Melting Pot; America v. Sweden? This time Europe must get it right.(Cover Story)

Byline: Stryker McGuire, With Stefan Theil in Berlin, Marie Valla in Paris, Barbie Nadeau in Rome and Charles Ferro in Copenhagen

Imigracja. Indvandring. Inmigracion . By whatever name, immigration is on Europe's mind these days. To the typical man on the street of old Europe, enlargement means more workers moving across more borders to take more jobs--legally. The accession of 10 new members on May 1 also means new, often porous borders for job seekers arriving from outside the EU--illegally. This isn't necessarily bad news, from an economic standpoint. But no matter how many studies attest to the theoretical benefits of immigration, the natives still get restless--and so do politicians.

In this climate of unease, a fierce debate has surfaced in Britain and drawn attention across Europe. It emerged not from the political right, where most immigration issues erupt, but from the left, where European progressives are pondering a troubling new dilemma: will mass immigration be the undoing of Europe's cherished welfare state?

The argument goes like this: immigration brings diversity, which erodes the sense of shared values and solidarity that has kept enlightened European socialism alive in a world of free markets and rampant capitalism. Those debating the point talk of models. They look at Sweden and see a fairly homogenous society of taxpayers happy to fork over 60 percent of their income in exchange for generous social benefits. They look at America and see a wildly diverse society whose taxes--under 30 percent, on average--provide for only the flimsiest of safety nets. No national health insurance, no long-term unemployment benefits, no security of the sort that Western Europeans take for granted. As immigration, legal and illegal, begins to transform much of Europe into a melting pot, they realize they may soon face a set of seemingly impossible choices. Will their Europe of the future remain like Sweden, or become more like America? And is there a trade-off between solidarity and diversity, such that Europe's social-welfare states can survive?

The choice may not be quite that stark. But clearly, immigration will reshape Europe. Its population is aging rapidly, dragging down economic growth and putting tremendous pressure on underfunded pensions. According to the American demographer Bill Frey, the median age in the EU by 2050 will be 52.7 years, compared with 36.2 years in the United States.

Enlargement will do little to ease Europe's demographic bind. Birth rates in Estonia, Lithuania and the Czech Republic are among the lowest in the world. Immigration from outside the new 25-member EU will therefore become essential to Europe's economic well-being. But that very fact will force adjustments. Europe's sizable non-Christian minority is already the fastest-growing segment of the continental population, and in some countries that has become a source of deep anxiety. The Netherlands, by some estimates, will have a school-age Muslim majority by 2050.

Such trends cannot help but have a major impact on social policy. Unlike the United States, where large-scale (but relatively well-managed) immigration has helped boost American productivity and entrepreneurship, Europe has largely discouraged economic immigration. The result: migrants from around the world found the only way to live and work in Europe was, in effect, to break in and claim asylum. "You're left with a situation in which every immigrant begins to look problematic," says Charles Westin of Stockholm University. Ferruccio Pastore of the Center for the Study of International Politics in Rome says the system suffers from "chronic immigration schizophrenia."