“A new political reflex has taken hold in Lithuania. As soon
as the question of rapidly growing migration is raised, the answer is one – we
need to strengthen integration.
Now, Vilnius Mayor Valdas Benkunskas, who can no longer hide
the scale of foreigners, supported by the chairman of the Conservative Party
Laurynas Kasčiūnas, is proposing more Lithuanian language courses, more integration
projects, more cultural programs for newcomers. Of course, not for the
employers who bring migrants, but for taxpayers’ money.
As if the problem were not the scale of migration, but only
that newcomers do not yet speak Lithuanian well enough.
The question: should integration really be the main goal of
our migration policy? Or is the most important task something else entirely –
to reduce the scale of migration to a level that the state can actually
control?
The numbers show that the situation is changing much faster
than we can imagine.
During the first three decades of independence in Lithuania
The number of foreigners living in Lithuania was approximately 58 thousand.
However, the situation has changed radically over the past
few years. The number of foreigners in Lithuania has increased to more than 220
thousand. In 2023 alone, about 67 thousand foreigners arrived in the country.
This means that Lithuania, which until recently was
considered one of the most homogeneous in Europe, is becoming one of the
fastest changing countries in a very short time.
In Sweden, out of almost 10 million residents, about 1.5
million were born outside this country. There, the situation has already turned
into street battles between immigrant gangs and power structures.
According to these figures, Lithuania has already come 2/3
of the way to Sweden. Only not in a few dozen, but in just a few years.
Integration can only work when migration flows are
relatively small and society has enough time to react. When migration becomes a
mass phenomenon, integration stops working.
This is not a theoretical assumption - it is an experience
that many Western European countries have already gone through countries.
Germany, France, the Netherlands and Sweden have invested
huge sums in the integration of migrants for decades. Programs, projects and
social initiatives have been created. It turned out that all this was in vain.
When the number of migrants becomes very large, parallel
communities begin to form. People live in the same territories, but their
social life takes place separately. And no amount of integration can change
this.
For this reason, in many European countries today, the
discussion is not about strengthening integration, but about limiting
migration.
This does not mean that integration has become completely
unimportant. However, it is recognized as a secondary measure that can only
work when migration policy itself is controlled.
In Lithuania, it is said that migration is limited by
quotas. However, it is worth looking at the numbers themselves.
The economic migration quota in Lithuania is about 40
thousand people per year.
If such rates continue for ten years, Lithuania will have
almost half a million new residents from abroad.
In other words, quotas are currently does not restrict mass
immigration, but simply legalizes it.
Business organizations claim that Lithuania lacks workers,
that there will soon be no one left to work.
At first glance, this argument seems logical. However, it
has another side.
Importing cheap labor can become a convenient but short-term
strategy. It is easier for companies to bring in workers from abroad than to
invest in automation, technology, or employee training.
In the long run, this can create an economic model that is
based on cheap labor, not high productivity. Without going into the social
consequences of mass immigration here.
Those businesses that today earn hundreds of millions in
Lithuania due to migrant labor do not make any additional contribution to
investing in the latest technologies to the extent that the need for jobs in
the transport, construction, and manufacturing sectors would be rapidly
optimized. On the contrary, business lobbyists are pressuring the government to
further increase immigrant quotas or to seek migrants for business in “more
culturally appropriate countries.”
It is obvious that in order to become a country with an
advanced economy and avoid the mistakes of Western migration policy, we must
tighten quotas, at least halving the number of migrants admitted per year, and
adopt a law that would no longer allow economic migrants to extend their work
visas. These would be the first real steps in fundamentally responding to the
problems of mass immigration.
Integration spells can give us only an imaginary sense of
security and comfort, which will suddenly evaporate when faced with reality.
Which may already be too late to fix.
***
Dovilas Petkus is a member of the National Unity party.”
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