Spectre of protectionist tendencies has evolved into a curse
for immigrants across European Union like France, Italy, England and Germany.
The genesis of these ‘regressive’ policies had begun in France during the
period of Nicholas Sarkozi, the ultra conservative former President of France. He
was notorious for his xenophobic attitude even while he was serving as the Interior
Minister of France under Jacques Chirac. During his tenure he initiated strong
arm measures to force the immigrant black population to flee the country for
whom even menial works to earn their living was denied by the arrogant Sarkozi.
Though he served under Jacques Chirac’s ministry, he was deeply disliked by
Mr.Chirac. The adamant ultra conservative Sarkozi didn’t let the immigrants to
earn their living doing manual work and the black immigrants were the worst
sufferers. His apprehension and indignation were directed against them as he
saw them a great threat to the stability of France.
After Sarkozi, Francois Hollande, the Socialist Party leader
assumed power in France who is widely known for his progressive policies, yet,
the threat of Protectionist policies is looming large in the horizon.
Unlike Mr.Sarkozi, Mr.Hollande is not that vehement in
acting against the immigrants. Unfortunately, the conservatives across France
are turning more and more indignant against the flow of immigrants into France
from poor European nations like Romania and Bulgaria are crossing the borders to
France in search of a living. The conservatives believe the latter’s presence
in the country to be a threat to their existence ever since the global economic
crisis started raising its ugly head affecting the EU countries so also Britain
which is strongly against the concept of a single currency, ie EU adopted by
the EU community.
In Germany, where Angela Merkel of conservative CDU is
running the govt the differences between Conservatives and Social Democrats
over the issue of flow of immigrants to Germany have reached alarming
proportions. One interesting fact is that Germany pay low welfare benefits and
other facilities to its employees.
One relief to a large section of the immigrants is that the
Social democrats in Germany still stand by the founding principles of European
Union which clearly states that the nations belonging to EU are allowed the freedom
of movement from one to another.
During the global meltdown, when Barrack Obama occupied the
Oval office as President on the crest of a popular wave the subprime crisis
resulted in pushing the economy into a deep abyss. The latter was in a bad
shape thanks to George Walker Bush, Obama’s predecessor and Alan Greenspan, the
Federal Reserve Governor known for his advocacy of free market policies. After the
meteoric growth of the economy while Mr.Greenspan was the Fed Reserve Governor,
who was in the chair for consecutive 18 years, his own reckless following of free
market policies left the economy in a shambles while Mr. Bush was in the chair
as the President.
To lift the economy from the abyss into which it had fallen,
it was an arduous task for Mr.Obama to bring back the badly shaken economy into
a better position. Millions lost employment, lakhs and lakhs turned homeless
who couldn’t make repayment of their loans due to the unprecedented recession
many were forced to end their lives due to debt burden. Obama found himself in
a Catch-22 situation. In order to tide over the crisis with the co-operation of
the Republicans who were reluctant in the beginning to extend support to Obama
in giving a shape to the badly tarnished image of the economy finally agreed to
extend support to the govt to pump $789 billion into the system as an interim
measure.
Though George Bush was not an advocate of protectionist
policies, with Mr.Obama assuming power his ire naturally and unfortunately
turned against the immigrant workers from different countries especially Asian
countries like India which had to undergo hard times. Thousands of IT workers had
to leave India quitting their jobs in US who were paid attractive emoluments
and adding to their woes those employees outsourced by US IT firms in India too
had to face the axe. India strongly protested against the policy and expressed its
indignation to the US govt.
Let’s come back to policy of EU community like Germany,
France, Britain and Italy. It is a pity that these countries continue to pursue
this line without taking into account the consequences of such a policy
affecting a large section of those outsiders who seek jobs there.
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