Main migration characteristics and trends

The aim of the present chapter is the study of the main migration characteristics and trends of the migration processes in crisis conditions of Bulgarians and Moroccans, studied in the last two chapters (II and III), and their effect on the Spanish society and economy. Spain has a solid background in the recent immigration issues due to the strong immigration flows during the last two decades. A relevant component of them is due to the Moroccan migration. That is why in the next subsection we will study it under the point of view of the relation of the economic crisis and the Moroccan return migration. Bulgaria has a solid background in emigration issues due to the strong emigration flows during the last two decades, started after 1989. A relevant component of them are related to Spain, which was a very attractive country before the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008. After 2008 however, new tendencies such as circular and return migrations are observed. They will be a subject of study in the next subsections. Recently a similar analysis has been performed in the context of the Romanian immigration in Spain (MARCU 2014b).

Spain and Bulgaria are at the two extremes of the EU and have external borders with countries not belonging to the EU, Morocco and Andorra in the case of Spain, and Turkey, Serbia and the FYR of Macedonia, in the case of Bulgaria, (Fig. 4.1). In this sense, both countries have a lot of similarities regarding border security and migration flow. Note that Spain belongs to the Schengen area and Bulgaria still not (Fig. 4.2).

143

Fig. 4.1. Map of the EU without overseas territories as of 01.01.2014

SOURCE: www.lawobserver.co.uk

Fig. 4.2. Map of the Schengen area as of 01.01.2014

144 Spain has a very extensive experience in immigration policy. As we discussed in chapter one of the Thesis, the transition of Spain from a country of immigration started in the nineties, being at the beginning relatively modest, compared to the traditional European immigrant countries. It was only at the beginning of the XXI century when immigration experienced an abrupt increase.

Until 2008, before the start of the current financial crisis, Spain had one of the highest immigration rates in the world with a significant increase in foreign population settled in the country, with nearly three million new inhabitants. According to INE (2012), 14% of the residents in Spain were foreign citizens.

The economic immigration dominated in the general context of the migration‟s reasons. However, the employment referred mainly to the market sectors, where low-skilled immigrant workforce was in great demand. The rate of immigrants employed as low- skilled workers increased especially in the period between 2002 and 2007 during the housing bubble and the expansion of the construction sector (ARANGO 2009). Immigrants were mainly employed in the service sector for domestic work, catering, agriculture, construction and manufacturing. Most of the immigrants working in these sectors worked in improperconditions.

In addition to economic flows, a very important aspect also relates to family reunification. The foreign population registered a significant increase in family reunification until 2006. Most of them were represented by the Moroccan immigrants, who arrived before the introduction of visa requirements for Spain in 1991. Others entered the country within the quotas offered by the government. But a larger part is due to the illegal arrivals to Spain, who later achieved to regularize their situation by taking advantage of quotas or extraordinary regularization processes (COLECTIVO IOÉ 2012). On the contrary, Bulgaria was not an immigrant country until 2012. However, the recent civil war in Syria and the change of the migration pattern of the North-African migrants entering into Europe via Turkey, contributed to a drastic increase of the immigrants flow and thus transforming Bulgaria into a host country.

According to the Bulgarian Agency for Refugees (Table 3.2, third chapter of the PhD thesis) and the information from the Bulgarian Border Police, during the last year, more than 8.000 persons have applied for protection, the majority of them coming from Syria

145 (Table 3.3), followed by Afghanistan, Algeria, Palestine and Mali, with the most of the arrivals in October 2013.

Apart from the immigration pattern mentioned above, Bulgaria is an attractive country for the citizens with Bulgarian origin coming from Moldova, Ukraine, the FYR of Macedonia and Serbia. During the last decades, Bulgaria turned to be also very attractive for the Russian immigrants due to the similar language and culture and the possibilities for investments in an EU country, which Bulgaria has become since 2007 (MARKOVA, 2010).

The emigration processes in Spain are relatively new in the context of the more recent history. More evidence of those processes has been observed since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008. These emigration flows are due to the high unemployment rate since the beginning of the economic crisis in 2008. According to data from the Ministry of Justice in late 2013, there were 190.020 fewer foreigners compared to the previous year. As it has been already discussed in the first chapter of the present work, the percentage of unemployed immigrants in 2011 was 32,9% (men) and 30,1% (women) and even higher for the immigrants coming from Africa (46,4% and 55,7%) respectively (INE 2012).

