Context: Barents Region and the EU

The Barents Euro-Arctic region21 was established in 1993 to advance security and sustainable development in the European North. According to Tennberg,

“[a]lthough it was recognized from the beginning that the region was economically very challenging in regard to being a sparsely populated remote area and many administrative challenges, high economic hopes have been connected to the region over the years.”22

The Barents Region is developing gradually (and not least in an economic sense), and demand for co-operation between the EU and other international institutions is greater today than ever before. The Barents Region is unique in Europe – no less than 80% of the world’s technology for underground mining is estimated to come from the region, along with its most important asset of all – namely its highly skilled work force.²³

The EU’s role as an influential member to this region revolves around how it places itself with the existing actors and governance frameworks, and which role

19 Levi-Faur, David. “Why Comparative Methods in Political & Social Research.” The school of political science, University of Haifa. http://poli.haifa.ac.il/~levi/.html (accessed December 28, 2012).

20 Mill, John Stuart. Two Methods of Comparison, selection from his A System of Login. New York:

Harper & Row, Publishers, 1888, pp. 278, 279–283. ; From Amitai, Etzioni, and Du Bow L.

Frdedrie, eds. Comparative Perspectives: Theories and Methods. Boston: Little Brown, 1970, pp.

205–210.

21 The Barents Region in the Scandinavian and Russian Arctic is emerging as one of the most dynamic and versatile East-West initiatives in Europe (see http://www.uk.sagepub.com/books ProdDesc.nav?prodId=Book204686). The Barents Euro-Arctic Region includes the following 13 territories which are also members of the Barents Regional Council: Finland Lapland – Oulu and Kainuu Regions. Norway Finnmark – Troms and Nordland Counties. Russia – Komi and Karelian Republics, Murmansk and Arkhangelsk Counties, Nenets Autonomous Area.

22 Tennberg, Monica. “Regionalism in the Barents Region: Exploring the relationship between the political and the economical.” Paper presented at the KATSE conference, Turku, Finland, January 11–12, 2013.

23 Government offices of Sweden, Kiruna 12 October 2011: Carl Bildt, Utrikesminister. Minister for Foreign Affairs at the Barents Council ministerial meeting in Kiruna, http://www.sweden.

gov.se/sb/d/14194/a/177807 (accessed September 13, 2012).

it aims or strives for in relation to the policy issues mentioned above. Recently, the EU has evolved its relationship with Norway, its fifth largest trade partner.²⁴ The good relation between Norway-Russia could be in the interest of both the region and all of Europe. Therefore, the Northern Dimension cooperation could play a positive role to develop EU-Russia and Norway relationship. Russian foreign minister stated about team work within the context of the Northern Dimension and BEAC in his speech in Brussels meeting 2013, He has also mentioned that “Europe is ‘mature’ enough to develop a new architecture – equal, non-aligned and transparent, based on principles of undivided and integrated safety and security, adherence to the international law.”²⁵ And this is a great task for northern regional cooperation to contribute on certain issues, which could help the region to implement the policy of regional integration in a more complete way, special consideration is devoted to increased demand of resources like energy productivity, sustainable social development, human well-being, protection of environment.²⁶

Figure 1. Barents Region map. Source: Arctic Centre, University of Lapland.

24 Council of the EU. Council conclusions on EU relations with EFTA countries. 3213th Transport, telecommunication and energy council meeting, Brussels, 20 December 2012. Available at http://eeas.europa.eu/norway/docs/2012_final_conclusions_en.pdf (accessed April 23, 2013).

25 Lavrov, Sergey. “the Northern Dimension.” Speech in third ministerial meeting, Brussels Feb 18, 2013. Available at, http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/0/B515552530A07B6944257B190054B05F

The Council of the European Union stated recently that it is aware of the high priority attached by Norway to the Arctic and shares its interest in developments regarding the region. The EU is ready to step up its cooperation on Arctic matters in a number of sectors of common interest, inter alia through its bilateral dialogue with Norway and through regional cooperation. It also welcomes the continued support of Norway with regard to the European Commission’s application on behalf of the EU for an observer status in the Arctic Council. Furthermore, the European Council acknowledges the important role of Norway in the Northern Dimension. The EU continues to be committed to regional cooperation in the framework of Northern Dimension partnerships in the fields of environment, transport and logistics, public health and social well-being and culture.²⁷ Norway follows a standard migration policy, which could be a model for BEAR.²⁸ The good relationship of the EU and Norway could bring positive result for the immigration system of BEAR. In addition, national immigration policy documents (especially from Norway) could be linked with the formation of new policy.

