Archive for April, 2010
Is denial of expat voting rights to EU residents a penalty?
Monday, April 26th, 2010A British expat who lives in Spain is taking a case to the High Court in London to challenge the law that limits UK expat voting to those living outside the UK for less than fifteen years.
James Preston is a Spanish resident with signficant ties to the UK, where he frequently visits and has family. He works for a British company subject to UK financial regulations, and will owe inheritance tax to the UK government. He is a UK citizen and holds no other citizenship.
As the lawyer handling the case, Romano Subiotto, writes in European Voice this week, Preston is arguing that his disenfranchisement is contrary to European law, because it effectively penalises those who choose to move to another EU state:
In the context of European law, this restriction – one that citizens of, for example, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain do not have to endure – is contrary to the EU treaty. The EU treaty explicitly grants EU citizens an EU-protected right to vote in local and European Parliament elections in the place of their chosen residence in the EU. It does not refer explicitly to the right to vote in national elections, but it does grant EU citizens the fundamental right to move around and live freely throughout the European Union, without being penalised for exercising that right. Denying Britons the right to vote is undeniably a penalty.
This will certainly be an interesting case to watch. Surely an Irish citizen, similarly disenfranchised, could make a case on the same basis?
Related webpage:
EuropeanVoice.com: The Muzzled British Diaspora in the EU
72% would emigrate for work, says survey
Monday, April 26th, 2010The majority of Irish people would consider emigrating for work, according to a survey conducted by a recruitment company. 72% of the 1000 people surveyed by Grafton Recruitment in March said they would consider leaving.
When asked where they would go, Europe was the top pick; Australia, Britain and Canada were the next choices. Only 60% said they would be willing to relocate to Northern Ireland for a job.
Grafton Recruitment Managing Director Cathy McCorry said, “Migrating for work has become part of Ireland’s history and so it is of no surprise that Irish workers are not fazed by moving to another country for a number of years.”
She issued a caveat, however, noting that the loss of workers could be damaging for the labour market:
“The concern for employers, however, is that a massive exodus of talent leaving Ireland to work in another country will have a significant long-term impact on the Irish labour market.
She also notes that there needs to be more study of the effects of this outward migration on the labour market; as I’ve noted many times, there is a dearth of up-to-date information on Irish emigration rates. It would be great to get quarterly migration statistics, for example, instead of the annual ones we get currently, issued several months after the period to which they refer.
“This trend needs to be examined properly and employers and governments need to actively respond to the fluidity of talent and the challenges and opportunities that talent mobility poses for both employers and individuals.”
One of Ireland’s key strengths for getting ourselves out of this current crisis, of course, is our ability to harness the power of the last few decades of talent mobility. Perhaps this is encouraging some complacency regarding our current situation; as has been noted by several commentators, there appears to be little concern at governmental level about responding to the challenges of this latest rise in talent mobility.
Related website:
InsideIreland.ie: 72% of Irish would emigrate for jobs
Emigration has peaked, claims ESRI in forecast
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010Ireland will not create any new jobs in the next two years, but its jobless rate will fall due to continued outward migration and a fall in the rate of labour force participation, says the Economic and Social Research Institute in its latest economic commentary. The ESRI predicts no change in GNP this year over 2009, and a 1/2% reduction in GDP. A modest return to growth is predicted in 2011, with 2.75% growth in GNP and 2.5% in GDP. The number of workers, however, will remain unchanged – at about 1.9 million. While the numbers will be the same, there will be some improvement in the statistics:
In spite of the stability in the numbers employed, we expect unemployment to fall between 2010 and 2011, averaging 13¾ per cent in 2010 and 13 per cent in 2011. This expected fall in the rate of unemployment is related in part to expected migratory outflows – 60,000 in the year ending April 2010 and 40,000 in the year ending April 2011. We also expect to see on-going falls in labour force participation.
So the ESRI is suggesting that net migration has already peaked this year. I’m curious about how this assertion will hold up if the global recovery is faster than Ireland’s. In any case it’s hardly encouraging that the unemployment numbers will be shrinking almost entirely because the jobless are leaving the country. No doubt the government will point to falling unemployment as a sign of their success in handling the economy, as the emigrants’ departures shrink the unemployment rolls and lesson domestic pressures. The media has reported that the study’s author has said that unemployment would reach 16-17% were it not for the emigration release valve.<p>It’s depressingly familiar, and it’s had to believe that the government is terribly concerned with this situation. There is no job stimulus programme for young people, and cuts in the last budget aimed at keeping young people “close to the workforce” seemed to have been aimed at creating precisely this situation.<p> As Piaras Mac Einri said on Newstalk today, “Who has made any speech about emigration in the last twelve months?” And of course, emigrant services were cut by 14% in the last budget; by contrast, aid for the greyhound racing industry was cut by 13%. Such a depressing situation to have arisen under a government that genuinely deserved credit for transforming the relationship between Ireland and the Irish abroad. <p>See the press release on the ESRI website.