The autonomous regions with the biggest share of the total population also lost the biggest amount of foreign population (DOMINGO I VALLS, 2009, ZATARAIN DEL VALLE 2013). These are the autonomous regions of Catalonia, Madrid, Murcia, the Balearic Islands and Valencia. From the northwestern autonomous regions and from the Canary Islands the emigration was practiced also by an important proportion of people of local origin.

Recently there have been more precise investigations about the origin of the emigrants with Spanish citizenship. They all reported that most of the people leaving Spain are immigrants who arrived before 2007, who had obtained a Spanish citizenship during the last years (GONZÁLEZ 2012). The data show that until the end of 2010, the flow of immigrants has been greater than that of the emigrants, however, this trend changed in 2011, when departures exceeded arrivals by 55.626 people (GONZÁLEZ 2012). Data from the Register of Spanish Residents Abroad show that the number of Spaniards living outside Spain has increased by about 230.000 people during the period between 2009 and

146 2011 but only 7.372 of them were native, i.e. born in Spain. One has to consider that the records of the Register may not have reflected correctly all the movements as the majority of the emigrants have not unsubscribed in the Spanish census. Also most of the people who have acquired Spanish citizenship by naturalization and left the country afterwards, have not registered in the consulate of the country of migration (GONZÁLEZ 2012).

According to the most recent statistical data, the autonomous regions that have experienced greater reductions of foreigners are Madrid (about 58.668), Catalonia (32.302) and Valencia (23.809) (INE 2013).

The new trends in the recent emigration phenomena are clearly seen by investigating the remittance‟s flow towards Spain. Its evolution during the period 1990-2012 is represented in the following Fig. 4.3.

Fig. 4.3. Evolution of the remittances to Spain during the period 1990-2012.

SOURCE: Bank of Spain / El País (MARS 2013 a) based on statistics offered by Remesas.org

For the first time since 2004 there is a trend of rapprochement of the two flows of remittances from workers abroad towards Spain and from Spain towards the outside, reaching around 6.000 million euro in 2012, which breaks the record of the previous year.

147 In short, following the data from the Bank of Spain, the Spaniards again receive money from overseas workers. Specifically, remittance income is 3,6% more compared to 2011, mainly due to population loss.

The number of Spaniards living abroad has increased by half a million since 2009, reaching up to 1,9 million people as of January 1, 2013, with around 6 % more compared to the previous year, according to the latest data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE 2012). Part of this increase is due to foreigners who obtained Spanish citizenship while residing in the country and who have returned to their country of origin as well as due to those naturalized by the Law of Historical Memory24.

For these same factors, the foreign population in Spain fell in 2012, a phenomenon that has not occurred since 1996. The number of foreign residents at the beginning of 2012 was 5.736.258, about 15.000 fewer compared to the previous year. This, together with high unemployment (unemployment affects in average 36 % of foreigners compared to the average value of 26 % for the whole of Spain) largely explains the decline in remittances of workers towards abroad, which for 2012 is 6.485 million of euro. It is a contraction of 10% compared to the previous year and marks the fifth consecutive year of negative trend of remittances towards abroad with the small exception of 2011.

Thus, 2012 marks thus a turning point in the Spanish immigration history as remittances from foreigners living in the country towards their home countries did not exceed the income for the first time in the recent history (MARS 2013 a).

Spain thus can be regarded again as a net recipient country of remittances from emigrants working abroad (Fig. 4.4).

24

The Historical Memory Law (in Spanish: Ley de Memoria Histórica or La Ley por la que se reconocen y amplían derechos y se establecen medidas en favor de quienes padecieron persecución o violencia durante la Guerra Civil y la Dictadura), is a Spanish law voted by the Congress of Deputies. The Historical Memory Law recognizes the victims on both sides of the Spanish Civil War and gives rights to the victims and the descendants of victims of the Civil War. See «Ley 52/2007, de 26 de diciembre, por la que se reconocen y amplían derechos y se establecen medidas en favor de quienes padecieron persecución o violencia durante la guerra civil y la dictadura» (published in BOE 27/12/2007)

148

Fig. 4.4. Migration flows.

