 the happy and the powerful do not go into exile. These are the words of the French politician Alexis de Tocqueville, who lived 200 years ago. These words are still true, but the global context has changed radically since. A warm welcome to everybody. It's a big honour to be here with you today. My name is Suzanne Ville and I work for Swiss Radio and Television and in cooperation with the World Economic Forum Davos, as we have invited five distinguished minds to discuss the topic poverty, escaping from poverty, migration. And we'll talk in a minute. I'll have the pleasure to introduce my guests, but please allow me a few remarks just to frame the topic a little bit. People risking their lives in the hope of finding a better life in Europe. Some of them flee from war and torture. Some of them flee from economic hardships. Some, with other motives, the lines are blurred. But United Nations refugee agency has been ringing the alarm bells. It has published a shocking figure for the first time since World War II, the number of forcibly displaced people, asylum seekers, refugees, now exceeds 55 million people. So we're talking here about a massive increase of forcibly displaced people. And as you know, there's wars in Syria, Iraq and many other regions. In addition to this, there is an economic slowdown which has an impact on migration with people leaving their homeland, looking for jobs in other European countries. Thus we're having a very delicate situation. In Switzerland, there's the expression Dichte Stress, which perhaps can be summed up as the stress of living in close proximity to each other, density stress. In the international media it's referred to as the Alpine Angst, which led to votes on two different anti-immigrant votes in a short time frame. But Switzerland is not an exception, ladies and gentlemen. There's a widespread feeling in Europe that unskilled foreigners may take away jobs from local, that migrants, they strain welfare, they strain culture. So that is a delicate situation as well. And of the unspeakable attacks in Paris at Charlie Hebdo Headquarters, there's the potential of more mistrust against migrants, despite the impressive demonstration of solidarity 11 days ago. However, migrants provide flexible and valuable labour. This business depends on this. So to summarize all these points in a nutshell, I think we must talk about global ideas and global actions to face the challenge of migration. So let's do this, let's introduce our guests. I welcome Simonetta Somaruga. She represents the host country of this forum. She is the president of the Swiss Confederation and minister of police and justice. I also welcome right next to her Mr. President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, he's president of the West African country of Mali. Mali belongs to the group of the least developed countries, is fighting poverty and is fighting migration. I also welcome Mr. William Lacey Swing, former US ambassador and diplomat. And today he's director general of the International Organization for Migration. It's the leading intergovernmental organisation in the field of migration. Right next to me, I welcome Hikmet Ersek, he's CEO and president of Western Union, a leading company providing financial services for migrants, thus profiting from migration, so to speak. And last but not least, I must say that on short notice, the president of Cyprus, Nikos Anastasiasis, had to cancel his being here because he had to take care of important business. And on short notice, Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament, said, yes, I will join this session. So first, this shows how important the topic is and it also shows that relationships between Switzerland and EU are not as bad as some people might say. So thank you so much, Martin Schulz. We have a 45 minutes block discussion, followed by Q&As from the audience. We'll talk about labour migration, we'll talk about refugees, we'll talk about the political impact. But first, let me ask you something else. Let me work with a provocative premise saying, migration today is out of control. Frau Bundespräsidentin, yes or no? Migration out of control, yes or no? If you look at the wars that are waging, you've got civil war in certain countries, you've got millions of refugees, then you have to say that in these regions, the situation is partly out of control. I was in Jordan last year and I went to a Jordanian refugee camp and there were a lot of Syrian refugees and Jordan has as many people as Switzerland, they have a million refugees. So the situation probably is out of control there. What you do need to know, and this is the answer to your question, about 10% of refugees managed to make it to Europe, 90% of refugees tend to stay in the region. So if there is a difficult situation, then that situation is primarily difficult in the neighbouring states and in the corresponding regions. And so we have to ask ourselves, what can Switzerland and what Europe can do to safeguard the life and limb of these people? Some of the points later. Mr. Swin, you've been working in many African countries as an ambassador. You've been with the Organization for Migration for 80 years now. The situation that we have now, how do you assess it? Is migration out of control? Yes or no? I think that the world is out of control with a bottom up type situation. We're living in a period of the