FLEEING THE SINKING SHIP:

Europeans' flight from Europe (Paul Belie, June 6, 2007, Washington Times)

Last year more than 155,000 Germans emigrated from their native country. Since 2004 the number of ethnic Germans who leave each year is greater than the number of immigrants moving in. While the emigrants are highly motivated and well educated, "those coming in are mostly poor, untrained and hardly educated," says Stephanie Wahl of the German Institute for Economics.

In a survey conducted in 2005 among German university students, 52 percent said they would rather leave their native country than remain there. By "voting with their feet," young, educated Germans affirm that Germany has no future to offer them and their children. [...]

Americans who think that the European welfare state is the model to follow would do well to ponder the question why, if Europe is so wonderful, Europeans are fleeing from it. European welfare systems are redistribution mechanisms, taking money from skilled and educated Europeans in order to give it to nonskilled newcomers from the Third World.

Gunnar Heinsohn, a German sociologist at the University of Bremen, warns European governments that they are mistaken if they assume that qualified young ethnic Europeans will stay in Europe. "The really qualified are leaving," Mr. Heinsohn says. "The only truly loyal towards France and Germany are those who are living off the welfare system, because there is no other place in the world that offers to pay for them... It is no wonder that young, hardworking people in France and Germany choose to emigrate," he explains. "It is not just that they have to support their own aging population. If we take 100 20-year-olds [in France or Germany], then the 70 [indigenous] Frenchmen and Germans also have to support 30 immigrants of their own age and their offspring. This creates dejection in the local population, particularly in France, Germany and the Netherlands. So they run away."

On Monday Francois Fillon, the new French prime minister, said that "Europe is not Eldorado," emphasizing that his government intends to curb immigration by those who only seek welfare benefits. "Europe is hospitable, France is an immigration country and will continue to be so, but it will only accept foreigners prepared to integrate," he stressed. Europe cannot afford to be "Eldorado" for foreigners any longer, because it has stopped being "home" for thousands of its own educated children, now eagerly looking for opportunities to move to America, Canada, Australia or New Zealand -- white European nations outside Europe.

While the fertility rate in France is 1.9 children per woman, two out of every five newborns in France are children of Arab or African immigrants. In Germany (fertility rate 1.37) 35 percent of all newborns have a non-German background.

Because the European states are mere nations they ought to impose immigration limits, but it's aleady to late.

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 9, 2007 8:04 AM