrants traveling for short periods of time among localities nearby the border.

Circular migration of the population from communes and small towns, by countries of destination

Types of routes Country of destination Persons who were abroad, during the period 1990-2001, and live in Persons departed* by the time of the poll, from Total by communes and small towns

major, of first rank Hungary 22.8 23.3 12.7 21.4 22.9 14.2

of second rank Israel 3.9 3.7 4.4 1.9 3.9 4.0

of third rank England 0.4 0.3 0.8 1.1 0.4 0.9

The six major rank routes are directed towards nearby western territories (Hungary, Yugoslavia), far off Northwest (Germany), nearby Southeast (Turkey) and far off Southwest (Italy and Spain). Routes towards Italy and Spain, with much higher rates for persons actually displaced than the rates of returned persons, seem to be particularly dynamic routes, tending to attract more and more migrants from the Romanian rural environment. Migration policies of destination countries and, possibly, linguistic facilities for a rural population with low levels of foreign languages knowledge, are major factors facilitating migration to such countries. Rural population displacements tend to be South oriented - Italy, Israel, Turkey, Greece and even Portugal - to a greater extent in comparison with the population of small towns. By the time of the poll the Italian route proved to be the most attractive for the inhabitants of the Romanian villages, attracting almost a quarter of the total number of departed persons.

Romania is very regionally structured with regard to temporary migration behaviours. According to the main country of destination there are six major groups of counties ("migration fields") with a configuration given by overlaps among historic regions, areas of ethnical or religious specificity and development areas:

· Moldavia is dominated by flows to Italy; · Dobrogea and Eastern Muntenia is dominated by flows to Turkey; · Banat, Southern Transylvania and the Western part of Oltenia is dominated by flows to Germany; · the arterial road for flows oriented to Hungary starts in Covasna and goes on straight to the West crossing Harghita, Mures, Cluj, Salaj and Bihor; · the smaller field in Oltenia (except for Valcea county) mainly attracted by the Yugoslavian area;

According to the relation between the country with the highest attraction strength and the others in the set, we can make a distinction between two types of regions, namely single-pole or bi/multi-pole regions. The Covasna-Harghita-Mures-Salaj region is a clear case of single-pole region. Others are more mixed. From Timis-Arad departures are not only towards Germany but also towards Spain, Portugal and Italy (32% towards Germany, 11% towards Spain, 7% towards France and 7% towards Italy). South of this region, in the group Hunedoara-Caras-Severin, migration is mainly to Germany, Spain and Italy abut in also to Austria and Hungary. Out of the total of 15 migration regions, 5 have an obvious single-pole structure (with over 30% of the circular migration oriented to only one country):

· Covasna-Harghita-Mures-Salaj - 70% towards Hungary; · Sibiu-Brasov - 47% towards Germany; · Timis-Arad - 32% of the migrants towards Germany; · Neamt-Bacau-Vrancea-Galati - 41% towards Italy; · Constanta-Braila-Vaslui - 32% towards Turkey.

The migration field of Moldavia, with its dominant attraction towards Italy, is mainly divided according to the Eastern or Western location of the counties within the historic region. Counties in the Northeast part, Iasi, Botosani, and Suceava are mainly attracted by the configuration Italy-Israel . However, migrants in the Western group Neamt, Bacau and Vrancea, are also attracted by Hungary, besides Italy. The migration field predominantly oriented towards Turkey is also structured in three main regions: Constanta-Braila-Vaslui, Buzau-Prahova and Calarasi-Ialomita. The specificity of the first group is given by the secondary flows towards Italy and Israel. In the second group, besides the preference for travels in Turkey, we also have those associated with Spain and Italy and in the third group secondary flows go Italy and Germany.Counties of Oltenia are characterised by rural population mainly attracted by Yugoslavia and then by Germany and Italy.

Conclusions:

Transnational migration from Romanian villages during the years 1990-2001 has been directly influenced by time and space related variations regarding: (1) community social capital (local and transnational networks); (2) economic resources at personal or household level; (3) communication and support institutions for international migration and (4) phenomena of frustration and competition within local communities.

