EDB Experts Assess the Effects of the Ratification of the Common Economic Space's Labour Migration Agreements
Almaty, 1 March 2012. The Eurasian Development Bank’s (EDB) Centre for Integration Studies has completed The Analysis of Economic, Institutional and Legal Effects of the Agreement on the Legal Status of Labour Migrants and Their Families and the Agreement on the Cooperation to Prevent Illegal Labour Migration from Third Countries on the Common Economic Space’s Member States. The research provides a comprehensive analysis of the Common Economic Space’s (CES) migration agreements that took effect on 1 January 2012. In particular, it determines why they are innovative and how they affect the existing legal framework of Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Experts from the International Organisation for Migration, the Moscow State University, and the Moscow State Law Academy took part in the project.
The authors of the research have come to a conclusion that the agreements would significantly expand the social rights and labour guarantees of foreign workers from the CES member states. For example, labour migrants from Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia now won’t need a permit to work in the CES countries. Labour migrants and their families are provided with access to the state social insurance systems (healthcare and education). However, despite the significant positive innovations suggested by the agreements, their efficiency will depend on the degree of harmonisation of the national legislations of the CES countries and the local enforcement practices.
Since for the time being the agreements apply only to the CES countries, which are the main recipients of foreign labour force, their economic effect in the short run is expected to be insignificant.
The joining to the agreements of the countries that supply labour resources will be of significant importance to the economies of the region. This will help avoid material costs caused by illegal labour migration because many illegal migrants that work in Russia today will obtain an opportunity to work legally. In particular, experts assess that if Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan join the agreements the number of legal migrants that arrive in Russia from Kyrgyzstan can increase by 360,000 people and from Tajikistan by 890,000 people. This can increase Russia’s budget revenues by 40 billion roubles.
«The adopted agreements mark a transition to a qualitatively new level of interaction between the post-Soviet countries in the migration area, which is aimed at maximising the benefits and minimising the drawbacks of the international labour migration in the region,» Vladimir Yasinsky, EDB’s Head of Research, said. «The agreements will promote the mobility of labour resources in the CES and the formation of a common labour market, which will provide an opportunity to effectively regulate labour flows, including the movements of high-skilled labour, which are critically important to the economic development of the countries. Higher mobility of the population will also contribute to fostering economic growth — the labour productivity as well as the competitiveness of certain sectors will improve and this will result in the growth of GDP.»
The research is available at the EDB’s website at: https://eabr.org/analytics/