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Workshop on migration to V4 countries

Supported by the Visegrad Fund and organised by three academic institutions of Budapest: 
the hosting Strategic and Defense Studies Center of Zrinyi Miklós National Defense 
University (ZMNDU), Institute of Geography of Eötvös Loránd University (FI ELTE) and 
Geographical Research Institute (GRI) HAS, an international workshop entitled Migration 
Challenge to the Visegrad Countries from Eastern Europe was held on October 19, 2009. The 
meeting was particularly timely as following the change of regimes in CEE countries having 
occurred twenty years ago, two distinct periods could be identifi ed. The 1990s were years of 
institutionalization of migration and refugee aff airs based on laying the legal foundations, 
whereas the fi rst decade of the 21th century brought EU membership for V4 countries and 
their subsequent accession to the Schengen zone, with all the consequences.

Migration is typically an interdisciplinary subject and when demographers, geog-
raphers, lawyers, statisticians, police persons and representatives of state administration or 
political science get together, each of them has a genuine approach of his/her own to enter-
tain the partners. This time it was M. Lesińska (Centre of Migration Research, University 
of Warsaw) who outlined the binding EU targets:

To shape an internal labour market;
To achieve limited migration from third countries; 
To form welfare system for new members;
To establish migration policy;
To draw soft  and hard borders.
A persistent problem with migration is the reliability of data. M. Rédei (FI ELTE, 

Budapest) mentioned the offi  cial number of foreign citizens staying in Hungary in early 
2008 (altogether ca 180 thousand, including 40% Romanian and somewhat less than 10% 
Ukrainian citizens /90% of the latt er are ethnic Hungarians/, thousands of Slovakian and 
Polish citizens etc.) Red card is shown to negatively selected foreigners (mainly unskilled 
persons), whereas red carpet is spread out to the positively selected people. K. Mezentsev 
(Taras Shevchenko University, Kyiv) listed the offi  cial fi gure of the Ukrainian citizens staying 
abroad (72 thousand), added the western estimations ranging between 1 and 7 millions, and 
those of his own (1.5 to 2 millions). Real dimensions can be assessed through transfers by 
Ukrainians to the homeland estimated at 3 billion USD annually, roughly the sum total of the 
wages and salaries in Ukraine. The following speaker, V. Anderson (University of Odesa) cited 
the expertise carried out at Canon Law Institute, Washington: 8 billion USD was transferred 
home by 5 million Ukrainian labour migrants (GDP in Ukraine is around 30 billion USD). 
D. Karácsonyi (GRI HAS, Budapest, lecturing jointly with Á. Kincses Hungarian Central 
Statistical Offi  ce, Budapest) referred to the diff erence between the last Soviet census (1989) and 
the fi rst Ukrainian all-national one (2001) accounting for a 4 million people in minus, 1 million 
of which they evaluated as migration loss. L. Jeney (Corvinus University, Budapest) mentioned 
that 40% of the Ukrainian migrants to V4 countries headed for the Czech Republic.

Anybody may ask: what do migration challenges actually mean? According to A. 
Szabó (ZMNDU) international migration is a natural phenomenon of globalisation which 
poses a serious threat to security and he presented maps showing the primary itineraries 
of human traffi  cking: leading from Ukraine, Romania and ex-Yugoslavia via Bratislava–
Czechia to Germany; via Vienna to Germany and via Hungary–Slovenia to Italy. A Stummer 
from the National Bureau of Investigation (Budapest) added routes of illegal migration with 
a special reference to those via Turkey and the Balkans.

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The new chronology of migration started just twenty years ago, and the workshop 
recalled the history of these two decades sometimes full of dramatic events. In Hungary 
the new style began on January 1 1990 very much under the pressure of the massive infl ux 
of Hungarians from Transylvania, citizens of Romania (M. Rédei). In the following years 
there emerged institutions dealing with migration and refuge aff airs, aliens policing act 
was adopted in 1993 (at the time of Yugoslav War), act on asylum seeking was passed in 
1997. The start of EU accession negotiations in 1998 diff erentiated between the relation to 
the citizens of member states and to nationals of third countries. The EU accession of the 
V4, Slovenia and of three Baltic countries (May 2004) has led to 1.4 million labour migrants 
from the region. The amalgamation of Hungary into the Schengen zone (December 2007) 
was also essential and followed by organisational reforms i.e. passing of control from the 
border guard to the Ministry of Internal Aff airs (January 2008). But the scenario varied 
from country to country within CEE.

The above statement was demonstrated by M. Lesińska on the example of the 
Poles’ fl ow into the EU and of Polish-Ukrainian relations. Labour migration to the west 
of Europe had a relatively long tradition (1960s through 80s) in Poland and it became ac-
centuated by the political turn in the country and its accession to the EU. UK, Ireland and 
Sweden have been the primary destinations due to their policy of adoption of unrestricted 
fl ow of labour migrants from member states. For the Ukrainians migration to Poland was 
visa free up to 2003 then it fell under visa regime (2003–2007) until Schengen borders were 
established. Work permission regime was adopted simultaneously and employers had to 

The administrative and service centre of the Offi  ce of the UN High Commissioner for 
                                                            Refugees in Budapest



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issue a declaration on the intent to hire a foreigner furnished with his/her data. A black 
market of permit issue emerged immediately. In 2008 there were 300 thousand migrants 
from Ukraine; in the same year 3 thousand work permits were issued offi  cially. The current 
aphorism is: legal presence with illegal labour.

A huge area of the Balkans and East Europe can easily be called Absurdistan as 
regards illegal migration. Macedonians en mass have been trying to obtain Bulgarian citizen-
ship since 2007, and then to escape to the west (A. Stummer). A ca four million population 
of Moldova have dwindled virtually due to the outfl ow primarily of males seeking labour 
in CIS and EU countries. The latt er itinerary leads across Romania and Hungary, with 
Moldavians usually hiding in containers. Numerous young ethnic Moldavians (Ukrainian 
nationals) living in Budjak, Odesa oblast make att empt to receive high education in Chişinau 
for language reasons then to get to Romania. By contrast, many people commute from 
Transnistria (Transdnestr) to Odesa and environs with high demand on unskilled work-
force (V. Anderson). Most of them have all kinds of documents, i.e. Russian, Moldavian, 
Ukrainian passports. But perhaps the most shocking slide was shown by V. Benc (Slovak 
Foreign Policy Association, Prešov) about the highly massive fi ve-zone screening system 
on the 90 km long Slovakian–Ukrainian border to contain illegal migration. With closing 
the local markets the number of pending petit traders predominantly selling cigarett es 
dropped considerably both in Poland and Slovakia.

Epilogue. One week aft er this workshop on migration I had an occasion to listen 
to a lecture by Z. Boross (National Bureau of Investigation) on illegal migration. Beside the 
stories about Vietnamese and Somali workers escaping from the construction works of the 
forthcoming European football championship heard during a recent offi  cial visit to Kyiv, 
he made an att empt to press out some useful information from the Ukrainian colleagues 
about illegal migration. The highly ranked offi  cial said: “If I furnished you with them I 
would commit high treason and you might easily become a spy.” These were the words of 
consolation off ered instead of active collaboration.

László Bassa