Immigration and the challenges associated with socio-political Essay

Immigration and the challenges associated with socio-political integration in the European Union - Essay Example While the government has framed policies aimed at diluting specific differences that hamper active social participation and economic inclusion, differences associated with cultural identities have been fashioned into new processes of delineating and being a ‘true’ European. The governmental policies that aim at resolving differences between the native population and immigrants face major challenges owing to the large number of immigrants entering the EU from various developing nations. There are growing concerns about the immigration policies in both receiver and sending countries, wherein there are speculations about a large-scale increase in migration flows in the near future. According to various reviews, calculations on future flow of immigration from developing nations to the EU show that there may be 13.5 million immigrants within the EU, from the year 2000 until 2050 (Mansoor and Quillin, 2007). The calculations that give an average estimate are based on various e conomic and demographic factors significant in determining immigration flows. Along with these numbers, one must also take into consideration political, social and cultural aspects of the immigrants, owing to the intricate nature of the issue, closely related to human trafficking, irregular migration, and shifting borders. The demographic framework of a nation is greatly affected by migratory  movements, and owing to the inherent differences   in  socioeconomic and   demographic   structure   of  the immigrant   populations   in regard to   the   host   population,   migration   flows   significantly influence public expenditure, income distribution, demographic  evolution,   social  stratification  along with economic development (Amin,  1995).   With rising economic challenges emerging from a steady increase in elderly the population within  European  societies,  the  European  Commission  regards the  entry  and  integra tion of immigrants  within the EU  an added demographic challenge  that involves providing better living and working conditions, employment,  and education  for the immigrants and  working out a long-term, sustainable  budgetary plan (Linz and Stula, 2010). Immigration  may be triggered due to various reasons that may vary from political, economic, or personal  reasons,  while migration may also be  voluntary  or  even forced, and the later often involves human trafficking  (Kraler, Kofman, Kohli and Schmoll, 2011).  From a historical  perspective,  Europe  has always faced  migration  from different parts of the world. Prior to WWI,  during  the era of industrialisation,  there were large-scale transatlantic  labour migrations. Post WWII, during the period of severe economic crises and reconstruction,  Europe  became  an  important  destination for many immigrants.  This  was  mainly  due  to  large numbers of la bourers migrating  to the European continent from  various  parts  of  the  world  due to  work  shortage in their own countries (Castles and Miller,  2010). At this time, there were also intra-European  migrations, where  labourers  from  south  Europe  moved to various west European nations.   Subsequently there were  settlements  established, and  families brought over for reunification. Besides labour migration,  there were war refugees and  natural disaster  refugees that came  to  Europe  from the former USSR, Africa and the  Balkans, thus further adding to the social and cultural diversities within the EU population. In this context, the essay will review various research papers and analyse the different challenges associated with