In 2015, Europeans were horrified by the chaos that unfolded in the Mediterranean Sea and shocked by how unprepared their national governments were to handle the large stream of migrants that followed.
Today, March 29th 2017, Prime Minister Theresa May officially triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, thereby beginning the formal process of withdrawing the United Kingdom from the European Union.
People greatly overestimate the immigrant share of the population and many wrongly believe that openness to migration harms Britons’ job prospects, burdens public finances and services and makes housing prohibitively expensive.
Existing evidence from large refugee migrations and the recent influx of Syrian migrants into Middle Eastern countries shows no adverse effects of migration on native workers. In some instances, the findings show beneficial effects due to worker complementarities.
On November 12 at the Valletta Summit on Migration, the focus briefly shifted away from the Syrian refugee crisis and back to the high-risk Mediterranean migration route from the coast of Tunisia to Greece and Italy traveled by thousands Africans earlier this year.