The Russian Federation and the European Union are major partners in a number of key spheres, including economy, energy, and in internal and external aspects of security. Specific task for the immediate future is strengthening the strategic partnership between Russia and the EU. They include the transition to a visa-free regime and the establishment of more effective exchange of experiences, best practices, and learning from more advanced partners, coordination of some actions of immigrants. For instance, immigrant entrepreneurship, setting common goals to improve performance of immigration policies in the region, result-oriented interactions in the sphere of foreign policy (including crisis management), and a commencement of dialogue surrounding the “coupling”

of economic and social development concepts between Russia and the EU until 2020. At the 26th Russia-EU Summit in Brussels on 7 December 2010, the sides launched a Rolling Work Plan for activities within the “Partnership for Modernization”.²⁹ This however did not appear to sit well with the Russian President Vladimir Putin in the 30th Russia-EU summit in Brussels,³⁰ and the issues of human rights and civil society have not been a fruitful line of dialogue in other EU-Russia meetings, for instance: “Russia’s president and European

27 Council of the EU, supra note 24. Norway has demonstrated its solidarity, inter alia with a contribution of 6 billion SDRs (over 7 billion EUR) to the IMF. The close relationship between the EU and Norway has further evolved both through the EEA Agreement and bilaterally, in particular in the areas of Justice and Home Affairs, Common Foreign and Security Policy and Agriculture.

28 Cooper Betsy. “Norway: Migrant quality, not quantity.” Migration Policy Institute (MPI), 2005.

Migration Information Source.

29 Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the European Union. Brief overview of relations. Available at, http://www.russianmission.eu/en/brief-overview-relations (accessed March 20, 2012).

30 Goncharenko, Roman. “EU-Russia summit steers clear of controversy.” In DW, edited by Shant Shahrigian. June 6, 2012. Available at http://www.dw.de/eu-russia-summit-steers-clear-of-controversy/a-15998552 (accessed March 30, 2013).

Union leaders failed to narrow wide diffferences on Syria, immigration and a string of other issues at a summit on Friday marked by testy exchanges over their biggest bone of contention, energy policy,” according to Reuters.³¹

The EU also recently criticized Russia’s human rights record and expressed its concern regarding developments affecting non-governmental organizations in Russia, and EU also requested the Russian government to ensure that defence lawyers are able to work freely and people get fair judgments.³² On the other hand, Russia also criticized EU’s lack of interest to discuss human rights in Brussels.³³ Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on December 21, 2012 in the EU-Russia summit in Brussels, which touched upon immigration issues, that for some reason, the climate of the EU-Russia relationship is not improving.³⁴

Nonetheless, Barents cooperation has great potential, although it has not yet been fully utilized.³⁵ During recent years, the worst problem to have occurred has been an absence of Russian governors at Barents Regional Council meetings.

The lack of commitment on behalf of the Russian regions has been a cause for concern and there has been speculation whether the reason behind this is the disappointment of the Russians in regard to what they view as a limited amount of tangible results stemming from the Barents Cooperation.³⁶

However, the analysis of EU immigration policy is discussed in this article as a paradigm for BEAR. The Barents Euro Arctic Region (BEAR) could itself follow a combined immigration policy framework in accordance with the insights gained from EU studies and mainstream approaches to international relations. The EU as a member of the BEAC should be more active in promoting migration issues in the Barents region, basing on its experiences, because the EU has not any yet any common immigration policy for its member states as the needs of each state is diffferent concerning immigration issues.

The European commission is a member of the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC) and have not been active regarding improving immigration policies

31 Anishchuk, Alexei, and Barbara Lewis. “Russian and European leaders trade barbs on energy.”

Reuters, Dec 21, 2012. Available at, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/21/us-eu-russia-idUSBRE8BK0UW20121221 (accessed May 23, 2013).

32 Brussels. “EU says worried by Russia’s human rights record.” Reuters May 19, 2013. Available at http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/19/us-eu-russia-rights-idUSBRE94I06J20130519 (accessed June 12, 2013).

33 Kara-Murza, Vladimir. “EU Panders to Putin, Shelves Human Rights.” World affair, June 3, 2013. Available at http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/blog/vladimir-kara-murza/eu-panders-putin-shelves-human-rights (accessed June 11, 2013).

34 Putin slams EU criticism of Russia’s rights record.” European Affairs, December 21, 2012.

35 Sirén, Ari. “Review of the Achievements of the Barents Cooperation.” Barentsinfo.org. Available at http://www.barentsinfo.org/Barents_region/Cooperation/Review_of_the_Achievements_of_

of the BEAR. In the 9th meeting of EU integration forum, Deputy Director .General for education and culture of European Commission Xavier Prats Monné stated that EU cannot tell countries what they should do but “the EU can provide policy guidance, and help countries and institutions learn from each other, and we can use EU funding as incentives to encourage policies that work”.³⁷

However, it is important to understand international relations of this region to see how much it is important to influence and discuss what kind of values the EU could bring to the BEAR. For example, environmentally-induced migration is seen as one of the key threats of climate change by the EU and other international actors. To tackle this phenomena there is the need to firstly increase the knowledge base on the impacts of climate change, and secondly, to integrate the adaptation into EU external actions, particularly by fostering dialogue and partnership on adaptation issues with third countries with the aim to address and prevent potential climate change consequences such as forced migration and the displacement of persons. EU migration policy should also take into account the impacts of climate change, in particular migration management.³⁸ BEAC is also an important participant in the Northern Dimension Initiative (NDI), which was aimed to recognize that the EU and Russia may need to apply special cooperation at the governmental and regional or sub-regional level. Particularly in Russian Barents Region that borders the EU,³⁹ which although hopelessly growing, is far from formulating an efffective initiative. It urged the need to improve co-operation between the EU and organizations such as the Barents Euro Arctic Regional Council and the Council of Baltic Sea States on the one hand, whilst looking to increase co-ordination between the diffferent programs and pillars within the EU on the other hand.⁴⁰

