Managing State Border in the Context of Migration Crisis in Europe: Lithuanian Case

Received May 04, 2017 Revised from June 10, 2017 Accepted August, 28 2017 Available online September 15, 2017 The aim of this paper has been the achievement of the level of scientific knowledge on the subject of research in terms of establishment and analysis of economic effectiveness of state border governance in Lithuania in the context of increasing migration in European Union. The objective also has been to suggest the possible measures for improvement of state border management bearing in mind the migration perspectives. There is an unexpressed demand on migration (especially immigration) as an economic and social phenomenon to have some positive impact on the economy of target country. It’s nevertheless true, that from political point of view the migration trends are usually being associated with the economic, social, security challenges in target countries. European Union countries which are the external borders of EU face with even more specific obstacles – the effective management of borders and necessity to bare costs of controlling migration flows. Therefore the effective use of economic and financial measures managing state borders is of the utmost importance reaching common goals of public security, stability, respect for European values and rule of law. The paper contains results of the analysis of international, regional and national legal acts and the secondary analysis of statistical data of European Union agencies and international organizations. The financial data of operational activities of Lithuanian State Border Guard Service is analysed, aiming to reveal the correlation between the effective management of state border control and financial support of the state and EU institutions. JEL classification: F22, F63, H56, J15, O15, K37 DOI: 10.14254/1800-5845/2017.13-3.3


INTRODUCTION
While analysing migration impact on economics the paradigm of economic growth is quite often discussed.Economic growth traditionally means quantitative change or increase capital, productivity growth, savings rate, reducing of unemployment rate, etc. (see Żelazny and Pietrucha, 2017;Shuaibu and Oladayo, 2016).There is an unexpressed demand on migration (especially immigra-tion) as an economic and social phenomenon to have some positive impact on the economy of target country.It's nevertheless true, that from political point of view the migration trends are usually being associated with the economic, social, security challenges in target countries (Simionescu et al., 2017;Streimikiene et al. 2016;Bilan, 2014a).European Union countries which are the external borders of EU face with even more specific obstacles -the effective management of borders and necessity to bare costs of controlling migration flows.Therefore the effective use of economic and financial measures managing state borders is of the utmost importance reaching common goals of public security, stability, respect for European values and rule of law.
The aim of this paper has been the achievement of the level of scientific knowledge on the subject of research in terms of establishment and analysis of economic effectiveness of state border governance in Lithuania in the context of increasing migration in European Union.The objective also has been to suggest the possible measures for improvement of state border management bearing in mind the migration perspectives.Analysing, on the one hand, the phenomenon of economic impact of migration on destination countries, and, on the other hand, the economic burden on those countries implementing requirements of proper protection of political, socio-economic, cultural rights of migrants, enables to research the corresponding measures of state border governance that a particular state may apply in the context of economic effectiveness.Notwithstanding the fact that some scholars state that modern economics "it is economics for itself, in which the economic principles serve its own interests" (Osipov, 2011), from the legal point of view (which is also confirmed by numerous economic studies (for example, Simanavičienė et.al., 2017;), as well as economic reality, there is an interactive link between economics and legal regulation -one have an impact on another, and vice versa.
Therefore it is crucial to determine the impact that regulative measures have on economic decisions, and to reveal how economic surrounding and situation affects legal regulation of a specific field (in our case -state border management), bearing in mind also the peculiarities of the specifics of the economic policy manipulations in political purposes, that are common to developing countries, new members of EU (Lithuania entered EU in 2004).The goal to which this paper is aimed to is to stress out the importance of the impact of correlation between desirable economic outcomes and legal regulation on state border management processes in the context of migration crisis in European Union.
The paper contains results of the analysis of international, regional and national legal acts and the secondary analysis of statistical data of European Union agencies and international organizations.It should be stated the interdisciplinary character of this paper, which corresponds to a recent wide development of interdisciplinary research methods basically in the field of social sciences (law, economics, sociology, etc.), therefore it is aimed to carry out some "interdisciplinary synthesis" through conclusions of this paper.In order to achieve the above-mentioned goals, the authors will use a variety of methods: from selection and analysis of primary and secondary sources to descriptive, comparative and synthesis methods.Such analysis requires multitudinous, broad and diverse base of empirical data, which could not be collected by authors.Accordingly, the authors will use the data and economic indicators of the World Bank publications, OECD (OECD -The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, an intergovernmental economic organisation with 35 member countries) publications, NewCronos database of Eurostat, United Nations, Statistic Department of Lithuania, as well as scientific, operational and theoretical reports related to the issue of migration processes and their determinants.