The "village - foreign countries" circular/transnational migration proves to be a network phenomenon. Its development involves activating and expanding of certain complex social networks, localised or transnational, directly dependent on the social structure of the country and on migration history of the various categories of social communities and segments. Community-regional opportunities to change economic discontentment of rural population into tendencies towards temporary migration abroad were produced mainly by prior migration experiences at the level of the village, of the commune micro-region of domicile. Initially the process started based on kinship networks, on ethnical and religious networks.

The circular migration from Romanian villages after 1989 developed by waves. Different types of ethnic or religious minorities were the most mobile groups at the beginning of the 1990s. The villages that gave migrants for the first wave were mainly those of high proportion of ethnic (Germans and Hungarians especially) and religious (protestant and neo-protestant) minorities. The massive migration flows of Germans from South Transylvania and from Banat decisively contributed to the structuring of certain transnational migration networks. For the subsequent waves more important were the social factors related to the high pressure of unemployment especially high for villages near small and medium towns and having a large number of former city commuters or return migrants.

At first sight the human capital, the stock of education the person has, does not have a very strong influence on the circular migration or anyway it is less important than the stock of relational capital. Social capital provides support for travel and accommodation at destination, for penetrating the new immigration environment. Subsequently, as the duration of stay abroad gets longer, the role of human capital, of language knowledge, of professional knowledge and of information in general, gains more and more importance.

From accepting internal migration as life strategy, there was elaborated a new strategy for survival or success through external circular migration. The former town commuter or the former migrant from village to town, subsequently returned to the village, is closer to the mentality of the "shuttle" migrant from village to Istanbul, Madrid, Paris or Tel Aviv than the non-migrant who has never leave his/her village.

Dumitru Sandu, Cosmin Radu, Monica Constantinescu, Oana Ciobanu* Romanian Migration Abroad: Stocks and Flows After 1989 Study for www.migrationonline.cz, Multicultural Center Prague, November 2004

> Internal Emigration

The year 1997 remains a turning point in the history of Romanian internal migration. It is in this year that the long lasting trend of a dominant rural-urban migration started to be replaced by the prevalence of the reverse trend from cities to villages. The shift in the migration structure after 1996, with the unusual increase of the share of urban to rural movement, is consistent with a sharp increase in the rate of poverty from 20% in 1996 to about 31% in 1997 and 36% in 2002. In spite of the fact that the level of poverty declined at about 25% in 2003, the share of urban to rural movement in relation to the total migration continues to be very high.

> Permanent Emigration

During the first two or three years after 1989 around 100 thousand people left the country for permanent residence in Germany. The majority of them were Germans who did not have the opportunity to leave the country before 1989. After 1992, once the majority of the Germans had left the country, the rate of external migration had a sharp decline. A second decrease of the stream of external migration was recorded after 1998. Germany, the USA and Hungary were the main destination countries before and after 1989. Ethnic identities and networks of relatives were the main basis for this structural continuity in the structure of emigration. The German prevalence in the structure of emigration continued until to 1996. After this year, the dominant streams became those directed towards the USA and Canada.

> Temporary Migration

The pattern of a concentrated field of migration directed towards North America seems to be replaced in 2002 by a more dispersed field. Italy, Austria and France are the new destinations that attract a larger share of migration. Temporary emigration has become the new pillar of the migration system, and there is more migration for temporary work abroad than the movement to find work within the country. This turning point, is related to 2002 as the beginning of the free circulation of Romanians into the Schengen Area. [Until 1st January 2002, visas for tourism were required in order for people to go abroad. Since the embassies and consulates had very complex procedures and restrictions, those willing to work abroad resorted to informal providers of visas. The money required for “black” visas - about 1,000-1,500 EUR - for Spain, Germany or other distant countries before represented a significant amount of saving for an average Romanian family.] After the visa regulation was lifted there was a more dispersed migration field directed towards more destinations in Europe. The migratory movements have been, especially from the not so poor regions where high cultural diversity exists. This is the case of the Western part of Moldova, a historical region and from the Northern part of Transylvania (Sandu, 2004).The lowest level of emigration was, at the census moment, mainly from the rather poor, isolated areas (Vaslui, Ialomita, Teleorman, Calarasi, Mehedinti, Gorj, Salaj). The variation of temporary emigration was higher for the larger villages of higher educational stock, smaller percentage of elderly people and having a high cultural (especially religious) diversity (Figure 3). Temporary emigration for work is higher among men than women. It is also higher for vocational educated people, for those that traveled abroad and live in rather large localities with high unemployment.

