Europe’s essential workers: Migration and pandemic politics in Central and Eastern Europe during COVID‐19

Border Region

Europe Centrale, Union Européenne

Language(s)

Anglais

Type

Note on a scientific paper, a conference paper, etc.

Main Category

Employment – Education – Economy

Governance – Power – Cooperation

Introduction

The border controls reintroduced during the COVID-19 crisis have aggravated the situation of expatriated workers in the European Union in so-called "essential" sectors of the economy.

Summary

The 2020 public health crisis aroused very diverse reactions within the European Union in terms of migration policy. Initially these measures impacted migrant works in essential sectors of the Union's internal economy (including healthcare and agriculture). Then when it came to getting the economy restarted, these workers had to return to work, very often without sufficient account being taken of their precarious situation and safety. In this context, the existing migration systems played a dual role: channels used by States in the earliest days of the crisis, but then remobilised by the workers who wanted their rights and their safety to be respected.

Content

The article starts by recounting the different successive measures concerning the closure and control of State borders in Europe over the course of 2020, from the first peak in the epidemic in spring through to the autumn. This history shows how incoherent the measures taken were in spite of the shared desire to achieve a swift economic recovery. More specifically, the article details the fate that awaited foreign workers who benefit from mobility within the European Union. Two phenomena are diagnosed by the author: firstly, the way they were blocked at the borders of their own countries due to the risk of contamination and, secondly, the relaxation of the restrictions for economic reasons to enable them to restart work in the autumn even though the health crisis was not over.

This is then followed by 4 sections: The first consists of an inventory of the crisis management policies and migration policies. The objective of this theoretical section is to understand how the structure and mix of migration policies impact responses in times of crisis. The second part covers the measures taken to limit and control labour migration in Europe to illustrate the influence of the migration systems in place in Europe on the dissemination of these same policies. The third part focuses on the political forces exerted both by high authorities and at grass roots level, which led to the gradual resumption of economic activities linked to migrants' work. This resumption was motivated by the essential nature of these activities, in agriculture and healthcare particularly, often whilst neglecting the health risks taken by workers. The last part looks at the mobilisation of the migrant workers concerned by these contradictory measures and how they managed to get their demands across via the European authorities and via their workers' rights.

Conclusions

The crisis has not given rise to coordinated and coherent management within the European Union, but rather to a succession of unilateral decisions and then bilateral agreements following on from them.

Migration systems create interdependencies between the countries in a common economic space. More specifically, the establishment of balanced, effective migration policies occurs more quickly when the countries of origin and arrival are directly concerned and therefore involved.

The migration systems in place, due to their structure and the actors involved in them, can have a catalysing effect and allow the dialogue needed to set up the measures and policies needed in periods of crisis. These systems, which were activated by the States in the early days of the crisis, allowed them to protect themselves against the spread of the virus. In a second period, the measures were able to be negotiated and adapted following the mobilisation of the workers and their representatives.

The health emergency, here, legitimised the suspension of democratic mechanisms by governments. The management of the crisis, furthermore, was profoundly politicised, even sometimes during the runup to elections. Political decisions in this situation are always torn between the need to guarantee the safety of voters and the need to keep on good terms with international economic partners. The analysis of the multiple measures taken at the borders shows that their legitimacy is rarely based solely on science. In fact they are conditioned by a complex balancing act between health and economics.

Key Messages

The controls and measures imposed on foreign workers doing essential jobs (agriculture in particular) were taken with the main aim of restarting the economy, and often to the detriment of workers' safety and rights.

The pandemic has accentuated the precarious position of migrant workers working within the European Union. Their housing, which was already scarce, became overcrowded. They only benefited from unequal (and sometimes non-existent) medical care and their working conditions became a major source of risk to their health.

This episode illustrates the schism that is progressively opening up in Europe where only the first countries to have joined the European Union fully benefit from an effective healthcare system and guaranteed access to certain economic resources.

Lead

Ruxandra Paul

Author of the entry

Sylvain

MARBEHANT

Links

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/epa2.1105

Keywords