Eastern European Migration to Portugal: from an Unexpected Migration to an Uncertain Future
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Eastern European migration to Portugal: from an unexpected migration to an uncertain future JO S É CARLO S MARQUE S [email protected] Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, Portugal PEDRO GÓI S [email protected] University of Coimbra, Portugal In Portugal, Eastern European immigrants only become numerically sig- nificant at the end of the 1990s. Until that time, the Portuguese immigra- tion landscape was mainly characterized by the presence of citizens from former Portuguese colonies in Africa and from Brazil. The study of this phenomenon is particularly interesting because it allows to analyse the constitution and development of a new immigration flow and of new im- migrant communities in the country and, since the 2008 crisis, to investi- gate the strategies that immigrants use to face an economic situation that seems to hinder the fulfilment of their initial motivations for migration. Considering the importance of economic motives, it should be expected that, if the reason that justified migration can no longer be satisfied in Por- tugal, migrants would adopt strategies to attain their economic wellbeing elsewhere. By focusing on the possibilities that migrants consider when planning their future trajectories in a context marked by an economic down- turn, this analysis intends to shed light on some of the factors that could impact on these possibilities. It will be shown that these are not limited by the dichotomy of staying or returning, but are spread over a continuum of mobility options in-between the two extreme options (staying or returning). The objective of this article is twofold. First, it presents the evolution of immigration in Portugal giving special attention to the inflow of Eastern European immigrants at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Second, it intends to analyse the effects of the 2008 economic crisis on this immi- gration flow and the various options that immigrants could follow in their response to a downturn in the economic situation. Keywords: Portuguese immigration, Eastern European immigrants, Immigration Policies, Labour market, crisis Studi Emigrazione, LIII, n. 202, 2016 217 Immigration in Portugal During large parts of his history, Portugal has been a nation of emigra- tion. Since the mid-1980s, the country witnessed the development and consolidation of immigration flows, and the formation of immigrant communities numerically important, as well as characterized by varied socio-demographic composition (Figure 1). Figure 1. Immigrants in Portugal, 1990 – 2013. 500000 450000 400000 350000 300000 250000 200000 150000 100000 50000 0 1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 Source: SEF, several years. If we overlook the migratory process that occurred inside the Portu- guese colonial empire, namely the Cape Verdean migrants who came to mainland Portugal in the 1960s and early 1970s, then we can say that immigration towards Portugal de facto only began in the second half of the seventies with the massive arrival of people from the former colo- nies after their independence. During the 1980s, there was a significant increase in the foreign population living in Portugal (on average 6.4% a year), and a diversification of the origins of the immigrants, visible in the substantial growth of Asians (mainly Chinese) and South Ameri- 218 Studi Emigrazione, LIII, n. 202, 2016 cans (mainly from Brazil). Out of the 58,000 foreigners legally living in Portugal in 1980, 48% were of African origin, 31% were from Europe and 11% from South America (mainly Brazil). From the second half of the 1980s onwards, labour immigration to Portugal became increas- ingly dominant. Moreover, the adherence to the European Economic Community in January 1986 accelerated the internationalisation of the Portuguese economy and attracted labour migration from the tradi- tional sources. In 1990, the total number of foreigners legally living in Portugal was 107,767 individuals, 42% of them were of African origin, 29% were from Europe and 16% from South America (mainly Brazil). The 1990s were marked by a new immigration cycle characterised by an increasing diversification of the nationalities that entered Portugal. The positive development of the foreign population was intense during the 1990s, reaching an annual growth rate of approximately 7%1. This evo- lution was especially noticed in the foreign population from the African and European continents. These two continents accounted, in 1998, for 75.7% of the total foreign population (29.3% were of European origin and 46.4% of African origin). In spite of this continuous increase in the for- eign population living in Portugal, by the year 2000 the number of legal resident foreigners was only 207,607, that is, approximately 2% of the country’s total population (SEF, 1999 and 2000; Baganha et al., 2000). At the turn of the twenty-first century, migration to Portugal from third countries was overwhelmingly (76% in 1999 and 77% in 2000) made up of immigrants from the former Portuguese colonies in Africa2 and from Brazil. The remaining immigrants were spread among more than one hundred different nationalities, none of which was numeri- cally significant (SEF 1999 and 2000). To sum up, until the end of the twentieth century immigrants living in Portugal remained still rela- tively low and were mainly rooted in the country’s colonial past, its historical and cultural links, as well as its main economic connections (Baganha and Góis, 1999; Baganha, et al., 2000; Peixoto et al. 2002). From 2000 onwards, there was a sudden and intense change in the Portuguese migratory landscape. After the consolidation of immigra- tion from European and/or Portuguese-speaking countries, Portugal 1 It must be said that the growth registered during this decade was more the result of the two special legalization processes that took place in 1992 and 1996 than to a continuous flow of new arrivals. These two legalization processes tar- geted specifically illegal immigrants from Portuguese-speaking countries (PALOP and Brazil), both including positive discriminatory articles that specifically favored these immigrants. During these two legalization processes, approximately 39,000 (1992) and 35,000 (1996) immigrants acquired a legal status. 2 Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, São Tomé and Principe. Studi Emigrazione, LIII, n. 202, 2016 219 also began to attract economic or labour immigrants from multiple origins, even from countries with which Portugal had no privileged re- lationship until that date. It occurred a sudden and intense process of transformation of the geographical origins of immigrants who started to come mostly from Eastern Europe, especially Ukraine, and Brazil. The number of immigrants residing legally in Portugal rose from 208,198 in 2000 to 434,636 in 2003, which means that the volume of the foreign population with legal residence increased by about 109% in only 3 years. As important as the quantitative evolution of the immigrant population was the transformation of the ranking of the main national origins of the immigrants living in Portugal. In 2003, the main immigrant group was no longer from a former Portuguese colony in Africa: Ukraine, rep- resenting an unknown origin in the nineties, became one of the leading countries in 2003; also Moldova became a familiar country of origin of migrants towards Portugal. Romania became one of the major sources of immigrants, and Brazil, the most important destination of Portu- guese emigrants during the 20th century, turned out to be the origin of the most important group of immigrants in Portugal in the new millen- nium. How can we explain the sudden and intense inflow from Eastern Europe and, at the same time, the sustained increase in the number of migrants from the traditional sources? How can we explain the rise of 100% in the total number of foreigners legally residing in Portugal in less than five years? There are, of course, no simple explanations, but this study offers some potential answers, focusing its explanations on the evolution of immigration policies and showing how they functioned to supply the necessary labour force to a growing labour market. The political framework Before analysing more thoroughly the political measures that had the greater impact on the growth of Eastern European immigrants in Por- tugal, as well as affecting their legal and labour market integration, we would like to briefly outline the development of immigration policies in Portugal. It is possible to characterize Portuguese immigration policies of the late 1980s and early 1990s as mainly “a reaction” (Marques and Góis, 2005), that is, their main objective was to respond to an increas- ing immigrant population at the time when a substantial part of the migrants entered the country legally but overstayed their permission to be on Portuguese territory. The laws that implemented this policy aimed, therefore, to regularize the situation of foreigners staying ir- regularly in Portugal. It also targeted preferably immigrants from Por- 220 Studi Emigrazione, LIII, n. 202, 2016 tuguese-speaking countries, which comprised more than 80% of the total number of foreigners regularized during the two regularization processes of the 1990’s (1992 and 1996). Positive discrimination provi- sions towards citizens from former Portuguese colonies were also pres- ent in other legal instruments (e.g. nationality law), thus reflecting the intense political, economic, and socio-cultural relations that con- tinued to exist between