Andrea Stocchiero (Centro Studi Politica Internazionale) Migration Flows and Small and Medium Sized Enterprise Internationalisation Between Romania and the Italian Veneto Region

Italian industrial districts are trading and investing in Eastern European countries while migration flows are occurring from Eastern European countries toward the same industrial districts. Trade, capital and labour mobility have been complementary in aggregate terms.

1. Romanian Immigration in the Veneto region

During the '90s immigration in Italy increased substantially. The main immigration flows are from North Africa, East Europe (ex Yugoslavia especially), Albania and Philippine. According to the estimates of Caritas the Romanians are the fifth nationality of migrants in Italy in 2000. Among the Eastern European countries eligible for the EU enlargement (of the first and second wave), immigrants with permission to stay in Italy coming from Romania and Poland represent the 80% of the total. 65,941 Romanians and 30,278 Poles with permission to stay were registered in September 2000. Immigrants from Romania increased about 4 times from 1995 to 2000. These are official figures. The "clandestinity propensity" is high in the case of Romanian immigration.

Generally, immigration pattern in Italy is characterized by three attraction poles: the metropolitan poles of Rome and Milan, the strong labour demand in industrial districts in North Italy and the seasonal labour demand in agricultural zones. The presence of immigrants in metropolitan areas and in industrial districts adds up to about the 70% of the total. The Veneto region represents the third destination region of migration flows in Italy. Inside the Veneto region, industrial districts and immigrants are concentrated in 3 provinces: Vicenza, Verona and Treviso. The economic sectors absorbing immigrants are metallurgy and mechanical ones, leather (in Vicenza especially), building, chemical and plastic products, furniture (in Treviso especially). The labour demand is in large proportion for dirty, difficult and demanding (DDD) jobs. However, a labour demand for skilled workers is augmenting more and more. Veneto industrial districts are committed in raising the added value and quality of the production for confronting the competition of emerging areas (Far East). It is important to stress that the Veneto region is facing a demographic crisis that will increase in the near future. The development of industrial districts in Veneto will depend on the capacity to attract migrant labour forces and to integrate them in the local productive systems. This fundamental trend along with the changing product specialization of the industrial districts will determine the evolution of the labour demand and the immigration pattern.

Romanian immigrants are concentrated in Rome and in the industrial districts of North Italy. A growing Romanian immigration towards Veneto region is observed in the last years: Romanians with permission to stay have increased about 60% (they were 6,595 in 1999) while the national average increase has been 40% in 1998-19997. In 2000 Romanians working in Veneto enterprises were 5,427 (1,355 female) and in 1999 they were 4,159 (1,300 female). According to Veneto Employment Agency, local enterprises are asking more labour permission for Romanians than for other nationalities (23% of the total in 1998). In 2000, 8,866 labour permits have been granted in Veneto, 25% for Romanians (second are Polishes with 20% and third Slovakians with 7%). The Romanian labour permits are concentrated in industry (63% of the total) and in Treviso province (23%). A relatively important flow of Romanian female migration working in personal services (housework) is also reported. In conclusion, Romanian migration in Veneto represents the more important flow, which is integrating in the labour market and particularly in local industrial districts.