MIGRATION TRENDS AND ITS IMPACT ON ECONOMICS IN EUROPEAN UNION: GENERAL OVERVIEW
Migration can be defined as a process of moving, either across an international border, or within a State.The phenomenon of migration has been a concurrent part of human history, cultures, and civilizations.Movements of population in history have been both forced and voluntary as people changed their residence place in search of opportunity and also in search of protection (Strielkowski et al., 2016)..During all times of human existence environmental disasters and wars were the most crucial reasons compelling people to move, the same as poverty, lack of economic prospects, settlement in colonial territories, and later on -the desire to unite with family members abroad.Immigration to Europe and migration inside this region, in one form or another, has always been an inevitable reality, part of European history, and will continue to be so in the future.According the data of EUROSTAT, of the approximately 500 million people living in the EU, around 20 million are citizens of non-EU countries (EUROSTAT, 2016).
Migrations flows to European Union and the migration crises in 2015 tested the concept of the management of the external borders of the European Union and demonstrated its failure in the field of common policy, common approach and solidarity between the Member States.This threatened the European area of free movement in its existence.This is not the first crisis that EU faced during past two decades (bearing in mind financial crisis in the first decade of 21 st century), and at this time, the same like the previous one, the countries, having a common interest, need to implement a mutually beneficial rescue or emergency plan.Moreover, migration is a phenomenon characterised by a much higher level of uncertainty and much more controversial in terms of the expectations for the future than the purely demographic components of population change (Bijak, 2013;Calabuig-Moreno et al, 2016;Streimikiene et al, 2016;Glazar and Strielkowski, 2010;Gurbanov et al., 2015).
There must be a clear difference maid between lawful and illegal migration.Illegal migration usually faces security, regulatory, human rights protection issues, as well as economic, financial and social challenges to destination States.At the same time the most often on the policy agenda of EU, both from an economic and a social standpoint, the issue connected to the lawful migration is the integration of immigrants to their residential societies.Undoubtedly, active participation of immigrants in the labour market and, more generally, in public life is vital for ensuring social cohesion in the host country and the ability of migrants to function as autonomous, productive and successful, self-realised citizens.This is also critical for facilitating their acceptance by the hostcountry population (OECD (a), 2015).
Migration as a social, cultural, historical phenomenon per se is not a criminal or an undesirable activity.Over the past ten years, immigrants represented 47% of the increase in the workforce in the United States, and 70% in Europe (OECDb, 2012).Recent research made by international organizations show, that migrants contribute more in the form of taxes and social contributions than they receive from the state in benefits, that labour migrants have the most positive impact on the public purse, also it is acknowledged that migration boosts the working-age population.The studies indicate the impact of the cumulative waves of migration that arrived over the past 50 years in OECD countries is on average close to zero, rarely exceeding 0.5% of GDP in either positive or negative terms (OECD (c), 2014).Notwithstanding those results of different researches, the native population of target countries usually consider immigrants more as recipients than contributors (Figure 1 (OECD (d), 2013).
Analysing positive outcomes of lawful migration on economic and social systems of target countries, it should be noted, that employment rate of immigrants is the most important determinant of their net fiscal contribution, particularly in countries with generous welfare states.As various studies show, raising immigrants' employment rate to that of the native-born would entail substantial fiscal gains in many European OECD countries (for example, in Belgium, France and Sweden, which would see a budget impact of more than 0.5% of GDP).Therefore, state governments' purposeful strategies to better integrate immigrants should thus be seen as an investment rather than a cost.At the same time it is absolutely clear that satisfaction degree of all society member is necessary for social development in modern states (V.Draskovic and M. Draskovic, 2012), which are mainly the states of migrants, especially illegal ones, destination.There are many studies regarding the impact of immigration to target countries, especially in the field of labour market.As Simionescu and others