THE PHENOMENON OF MIGRATION. OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

Migration is not a new phenomenon, neither for Europe, nor for the entire world and it exists since the beginning of mankind. Over time, this kind of international mobility generated many opportunities, but many challenges as well. Being an extremely important and complex phenomenon, both in economic terms and mostly from the social perspective, mass emigration has never been more intense as nowadays. Together with this particular complexity, the intensity of the migration phenomenon reveals each individual’s profound freedom desire, but also the acute need to ensure a better future for himself and especially for his family. Currently, an ever increasing number of individuals migrate in search of a better place, changing regions, countries or even continents. Witnessing the events that transcend the people all around the world, we consider that migration generates economic, social and cultural, but also political profound changes. These major changes require the involvement of the political actors, namely the governments, in creating a favorable and reliable framework so as the society and decision makers to understand that immigrants represent an opportunity for the emerging economies and not a phenomenon that should be criticized. In this paper we aim to follow the theories regarding the migration process, as well as the changes it generates, taking into consideration that of the 507 million current inhabitants of the EU, approximately 20 million are from countries outside the EU. We consider this research to be underlain, taking into consideration that regardless of the form it takes, in Europe immigration is and will remain a difficult to manage reality.

Keywords

• immigration
• migration phenomenon