2. Veneto internationalization in Romania

In general, Italian enterprises show a low capacity to invest abroad. This reflects the industrial structure of the country, which is made up by a high proportion of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). They have structural difficulties in realizing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) owing to several factors: low capitalization; problems of access to international finance; limited knowledge of internationalization operations and procedures; management linked to family evolution and so on. However 635 "small multinationals" have been registered in an Italian data bank in 1998, which represent the 79% of total Italian multinationals. During the '90s a growing number of SMEs have increased their internationalisation, especially as regards the simplest way to do business abroad, through export and subcontracting relations, but also via FDI. 97,000 SMEs are exporting manufactured products; 47,000 of them are usual exporters; 10,000 SMEs are involved in "soft" internationalisation (semi-equity operations, license, franchising, subcontracting, research and development agreement, etc.); 1,000 SMEs realize FDI. The majority of SMEs with FDI operations are specialized in “traditional” economic sectors with labour intensive production (textile and clothing, wood and furniture; leather and footwear) and they have a high internationalization propensity towards East and Central Europe. 33% of small multinationals has FDI in East and Central Europe, 32% in West Europe; 7% in North America and 7% in Latin America. They do labour and resource-seeking investments for exploiting the low labour and raw material costs in Eastern Europe, but they are also considering the potential local market development in the medium and long term.

Italian multinational headquarters are concentrated in 4 Italian regions: Lombardia, Piemonte, Veneto and Emilia Romagna. The number of small multinationals of the Veneto region has increased in the last 15 years and it represents the 12% of the national total. Some of them have grown and now are large enterprises: Benetton, Stefanel, Luxottica, Diadora, Geox, De Longhi, etc. The external openness degree of Veneto is about 122.5 %, which is the second much higher degree among the Italian regions. Veneto export flow towards Central and East Europe increased from 5% of total export in 1991 to 10.4% in 1999 (55% is directed to EU and 13% to North America), and it is concentrated in textile, leather and machinery and equipment products (53% of total export in 1999). In 1999 Veneto export to East and central Europe reached 6,300 billion liras, whom 1,226 with Romania. It is important to stress that Veneto export of 1,098 billion Italian liras has been carried out through outward-processing trade, which has generated a re-importation flow of 1,600 billion liras, whom 1,012 from Romania. Outward-processing trade is linked to soft internationalisation and delocalisation.

Export capacity is concentrated in three provinces with sector specializations: Vicenza (textile and clothing, leather, machinery and gold manufacturing), Treviso (textile and clothing, footwear, machinery, furniture) and Verona (food and wine; leather, marble manufacturing, machinery). 15% of Treviso exports and 12% of Verona exports flow to Central and East Europe, over the regional and national average.

Italy is the more important economic partner for Romania. Bilateral trade has increased 10 times from 1991 (747 billions liras of export+import) to 1999 (7,478 billions liras of export+import) with a balance in equilibrium. Italy exports leather and shoes, textile products, machinery, domestic appliances, cars, and imports footwear, clothing, iron and aluminium products. Romania ranks second in Italian import of clothing from all the world (first is China and third is Tunisia) and first in Italian import of shoes. That confirms the importance of outward-processing trade in economic relation between Italy and Romania. Italian FDI towards Romania has increased 6 times from 1995 (11,051 millions liras) to 1999 (59,371 millions liras), exceeding the FDI towards Poland, according the data of the Italian Balance of Payments. Another data bank on stakes abroad of large and medium Italian enterprises, registered the presence of 54 Italian FDI in Romania (82 in Hungary, 65 in Poland and 39 in Russia) in 1998, with an employment of 17,336. During the period 1996-1998 Italian FDI in Romania increased of 35% while FDI in Hungary diminished of 1.2% and in Russia of 7.1%. Their sector specialization is on textile-garment products, leather and footwear, wood and furniture. FDI are labour seeking and resource seeking (wood for furniture). Another information originate by the Italian-Romania Bank, whose majority shareholder is Venetobanca from Treviso, it reports about 500 enterprises with Italian stocks.

These figures don’t cover all the real Italian FDI, and particularly don’t take into account those of small entrepreneurs and soft internationalisation. In fact, many Italian newspapers report an important delocalisation process of small entrepreneurs who move their industrial plant from Veneto in Romania, while others spread subcontracting relations and outward-processing trade. Some of them live in Romania for long periods.

