Spain has announced it will regularize the status of hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants per year through 2027. It comes as the country faces massive labor shortages amid the impact of demographic decline. In contrast to leaders elsewhere in Europe, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is taking a far more pragmatic approach to the loaded issue of migration in the country.
The program was announced by Spain’s migration minister Elma Saiz. She outlined the plan to the state broadcaster, which includes giving residency and work visas to up to 300,000 undocumented migrants per year through 2027.
“We are the only country in the European Union that has a specific figure to ‘regularize’ people day by day through residency,” said Saiz in a press release.
Spain, like many other EU member states, is facing historic labor shortages, as Spanish citizens age out of the workforce and young Spaniards choose not to enter various trades or leave the country altogether. This is an acute problem for Europe, which threatens both economic growth and the stability of the social welfare system. Other countries, such as Germany, have recognized the issue and have put in place systems to try to lure skilled foreign workers by reforming visa systems. Recently, countries in the east of the EU, such as Poland, have benefitted from the entry of large numbers of Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s war in recent years, though this supply of labor has started to wane.
At the same time, many European countries and governments are struggling with a highly charged political atmosphere around irregular migration – people crossing into Europe without prior approval in order to claim asylum or seek humanitarian protection. Hundreds of thousands of people arrive in this way to Europe every year, which has provided much fodder for anti-immigration parties and commentators to stoke fears the social and economic impact of such migration.
Spain’s government, in contrast to those in other wealthy EU nations grappling with a perceived ‘crisis’ over irregular migration, appears to be taking a pragmatic approach by combining both issues. Governments typically don’t want to have a large number of undocumented migrants on their territory, and at the same time the country is in dire need of more labor. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has made himself known in recent times to speak out in favor of immigration to Europe, at a time when many leaders are arguing for higher walls.
“Welcoming those who come from abroad in search of a better life is not only a duty that international law obliges us to fulfil, but also an essential step to guarantee the prosperity and sustainability of our welfare state,” Sánchez said earlier in 2024.
Regularization programs are not unheard of around the world, with many European nations having undertaken such programs over the years. While they can be politically tricky, depending on how much anti-immigration sentiment there is in the country at the time, they offer governments a lot of advantage in folding people into the tax base of the country, as well as helping to make sure undocumented people don’t slip totally into ‘shadow’ economies and societies on the margins of the country.
The Spanish program will begin in May 2027, according to the government.