The Barents Euro-Arctic Council is building a policy that aims to be based on internationally recognized principles, such as good governance, transparency and participation, sustainable development, gender equality, the rights of persons belonging to minorities, cultural diversity, social cohesion, fair working conditions and corporate social responsibility, non-discrimination, the protection of indigenous peoples, and supports the further strengthening

37 Monné Xavier Prats. “What the EU can do for the education of young immigrants.” Speech at the 9th meeting of the EU Integration Forum, Brussels, 4–5 June, 2013. Available at http://

ec.europa.eu/ewsi/UDRW/images/items/static_38_295379063.pdf (accessed July 12, 2013).

38 Hemingway, Bernd. “EU Migration Governance Initiatives: The Involvement of the IOM.” Ed.

Ellen Falk, Dossier European governance of Migration in Berlin, September 2008.

39 Sergounin. Alexander. “Russia and the European Union: The Northern Dimension”. PONARS Policy Memo 138 Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University, 2000, http://www.ponarseurasia.org/

sites/default/files/policy-memos-pdf/pm_0138.pdf (accessed May 25, 2013).

40 Arter, David. “Small State Influence within the EU: The Case of Finland’s ‘Northern Dimension Initiative.” Journal of Common Market Studies, December 2000, 38(5), 677–697.

of civil society and democratic institutions.⁴¹ For instance, some countries, like Sweden, maintain control over country-specific human capital for reducing the earnings diffferential.⁴² Thus, Barents cooperation could improve the situation of labour market segregation targeted by mainstreaming policies and immigration system of the whole region and could try to harmonise the state policies of four Barents states. Numerous state and private actors on the international scene show increasingly keen interest in the High North. For this reason alone, many argue that the European Union (EU) has to increase its policy effforts in the region, preferably through a common approach by its member states, in order to exert the possible influence in a multilateral approach in cooperation with other important actors.⁴³

Immigrants have an impact on the Barents societies and environment through their use of health care services, education, the availability afffordable housing, environmental degradation, and the use of natural assets such as water, arable land, forests, and mineral deposits and fish stocks. Infrastructure such as roads, schools and hospitals, telecommunications networks, electricity and water supply systems and sewerage networks may become overburdened, and thus require expensive new infrastructure investment. Increase in job competition may cause the wages to fall, although it has thus far been seen that immigrants have chosen those employments that the local population of the region are not willing to undertake.

Migration has become highly politicized in most of the west European states since the 1980s, while in the Barents region it has become a political issue only in recent years. The proportion of immigrants comprises 16% of the population in Sweden, 11% in Norway, and only 2.5% in Finland.⁴⁴ According to the statistics in 2011, 7,995 people moved from other parts of Russia to Murmansk as permanent resident. A further 474 people moved to Murmansk from abroad,

41 Northern Dimension Policy Framework Document, http://www.eeas.europa.eu/north_dim/

docs/frame_pol_1106_en.pdf (accessed February 27, 2012).

42 Carl le Grand and Ryszard Szulkin. “Permanent Disadvantage or Gradual Integration: Explaining the Immigrant–Native Earnings Gap in Sweden.” Labour 16(1), (2002): 37–64. According to Authors, “Men from non-European countries earn about 15 percent less than native workers while male immigrants from Western countries have more or less the same earnings as Swedish-born workers have. The earnings differential for male immigrants from the rest of Europe is about 6 percent. Female workers show the same pattern, although the differentials are smaller compared to men. Women from Western countries have about the same earnings as women born in Sweden have, while women from the rest of Europe earn 2.1 percent less and women from the rest of the world about 12 percent less than native female workers.”

43 Keil, Kathrin. “The European Union in the Arctic ‘Game’ – The Concert of Arctic Actors and the EU’s Newcomer Role.” Paper presented at Pan-European International Relations Conference in Stockholm, 9–11 September 2010.

44 Wahlgren, Bjarne, and Tinne Geiger. “Integration through adult and continuing education.”

yet 21,620 people left the region in 2012.⁴⁵ Hence, the migration balance of the Murmansk region showed a general decrease of over 13,000 people in 2011–12.

As of January 1st 2012, there were 10,616 foreign and stateless persons living or staying short term in the Murmansk region. This number is rising year by year: 5,515 people in 2009, 6,966 in 2010 and 8,656 in 2011. There were 1,874 external workers in the region as of January 1st 2012 (1,936 in 2010).

Unfortunately, in Murmansk region only one immigrant was employed in the

‘high-skilled specialist’ category.⁴⁶ There is no immigration policy or integration policy in Murmansk. As such, the Barents regional immigration policy could have a significant impact on Murmansk immigration. To establish a structure for better experience-sharing and the co-ordination of integration policy requires an acknowledgement that integration is a cross-cutting issue involving many diffferent actors.

4. EU and BEAR Immigration Policy