indicate, majority of studies in the field of economics are based on the "theories related to migration impact on labour markets of the target countries.It is considered that migration influences overall labour supply and wage in case of economies with fixed capital and small product range" (Simionescu at al., 2016).Migration also has a demographic impact, not only by increasing the size of the population but also by changing the age pyramid of receiving countries (Strielkowski and Sperkova, 2016).Migrants tend to be more concentrated in the younger and economically active age groups compared with natives and therefore contribute to reduce dependency ratios (Gagnon, 2014).Considering lawful migration mainly because of economic reasons, migrants usually arrive with skills and abilities (but not necessarily with the education), supplementing the working and tax paying human capital of the destination country (Hunt, 2010;Boubtane and Dumont, 2013).However, it should be noted, that in this paper we focus our attention on the economic impact on target countries of illegal (irregular) migration or migrants who leave their countries because of armed conflicts, authoritarian regimes or extreme poverty and enter countries of external borders of EU or target countries usually illegally, i.e. we will analyse the costs of selected target countries implementing EU and national regulatory requirements regarding procedures and integration processes of migrants, and will discuss state border management measures in the context of economic and practical effectiveness.
European Union has faced with an extreme immigration during past decade.There were 1 820 000 detections of irregular border crossings registered in 2015 which in net migration terms corresponded to approximately 1 Million people who reached the EU Member States or Schengen Associated Countries.This was compounded by the fact that the mixed migratory pressure was geographically focused on particular and very exposed sections of the EU external borders of some EU Member States, namely Italy and Greece.
In comparison it should be mentioned, that this extremely high figure was more than six times the number of detections reported in 2014, which was itself an unprecedented year (Member States were confronted with more than 280,000 illegal border crossings, double the previous record number in 2011, the year of the Arab Spring) (FRONTEX, 2015).Germany reported the largest number of immigrants (592 200) in 2012, followed by the United Kingdom (498 000), Italy (350 800), France (327 400) and Spain (304 100).Spain reported the highest number of emigrants in 2012 (446 600), followed by the United Kingdom (321 200), France (288 300) and Poland (275 600) (EUROSTAT, 2014).Furthermore, increasing migration has also affected countries' politics, as many turned their focus to national policy and reinforcing border control.At the same time, policy makers were challenged with economic consequences, connected to the costs of integration, settlement, education, employment or migrants, enforcement of administrative procedures.Lastly, the rapid increase in migration has provoked a backlash of a public opinion in many of the EU countries affected by the rising numbers of migrants.Bearing in mind the extraordinary situation with the migration flows, political and economic consequences followed.In 2014 European Commission proposed and European Parliament confirmed the decision to launch two new funds: the Asylum and Migration Fund (EUR 3.869 billion) and the Internal Security Fund (ISF) (EUR 4.648 billion).A further increase of the EU budget of 2 billion euros and 1 billion euros was agreed for the 2015 and 2016 budget, respectively.Each Member State presented its national programme to describe how it plans to allocate the funds.
Of course, government spending for the reception and integration of people seeking international protection varies significantly across countries (for example, Austria, Table 1).On average across the main reception countries in Europe, the cost for processing and accommodating asylum seekers is estimated around 10 000 euros per application for the first year.This figure can be significantly higher if integration support is already provided during the asylum phase.For the EU countries most affected by the recent migrants seeking asylum, the costs can thus be quite high.For example, Germany, which received as many as 900 000 asylum seekers in 2015, spent 16 billion euros (0.5% of GDP) on its migrants in that year.Sweden, which received 163 000 asylum seekers in 2015 (the highest per capita ratio ever registered in the OECD at 1.6% of total population), spent 6 billion euros (1.35% of GDP) (OECD (e), 2017).It is absolutely clear that this economic burden is overwhelming challenge for EU countries which are external borders of the union.Therefore states must effectively invest into all aspects of state border protection and management.

