Mobility or the free movement of people has been one of the founding principles of the European Union. It used to be our right as citizens of a united Europe, writes Nikko Koulousios

When I came to the Netherlands in 1999, I made a free and conscious decision to leave my home town in Greece and the life I had there, in search of new experiences. I wanted to enjoy my freedom as a European citizen and live abroad.

I went to The Hague as an Erasmus student and it was an overwhelming experience. I came to think Erasmus students are the first real and true Europeans, a thought that made it easier to become a pioneer and go to a country that at that time I knew very little about.

Experience

The Erasmus exchange programme gave the students who wanted to travel abroad and study for a while in a new country, the opportunity to experience another European culture from within. It was some sort of dress rehearsal for what was going to happen later, the full-on European integration and convergence. The European dream was alive and kicking.

A lot has changed since then. In fact, it seems like the world has turned upside down, with Greece and Europe at the heart of it all. Euro-scepticism is growing where the European ideals used to flourish. Racism, populism and extremism have returned in triumph. Europe has become too big to comprehend and its citizens do not trust it any more. The markets, not the people, have become all important.

Every day, dozens of southern and eastern Europeans still move to the rich countries of the north and the west. But they do not do it because they want to exercise their right to free mobility. This brain-drain does not happen in an attempt to live the European dream. They are being forced to leave in a desperate attempt to make it through the crisis.

Unemployment

I have seen most of my friends from Greece, who a few years ago were swearing that they would never leave Greece, making their way here, swallowing their pride and starting from zero.

The unemployment rate where I grew up, in Macedonia, Greece, is the highest in the country, over 30.4%. For young people it has reached the unimaginable 60%. These people experience every day the European nightmare. And their only escape is to go to a country that may give them the opportunity to start over, to lead a decent life.

But what do they find when they reach the promised land? A lot of Greeks who came to the Netherlands to find work in the last three years, are faced with prejudices and stereotypes that make it even harder to settle down in a foreign country.

Bigotry

The European ideals of acceptance, tolerance, diversity and the like, have been hijacked by suspicion, bigotry and the survival of the fittest. The only new expats who do not feel betrayed by the European dream are the ones who have ‘connections’ or a network of people in the country that can help them settle down easily.

I recently met prime minister Mark Rutte at a meeting for foreign journalists. I asked him about the link between austerity and the rise of the extreme right, nationalist, anti-Europe parties, with the focus on Greece’s Golden Dawn and France’s Marine Le Pen. He by-passed the core of the question, and eagerly proceeded to explain how he sees the Greek issue.

He was equally eager to defend the austerity measures and talk about the necessity of such measures for countries like Greece, Portugal and Ireland. This was no news. But then he surprised me.

‘Some of my family are from Greece and one even had to travel from Greece to the Netherlands to find a job here because of the economic uncertainty,’ he said. ‘So I do realise – and I know this first-hand – the huge impact this had on Greek society.’

Fair chance

The minute Rutte uttered the phrase ‘some of my family are from Greece’, I realised there are only a handful of new expats who came here in the last few difficult years and actually had a fair chance of making it. The opportunities are not equal for all.

The majority of the Greeks who have recently come to the Netherlands in search of a better life have not had it easy. They have been refused apartments because the landlords in that specific area do not rent to poor Europeans. They do not trust them enough.
And as for work, they put their hard-earned degrees and diplomas in the freezer and took any job they could find – like washing dishes and cleaning hotel rooms, with minimum pay of course and hardly any benefits.

It saddens me to realise that after decades of European integration, free mobility does not come hand-in-hand with equal opportunity. Equal opportunity is an outdated concept that simply doesn’t apply any more.

The people who emigrate are forced to do so because there is no other alternative. And the people who receive expats in their countries are not really sure they want them there anymore. Free mobility is diminished to freedom to go on holiday to another country without showing your passport – but not make a living there.

Nikko Koulousios is a journalist and columnist and host of the Greek radio broadcast Hellas Pindakaas on Salto/Wereld FM (Fridays 9pm).