SOURCE: Bank of Spain/ El País, (MARS 2012b).

In the following Fig. 4.5 is represented the Spanish emigration to Germany during the period 1960-2012 (left figure) and the flows from different European countries towards Germany (right figure).

Fig. 4.5. Emigration flows to Germany.

149 Since 2010 there is a well pronounced tendency between the Spaniards to emigrate in Germany (29.910 people in 2012).

Finally, the last data regarding the Spanish emigration, published in April 2014, shows that in 2013, some 545.980 people emigrated from Spain, 190.020 being foreigners, while only 14.131 Spaniards decided to return. In 2013 only the Chinese community has increased with about 2% or 3.549 citizens, while the rest of the foreign communities have been reduced, showing the higher reduction among the English immigrants (87.880 less), followed by the Romanian (74.745) and the Ecuadorian ones (45.309) (EFE 2014).

In the nineties, many Bulgarian citizens emigrated from the country. During the first decade of the democratic transition a total reconstruction of the economy from socialist to capitalist basics took place. However it was not done correctly. Many former managers and directors of different branches of the industry and services profited of the lack of control and transparency (TZVETKOV 1998). As a consequence of that, the inflation in 1996 reached more than 300% and many leading industries such as the mining, the machine industry, the IT sector and even up to some extend the textile, the food industry and the agriculture were destroyed. This period is characterized by a massive emigration of Bulgarian citizens of working age, most of them having a university degree, leaving the country. According to the National Statistical Institute, only in 1992 more than 218.000 Bulgarians emigrated. Among them, the highly skilled migrants left for searching a permanent resettlement in Europe, USA and Canada and better living and working conditions (MARKOVA 2010).

As it has been already mentioned in chapter three of the thesis, Spain became an attractive destination for Bulgarian migrants in the second half of the 1990s with the construction sector economy in progress. According to the statistics, the total number of registered Bulgarians in Spain on 1 January 2007 was 118.182 (MARKOVA 2010, INE 2008). According to the Agency of the Bulgarians Abroad, the Bulgarian emigration was around 820.000 people during the period 1985-2010 (GUENTCHEVA et al. 2003). The consequences of these phenomena are very serious for the entire nation regarding the depopulation, the aging, the brain-drain, the lack of professional preparation between the remaining population and the depression of the whole nation (MARKOVA 2010). The

150 continuous exodus of skilled and educated migrants composed mainly by researchers, university professors, IT specialists, doctors and other specialists with university background has left the country without the necessary professionals. One has also to mention the social effects of migration amongst others consist of change in family composition; family separations and the abandonment of old people (GUENTCHEVA et al. 2003).

During the process of the democratic transition, the emigration has alleviated the labor market and has contributed to a relevant increase of the remittances sent by the immigrants to their families. Expressed in terms of a percentage of the Bulgarian‟s GPD, they represent a relevant part of it. As already cited in the previous section, the remittances consisted of about 4,2% from the Bulgarian GPD in 2004 and 5,4% of the country‟s GDP in 2008 (MARKOVA 2010). This is a positive tendency for the Bulgarian economy and can lead, up to some extent, to its partial recovery from the negative trends during the first decade of the democratic transition.

The seasonal work abroad is currently even more attractive, in order to save some money necessary for living expenses or for an investment in the country. It leads also to some positive aspects for the economic organization of the work developing some entrepreneurial behavior as well as the more active role of the local authorities in mediating the exchange regulations (BULGARIAN MINISTRY OF LABOR 2014).

151

4.2. The circular and return migration 4.2.a The Moroccan case

Morocco does not recognize a foreign citizenship. Moroccans which have also another, for example, Spanish citizenship are only regarded as Moroccan citizens inside Morocco, unless they are allowed to renounce their Moroccan citizenship by a decree of the Council of Ministers, according to the article 19 of the Moroccan Citizenship Law.