STATE BORDER MANAGEMENT FINANCIAL EFFECTIVENESS IN LITHUANIA
The Baltic state of Lithuania has endured many dramatic changes in the last 20 years.Lithuania can be seen to have a serious migration dilemma, one of high emigration and low immigration.The migration within Lithuania can be seen as having been greatly affected by the socio-economic and political changes it has undergone, mainly with the independence of Lithuania from the Soviet Union in 1990 and the joining of the European Union in 2004, both witnessing large waves of emigration from the country.At present, foreign countries have more than 0,6 million inhabitantscitizens of the Republic of Lithuania."In 2014, international net migration remained negative as the number of emigrants exceeded that of immigrants by 12.3 thousand.Over the last ten years (2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013)(2014), 438.5 thousand persons emigrated and 126 thousand immigrated.Lithuania, in the context of other EU member states, is distinguished by one of the largest negative net migration indicators per 1000 population" (Statistics Department, 2014).In 2016, the net international migration of Lithuania to 1000 inhabitants was -10.5 (see Table 3).According to the data of the Register of Aliens, at the beginning of 2013, more than 30 thousand foreigners were living in Lithuania, which is 1.1% of the total population.3 300 of foreigners living in Lithuania were citizens of the Member States of the EU and the European Free Trade Association, of which almost half of the citizens were from Latvia, Poland and Germany; there were citizens of other countries, in total approximately 30 thousand, of which nearly two-thirds were citizens of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine (The Government of the Republic of Lithuania, (a) 2014).Political, legal and practical measures have ensured the effective management of migration flows.
The Lithuanian border is 1,763 km long.The Lithuanian border is a line and a vertical surface stretching along this line which establishes the boundaries of the territory of the Republic of Lithuania on land, in the entrails of the earth, in airspace, in the territorial waters, and in the territorial sea and its depths.Lithuanian border guards control and enforce security of about one-tenth of the external land borders of the Schengen Treaty countries, in total of 1,070 km.Effective management of the EU's external borders is essential for the idea of free movement within the EU and its functioning, therefore it is the key priority of Lithuania, and the state must improve its border control infrastructure.The Government of the Republic of Lithuania in its programme (The Government of the Republic of Lithuania, (b) 2016) for the year 2016-2020 provided to strengthen the control of irregular migration and instructed the development of legislative framework focusing on detailing the functions of institutions engaged in the control of irregular migration, and the means by which to implement this programme.The Government aims to achieve, by 2020, by means of modern measures, that the entire border between Lithuania and Belarus and Lithuania and Russia would be controlled, preventing smuggling of people and goods.
State Border Guard Service (SBGS) is the main Institution in Lithuania responsible for the protection of borders and legal entry procedures at the border.There are approximately 3 500 officers employed in the SBGS are, and the number is decreasing: from 4818 officers in 2015; 4004 in 2016; 3523 in 2017 -the number of employed officers is about 23 % less from 2015 than in 2017.The number is decreasing with the intent to increase the salary of those already employed in State Border Guard Service.
In 2016, 96 state border violations were registered at the border with the Republic of Belarus, compared with 2015, it is 45% less than in 2005 (the number was 175).The number of violations of the state border at the border with the Russian Federation decreased from 30 (in 2015) to 24 (in 2016) (Table 4).Since 2012, the number of violations of the state border at the border of the Republic of Lithuania at the EU's external borders has kept a downward trend.Compared 2016 to 2012, the number of violations of the state border decreased by 3.6 times (Figure 3.).This trend should evaluated bearing in mind the decreased number of employed officials during the same period.One of the key elements of effective state border control is the proper financing of activities and appropriate allocation of funds.During past two years main budget for operational activities consisted of funds from State appropriations and from EU and international funds (Table 5).Planning the activity SBGS seeks to increase operational efficiency, rational allocate the SBGS functions of structural units, to improve management and to reduce costs.According to SBGS strategy plan for 2017-2019 (The Ministry of Internal Affairs, 2017), the necessity and need for further strengthening of the external border is linked to the implementation of EU and Frontex EU border management policies in all countries of the Schengen area, in order to help this model to cope with rising migratory flows.The control of the external border is one of the security elements in this case; one of the more important roles lies in the opportunities offered by new technologies and well-trained border guards to strengthen relations with third countries, thus ensuring the management of migration flows.The introduction of modern border surveillance systems is one of the key ways to strengthen the protection of the EU's external border.According these aims SBGS planed budget for next years (Table 5), from which could be seen that for the acquirement of assets (mainly equipment, surveillance systems, and biological assets) there is foreseen almost the same amount as for wages of state border guards.There must be kept in mind that the finance resources in general are not being increased for Lithuania State Border Guard Service for surveillance or control of the state border for the past few years, even in the context of the migration crisis in EU.The number of employees, in the contrary, has been decreased, increasing wages for others.The question may arise, what is the effect of this decrease of the personnel on the effectiveness of state border control.The analysis, made by the authors of the paper, of financial data of the SBGS shows, that the funds are allocated to modernisation of the equipment and management systems of the institutions.The migration flows to Lithuania is decreasing each year (Figure 4), and the, maybe surprisingly for many, this trend is not because of the increased funding from the state or EU funds, but because of the effective investments into modern equipment and qualification of responsible personnel.