Unindustria Treviso (association of industrial enterprises in Treviso province) gathered data on Italian enterprises registered in the Romanian Chambers of Commerce: there are about 9,500 Italian enterprises, 3,780 are in Bucharest area and the others are scattered in the country with a relative concentration of 1,000 enterprises in Arad-Timisoara area. Italian FDI generates directly about 150,000 employed and indirectly about 500,000 employed. 80% of Italian enterprises in Romania come from the Italian North-East Regions and 1,800 from Treviso province.

Aggregate data show a clear complementarity among trade, FDI and migration flows between Italy and Romania, and particularly between Veneto and Timisoara-Arad area, during the ‘90s. Unindustria Treviso claims complementarity between FDI and migration: "Unindustria Treviso must activate an alliance network with local institutions and societies for reaching the following objectives: to create a greater availability of workers by supporting delocalisation, making a selective attraction of new human resources, coordinating programs for immigrant housing and education". Enterprise organizations in Veneto are lobbying for a mixed policy of controlled opening to migration flows and of public support for improving a selective recruitment and training of migrants. In 2000 they obtained an extra quota of 3,000 labour permits that the Italian Government opened for Romania immigration. Some entrepreneurs ask for the elimination of visa for Romanian who should be trained in Veneto plants. Veneto entrepreneurs train workers inside the plant and they trust in young workers who are more willing to learn and to take initiative. Romanian women are very valued as they are more reliable and flexible.

Unindustria Treviso organized its annual conference in Timisoara in February 2001 with Italian and Romanian government ministries asking public support for the improvement of infrastructure, setting up of technologic and industrial parks, reduction of red tape on trade, diffusion of entrepreneurship. The Veneto Region is implementing economic cooperation and aid and Romania is considered a "target" country. Veneto Region proposes the SMEs diffusion and growth as a reference model for Romania development. The Regional aid (about 1 million US$ a year) is concentrated in Romania and it supports the training of local small entrepreneurs and social programs (aid to hospitals and to orphans). Veneto entrepreneurs are investing in Timis district, in the training of workers, in the creation of new infrastructures.

The Conference organized by Unindustria Treviso in Timisoara in February 2001 is the manifestation of Italian enterprise willingness to count in Romania politics. The Padua University is launching with Arad University Vasile Goldis a research program "Enterprise Networks and Governance Networks". It studies how Veneto small entrepreneurs are stimulating local development, through the replication of auto-regulation relationships. The thesis to test is if Veneto cultural values and auto-organization capacities are spreading in the Arad- Timisoara area, if Veneto entrepreneurs and workers are hybridizing Romania social capital and local development. That moulds a special territorial partnership between Veneto and Arad-Timisoara area, composed by cultural, political, economical and social relations. In this sense, Treviso and Padua Provinces are launching institutional and twinning agreements with Arad and Timisoara districts in order to set up governance measures to improve economic and social relations.

In this framework, migration management is an important pillar. In 2001 Veneto Region signed an Agreement Protocol with Enterprise Associations and Trade Unions in order to establish a coordination for programming actions to manage migration: housing, social services, training, lobby for quota planning, setting up office network for labour and social migrant integration. The Protocol contemplates agreements with countries of origin for recruitment and training of migrants. Enterprise Association and Trade Unions are interested in implementing project of Recruitment Agencies for managing labour immigration. The project foresees selective recruitment, training and economic and social integration in destination areas, and support to circular migration, returns and internationalisation. The project analyses labour and production market in countries of origin for identifying economic complementarities with destination regions and support a migrant training and mobility which might be useful for bilateral economic integration and local development.

LINKS

Glover, Stephen; Gott, Ceri; Loizillon, Ana?s; Portes, Jonathan; Price, Richard; Spencer, Sarah; Srinivasan, Vasanthi; Willis, Carole (2001) ‘Migration: an economic and social analysis’, Research Development and Statistics Directorate, Occasional Paper No 67, London http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs/occ67-migration.pdf