Undercut migrant smugglers with legal routes to Europe, says IOM

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Good morning. With Ukraine’s EU candidate status secured in December and the bloc’s financial support clinched last week, that leaves military support still to be agreed. And for that, the other 26 member states need to convince Germany.

Today, Laura speaks to the head of the UN’s migration agency about legal pathways to combat people smuggling to the continent, and our energy correspondent explains why renewables groups are upset about new laws designed to help them.

Barely legal

Europe needs to create easier ways for workers to live and work on the continent in order to undercut smugglers, the chief of the International Organization for Migration tells Laura Dubois.

Context: The number of migrants reaching Europe rose an annual 50 per cent last year, when the IOM recorded some 286,000 arrivals. Several European governments have announced measures to curb irregular migration. At the same time, businesses complain about labour shortages.

“The smuggling is the most effective way to meet the demand right now. That’s the problem,” IOM director-general Amy Pope said in an interview.

Pope said that people from countries such as Tunisia, Morocco and those in western Africa came to Europe seeking jobs. “The opportunities that they have at home are insufficient. And the opportunities for working here in Europe are high,” Pope said. “We are seeing labour shortages across Europe in multiple sectors, including and especially in the lower skilled sectors.”

But getting a regular visa to work in the EU is often lengthy and difficult, opening up a space for smugglers — similarly to other illegal businesses exploiting market opportunities.

“You look at drug trafficking, there’s a demand and there’s a supply . . . they effectively operate as multinationals. They have very sophisticated business models,” Pope said.

“You see the movement of human beings in similar ways. There’s supply and there’s demand. And in the absence of a safe and regular pathway for people to move to meet those demands, there’s a business that develops.”

The EU has vowed to crack down on smugglers, for instance by strengthening law enforcement in countries like Tunisia.

“Yes, the smuggling is one piece of it . . . but the truth is, if people don’t have a legitimate network to access to go in a safe way to meet a job with a visa, the demand will be met in other ways,” Pope said.

The European Commission has proposed to set up a “talent pool” to connect people outside the bloc with job offers, and countries such as Greece and Italy are implementing measures to promote legal migration.

But the plans still fall short of businesses’ demand for workers, and remain controversial among those in favour of cracking down on migration altogether.

Chart du jour: Left in the cold

Russia urgently needs investment into its Soviet-era energy infrastructure and other utilities as Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine consumes a growing share of the Russian budget.

Green dilemma

The EU’s flagship act to boost clean technologies is due to be agreed this week — but efforts to prevent the bloc from becoming dependent on third countries such as China are proving controversial, writes Alice Hancock.

Context: The EU is racing to roll out renewable energy while at the same time protecting its industry against foreign competition, and keeping energy prices low.

To compete with the US Inflation Reduction Act and its $369bn in green subsidies, Brussels came forward with the Net Zero Industry Act, which does not include funding but cuts paperwork and speeds up permitting for technologies such as wind and solar.

The law also sets criteria on sustainability and cyber security that would bar certain Chinese products. But member states want to introduce these benchmarks for renewable power auctions gradually, thanks mostly to German and Swedish concerns that restricting cheaper Chinese imports could vastly raise costs.

Renewables groups fear that a delay would lead to a flood of Chinese investments in the short term — a position the European parliament backs.

EU countries risk using “highly subsidised and market-distorting imported cleantech” as a crutch to reach renewable energy goals, manufacturers wrote in a letter to the European Commission, EU lawmakers and the Belgian government.

Another letter from trade body Wind Europe says that delaying the criteria risks “undoing” other efforts to protect the sector.

France is also keen on the benchmarks. “Sovereignty might have a cost but it also has no price,” Cyril Piquemal, France’s deputy ambassador to the EU, said at an event last month.

The parliament and member states should agree the final shape of the law tomorrow.

Separately, the commission will today announce measures to prop up solar manufacturers against Chinese competition.

What to watch today

1. European parliament plenary session kicks off in Strasbourg.

2. EU cohesion ministers meet in Mons, Belgium.

3. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz hosts French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal in Berlin.

Now read these

• Container cities: One year after the earthquake in Turkey and Syria, survivors still languish in temporary shelters and struggle to access basic needs such as water.

• Space race: Competition between European countries for the next generation of rockets threatens to undo decades of collaboration on travelling to space.

• Moscow mortgage: Western governments are drawing up plans to issue debt to help fund Ukraine, using Russian assets as a backstop.