CONCLUSIONS
Immigration to Europe and migration inside this region, in one form or another, has always been an inevitable reality, part of European history, and will continue to be so in the future.Migration is a phenomenon characterised by a much higher level of uncertainty and much more controversial in terms of the expectations for the future than the purely demographic components of population change.In this paper based on theoretical considerations and statistic information it is described the general economic and social challenges that occur integrating migrants into the so-ciety and especially labour market of the destination states.Analysing positive outcomes of lawful migration on economic and social systems of target countries, the negative obstacles rising from irregular migration and its recent crisis must be also considered.People might arrive legally on a short-stay visa and then overstay.Some might enter and stay in an EU Member state without authorization, sometimes against their will.The black labour market also attracts irregular immigration.The control of the external border is one of the security elements in this case; one of the more important roles lies in the opportunities offered by new technologies and well-trained border guards to strengthen relations with third countries, thus ensuring the management of migration flows.The introduction of modern border surveillance systems is one of the key ways to strengthen the protection of the EU's external border.According these aims must be planed and SBGS budget.As the analysis if financial date shows, finance resources in general are not being increased for Lithuania State Border Guard Service for surveillance or control of the state border for the past few years, even in the context of the migration crisis in EU.The number of employees, in the contrary, has been decreased, increasing wages for others.Financial data of the SBGS shows, that the funds are allocated to modernisation of the equipment and management systems of the institutions.The migration flows to Lithuania is decreasing each year, and the, maybe surprisingly for many, this trend is not because of the increased funding from the state or EU funds, but because of the effective investments into modern equipment and qualification of responsible personnel.

Figure 1 .
Figure1.The association between views on migration and the perception of migrants' fiscal impact, selected European OECD

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Number of State Border Violations

Figure 4 .
Figure 4. Detection of illegal border crossings (change from the year 2015 to 2016)

Table 1 .
The cost of integrating refugees by level of government: the case of Austria

Table 3 .
State Border Violations at the Boarder of the Republic of Lithuania

Table 5 :
The planned budget for 2017-2019 of State Border Protection Guard Service ⃰ Objective -effective protection of the state border; ⃰ ⃰ ⃰ Objective -to ensure border surveillance and border crossing checks, migratory process control Source: State Boarder Guard Service