International Migration in Europe: Overcoming Isolation and Distance Friction

In discussing the theme of ‘overcoming isolation’ we are usually inclined to look at physical barriers preventing spatial interaction. Missing links in networks, infrastructure bottlenecks or geographical peripherality are the obvious examples of impediments to free movement in space. In such a context, interregional or international trade flows, commuting, congestion, accessibility and network performance are normally discussed. Far less attention has been given in Europe to the issue of international migration, either labour migration or forced migration as a result of geo-political developments in Southern, Central and East-Europe. In recent years we witness a concern on massive migration flows into the West-European space, a phenomenon which reflects the fact that Europe is still socially fragmented and only politically more open (see Nijkamp and Spiess 1993). Therefore, it makes sense in a publication on overcoming isolation to pay explicit attention to facts and backgrounds of international migration in Europe. The completion of the internal market by 1993 provoked much debate on the consequences of a free mobility of goods, people and information in the EC countries. Also the expected migration waves from former communist countries in Central and East Europe created an intensified concern on the EC as a magnet for international migrants (cf. Ghosh 1991). And finally, the increasingly important phenomenon of illegal migrants in Europe led to doomsday scenarios of the U.S. — Mexico border type. It seems as though Europe is now entering the ‘age of migration’ (see Castles and Miller 1993).