THESIMTowards Harmonised European Statistics

on International Migration

Press conferenceBrussels 30 March 2006

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

HOW CAN WE MEASURE MIGRATION IN EUROPE ?

Michel POULAIN, Ann SINGLETON, Nicolas PERRIN

THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration

• Since the Tampere Council meeting in 1999, the need for better statistics to support the development of European policy on migration has been clearly emphasised.

• DG Justice, Freedom and Security and Eurostat have developed a proposal for an EU Regulation on data collection in the field of migration and international protection.

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration

• The proposal for a regulation was adopted in September 2005 by the European Commission and is now under discussion in the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament.

• Once agreed, under the co-decision procedure, the EU Regulation will require all EU Member States to produce a full set of statistics in the field. It will explicitly request reliable figures and metadata which explain the level of data comparability at EU level.

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration

• For the years 2004-2006, DG-Research of the European Commission launched the 6th Framework Programme of Research. The overall objective of policy-orientated research projects was to support the formulation and implementation of Community policies, by providing scientific contributions to policies.

• Among the priorities of the 6th Framework for research projects the following was established :(Task 5) Better sources for statistics for a better knowledge on migration flows to the EU

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration

• The THESIM Project (Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration) was selected to fulfil this task.

• THESIM started in April 2004 and ended in August 2005. The work involved scientific teams based in seven EU countries. A final report was submitted to DG Research in October 2005.

• The main objective of THESIM was to facilitate the implementation of the forthcoming Regulation by the mean of scientific support.

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration

THESIM project investigated all statistical data requested in the Regulation in order to identify:

• the availability of data;

• the reliability of the data and how it might be improved;

• the international comparability of data and how it might be ensured when producing Community statistics.

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration

• The THESIM team held meetings with authorities responsible on migration in all 25 EU MS and produced reports on the feasibility of the implementation of the Regulation. These meetings were organised with help of the National Statistics Institutions and the National Contact Points of the European Migration Network (DG JLS).

• The THESIM project found that data currently available in the field of international migration and asylum are not reliable enough for policy-making.  

• However, THESIM suggests that solutions can be found for each Member State to improve the quality and accuracy of the data collected in view of the forthcoming Regulation.

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

The THESIM report is The THESIM report is published as a book by the published as a book by the Presses Universitaires de Presses Universitaires de LouvainLouvain. .

This book is intended for a This book is intended for a wider audience of users of wider audience of users of migration and asylum data migration and asylum data and statistics. and statistics.

THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration

• Afterwards most of partners of the THESIM team contributed to the production of the annual report posted recently on the DG JLS web site http://europa.eu.int/comm/justice_home/doc_centre/asylum/statistics/doc_annual_report_2002_en.htm

• This statistical report presents a broad set of available data on migration and points out the limitations based on the THESIM « savoir-faire ».

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration

In order to explain what kind of data are available, which problems have been encountered and what the data finally reveal, we will present some examples of data on population stocks, migration flows and asylum.

The following figures are based on data collected by EUROSTAT; some additional information have been collected from the websites of the National Statistical Institutions while the missing data have been estimated from previous figures.

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

THESIM Towards Harmonised European Statistics on International Migration

The total population of the European Union is about 460 millions inhabitants.

Among these 26 millions are non-Nationals of the country where they are living.

And globally 17 millions non-EU citizens are usually living on the EU territory, this is 3.7 % of the total population.

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

THESIM – Non-National Populations in 2005 (in thousand)

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

0 1.000 2.000 3.000 4.000 5.000 6.000 7.000 8.000

Malta

Slovak Republic

Lithuania

Slovenia

Cyprus

Finland

Hungary

Luxembourg

Portugal

Czech Republic

Denmark

Estonia

Ireland

Sweden

Latvia

Poland

Netherlands

Austria

Belgium

Greece

Italy

United Kingdom

Spain

France

Germany

THESIM Non–National Populations in the EU for 2005

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

3,3% 1,0%

28,0%

3,4%

12,9%

13,0%

1,1%

9,2%

0,7%

2,7%

3,0%

0,9%

0,4%

1,8%

10,7%

1,0%1,0%0,3%1,9%0,1%0,6%0,0%2,7%0,2%

0,1%

Belgium

Denmark

Germany

Greece

Spain

France

Ireland

Italy

Luxembourg

Netherlands

Austria

Portugal

Finland

Sweden

United Kingdom

Czech Republic

Estonia

Cyprus

Latvia

Lithuania

Hungary

Malta

Poland

Slovenia

Slovak Republic

THESIM Proportion of the Non-National Populations compared to the Total Populations for 2005

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25%

Slovak Republic

Lithuania

Hungary

Poland

Finland

Slovenia

Portugal

Czech Republic

Malta

Italy

Netherlands

United Kingdom

Denmark

Sweden

France

Ireland

Spain

Greece

Belgium

Germany

Cyprus

Austria

Estonia

Latvia

Luxembourg

THESIM EU citizens versus Non-EU citizens among the Non-National Population Note: the figure for EU citizens in Luxembourg (33%), non-EU citizens in Estonia (20%) and non-EU citizens in Latvia (21%) are not shown.

Project financed by the 6th Framework Research Programme of the European Union

0%

1%

2%

3%

4%

5%

6%

7%

8%

9%

10%

Austria

Belgiu

m

Cypru

s

Czech

Rep

ublic

Denm

ark

Estonia

Finla

nd

France

Germ

any

Greec

e

Hungary

Irela

ndIta

ly

Latvi

a

Lithuan

ia

Luxem

bourgM

alta

Nether

lands

Poland

Portugal

Slova

k Rep

ublic

Slove

nia

Spain

Sweden

United K

ingdom

Non EU

EU