 The Moroccan return migrants

As we have explained in the previous chapters of the thesis, the share of the Moroccans is one of the most important parts of the foreign immigrants in Spain. That is why the study of the return Moroccan migrants and the Moroccan governmental policy towards the attraction of return migrants is an important part of the present thesis.

The impact of the crisis has negative effects on the living conditions of the immigrants settled in the country of residence. They become more vulnerable because of the tensions of the labor market. Of the 200 million people settled abroad, the OECD estimated that half of them are very vulnerable to downturns in the economy. The case of Spain illustrates this finding. This country, affected by the crisis, showed in 2010 an unemployment rate for the Moroccan immigrants of around 47%. According to a study of sociologists and experts in migration and labor market on behalf of the Spanish Ministry of Labor, conducted in 2010, on “the impact of the economic crisis on the employment of immigrants in Spain”, 265.000 Moroccan immigrants were unemployed, 120.000 of them being for more than a year, and 140.000 without any unemployment benefits (MAZOUZ 2012).

A recent survey data reveals the profile of the Moroccan return migrants from France to Morocco, based on an original database collected in the main post offices. The survey shows that these migrants have a higherpropensity to return to their home country if they are single (or divorced), are young men who earn modest incomes (up to 1.500 euro) and have a baccalaureate level of education. Other key factors are their decisions to send money regularly to their family living in Morocco and their accumulation of money in the

152 host country from previous investments. The better educated migrants who have higher wages, with a significant expertise and are well integrated into the country don't think to return home. More precisely, the results indicate that the best integrated migrants in France think less to return to Morocco. These are the cases of managers or Moroccan migrants with a university degree. In fact, the decision not to return is strongly linked to possible professional difficulties for reintegration of the returnees in Morocco. It is interesting also to note the case of the unemployed Moroccan migrants who do not plan to return to Morocco. This may be related to a failure to achieve the objectives of their emigration. It is also possible that it is related to imperfections in the labor market and economic conditions in Morocco such as high unemployment, lack of political support for job seekers, etc. One has to notice as well the importance of certain factors relating to economic and social ties between the Moroccan migrants and their home country, such as remittances and their motives to invest in real estate in Morocco as decisive for their return decision. These results are in line with the hypothesis that the Moroccan migrants could be apprehended through their desire to maintain strong links with their country of origin. These links are performed through investment in non-financial assets such as real estate (BOUOIYOUR 2013).

These results open the way for a number of conclusions concerning the role of the socio- economic and political context in the country of origin (employment policy, institutions, banking, etc.) in making the decision to return. The risk of loss of the social rights for the Moroccans force them to stay abroad. Moroccan officials need to address this issue, trying to reach an agreement with their foreign counterparts. Similarly, they should consider arrangements that facilitate the reintegration of returning migrants in terms of professional, social and cultural development and to expand their contribution to the development of Morocco (BOUOIYOUR 2013).

 Morocco as a destination and transit country

An important point to be considered here is regarding Morocco as a destination and transit country. Since the mid-1990s Morocco has evolved into a destination country for the migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. An increasing number of migrants from West

153 Africa travel to Morocco for educational and professional reasons. West African and, more recently, some Filipino women migrate to Morocco as domestic servants. There is also a modest, but growing presence of Chinese traders in Moroccan cities. In addition, an increasing number of Europeans have settled in Morocco as workers and entrepreneurs, particularly from Spain, due to the economic crisis (BOUOIYOUR 2013). Some African migrants use Morocco as a staging country before attempting to enter into Europe. Once in Morocco, they attempt to enter into Ceuta and Melilla. Because of the lack of repatriation agreements between Spain and some Sub-Saharan countries and because of identification problems, many immigrants who manage to enter are transported to the European peninsular part of Spain and released afterwards.

An increasing number of migrants failing to enter Europe prefer to settle in Morocco as a second-best option rather than return to their poorer home countries. Several thousands immigrants have settled in Casablanca, Rabat, and Fes, where they have found a job in the service sector, the trade and construction sectors (DE HAAS 2014).

Although the above mentioned facts, the immigrants rate in the country remains negative with estimation of –3,56 immigrants/1000 population for 2014 (INSTITUT NATIONAL DE STATISTIQUE ET D‟ÉCONOMIE APPLIQUÉE 2014).