Fazer's infamous lakupekka. This candy wrapping you won't find on shop shelves anymore.

Europeans are, and have always been immigrants. They have fled hunger, they have fled wars – or just left in the hope of a better new life elsewhere. The map of Europe has evolved through migration, and tens of millions of European migrants have transformed the faces of other continents.

I myself am an immigrant. I did not flee hunger, despite the fact that coming here meant quitting a job of managing EU food aid to the welfare state’s poor back home. But yes, in a way, you could say the latter, search for a better life, applies to me, too.

Like many of us working for Europe, me too I have faced certain suspicion from the side of the indigenous Belgians towards us the “Common Market” people, like they often call us – “prices have gone up, life is more difficult…” And sure, we bitch about Belgium, the sometimes hopeless and endless bureaucracy, and crime. Never resorted to the “I’m not a racist, but…” phrase? I have to admit I did, resort to it.

As naive it may sound, it was in Belgium where I for the first time really realised how privileged I was, a white blond – whom the police would never stop on the street to check the papers, who would get most chances and only the sky would be limit – except maybe for the glass ceiling. A girl who “won in a lottery” as she was born in a country like Finland… Whereas, in another life, I might not even have had a chance to been born, nor to go to school…

The F-factor

Yes, Finland, a country where 59% of the population just claimed not to want more immigrants. With their current 2.5% share of the whole population, I find this poll difficult to grasp – even if the question could have been better formulated. And I live in a country where the extreme right gets even third of votes in some areas. There’s a pattern, they say. During times of economic downturn people’s attitudes tend to harden. Increasing unemployment makes any industrious Thai berry picker or Somali bus driver a threat to you, no? I am ashamed.

When the first boat refugees from Vietnam arrived at the end of 70s, they were flown over the Helsinki archipelago to get a better view of the country they where about to start a new life in. Welcome to Finland, the pilot greeted – I read in our main daily. What a change in attitudes.

Matter of fear? Of not just “them” taking “our” jobs. Fear of the “the other”, unknown, fear of change? That’s at least what MEPs concluded after visiting Italy’s Rosarno earlier this year, following incidents between immigrant workers and locals. And fear is present, everywhere in Europe. Those who have spoken out, researchers and the few politicians, they have felt it. They have been threatened – even up to being silenced. So are artists like the Muhammad cartoonists, some of which claim only to have experienced with limits of art.

At the same time we know, our decision-makers know that Europe is getting greyer, older and our way of living more and more untenable – unless we get more people to keep us going. For many Europe is still the Eldorado, worth even risking one’s life for to get to. But three months of -20 degrees Celsius? Not sure everybody fancies making snow angels or jumping from a hot sauna in an ice hole…

R like responsibility

My country, like the EU, is bound by international conventions such as the Geneva Convention, which defines who is a refugee, as well as the states’ responsibilities to protect them by granting asylum. The Convention has also been the starting point for Europe’s work to protect better those fleeing persecution, be it for their race, political opinions, religion, or nationality.

EU is moving, though slowly, towards a common asylum and migration policy with minimum standards. My native town Tampere still gets some credit for having been the cradle for this process. Our MEPs have been working on proposals to improve the way the EU asylum system works and to strengthen asylum seekers’ rights. However, sharing the burden, by way of a binding mechanism and obligatory solidarity, is not something all EU member states are keen to agree to.

Are we talking big money? At less than €4.2 billion EU wide, these total asylum-related costs in 2007 were less than what UK citizens spent on pets and pet food in the same year.

The burden varies from one state to another. Europe received in 2007 just 14% of the world’s refugees, while EU countries received some 220,000 asylum requests, about 75% of those filed in the whole world. Those on the Mediterranean coast are under biggest pressure. But they are not the only ones reaching, or having to reach, out a helping hand. In the past years Sweden granted asylum to 40% of the Iraqis seeking protection in the EU. As for my country, Finland is committed to taking an annual quota of 750 persons with UNHCR refugee status. Not much.

Are we talking big money? Not really. According to a recent study, the total of direct spending by each EU country has generally not been more than the equivalent of 1/14th of the UN official development aid target of 0.7% of Gross National Income. At less than €4.2 billion EU wide, these total asylum-related costs in 2007 were less than what UK citizens spent on pets and pet food in the same year.

R-talk

We know we need to talk about it, but who dares to pronounce it, the R-word? In the era of political correctness, no hot potato is a potato. Euphemisms encroach. We change candy wrappings, we are ready to give up school plays and customs not to offend. But how relevant are these gestures if we don’t talk about the real “59% problem”. In my country, populist forces have gained in support with their “immigration-critical” talk, something which the main parties have found too irresistible not to resort to. So they encourage it. There’s of course nothing wrong with being critical, But. Any system means some failures – but all that claimed abuse we now have to deal with? Or is it just an easy hand wash?

In a multicultural Europe, clashes occur. But we who are better off have a responsibility to do our best to make those fleeing or leaving their homes part of our societies. Yes, it is a two-way street. They need to learn too, be it our ways, culture, language, laws. But anybody having lived abroad should be able to say it is a two-way street also in another sense: we too learn from them, their ways, culture and language. Something to think about, and not only on Sunday March 21, the international day against racism.