greatest human mobility in recorded history. One out of every seven people on the globe is some form of migratory status. We're also in a period of the greatest number of humanitarian disasters that we've ever seen, all simultaneous and very complex. And finally, we're living in a period of the greatest anti-migrant sentiment that anyone has seen in modern times. So out of all of this basically means that we have to have policies that will help us to manage the movement. The movement of people now is based primarily on the fact that the world's population quadrupled for the first time in the 20th century. It never happened before, may never happen again. Numerically, there are more people on the move. Percentage-wise, it's still only 3% and countries constantly overestimate how many migrants and how many foreigners are in their country. And by the way, South-South migration, for example, movement within Africa is just as great as the movement from South to North. But the prejudice is everybody's heading North and that is not in fact the case. Mr. President, Bobaka Keita, two years ago, the North of Mali was freed from the control of terrorist groups. 100,000 people from Mali still live outside the country and only last year, thousands of people from Mali tried to find their way to Europe. Would you say migration is out of control? Yes or no? Madam... Madam. I would say that today, it is the whole world that has to answer this question. Two years ago, there was a lot of international solidarity which was expressed vis-à-vis Mali and a lot was done to push out the terrorists. But things have changed and... Through Southern Libya, a lot of the terrorists are coming back and they haven't been mopped up. I would say that supply of Niger and the North of Mali has suffered. There is a lot of weapons being delivered by al-Qaeda to this region, as is known. And this is strengthening the role of the terrorists in Northern Mali. And as a result of this is going to push a lot of people out of the country, people who we'd been able to bring back with the help, of course, of the International Office for Migration. I'd say that it is a challenge for the whole world today which we're facing. Everybody in their own way, with their own resources, is trying to ensure that the flow of migrants that leave these countries is as low as possible. And there is, of course, a lot of migration from South to North, as we've heard. But there is a program that has been implemented, a communication program, a program of awareness raising, and we try to use traditional channels as well as modern communication tools. In other words, we use everything possible to get our young people to understand what are the dangers that they're going to expose themselves to if they go into clandestine emigration. You profit from migration, as I said. Looking at the statistics from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, remittances, money being sent from people abroad to their families back home is booming. We're talking about dramatic increase. Does this also show that migration is out of control? Yes or no? Well, what do we want to control first? That's the question. Do we want to control the people free movement or not? I think what we are doing here is that we sit here at the World Economic Forum. We want that the money flows, that we want growth, good flows, but we don't like that the people cross the borders. We hate that because suddenly we have emotional things. We know that there are about 250 million people abroad who were not born in the countries they moved. And we know that they contribute a lot to the economy. The Fortune 500 companies, 40% of the Fortune 500 companies were built by immigrants or by the children of the immigrants. So the migrants who leave a country, move to another country are much more entrepreneurial than the people because they have different skills. And I believe the countries they invite migrants enjoy the migrants and the economic growth, what they contribute to that. Today, what's out of control are more emotions, I believe. You said there's a difference between being a live migrant in Europe than in the States. It is a big difference because, you know, the country U.S. is built on migrants. I make the joke always of being a European. That's what they arrived in the U.S. yesterday. It's only 200 years. And the country, you know, how U.S. is today, is built off the migrants' entrepreneurship. And they ask you, what can you do rather than where you're from? Yeah, they don't ask you where you're from. They ask you, what did you do? What can you do? And that's a big emotional difference than we in Europe have it. And the information flows, by the way. You know, the migration is not a new issue. Over the course of years, people moved around. But the information we have today, it's much better. And we know what's happening. The information flow is much better. So suddenly there is an emotion saying that, I don't know these guys. I don't understand their religion. I don't understand their language. So it must be different. There is a huge fear which we as a host countries have to overcome that. Okay, we'll talk about this as well, Mott. We'll talk about labour migration specifically. How do we benefit from labour migration? You know, for example, when we look at the current numbers on Monday, the International Labour Organization said 74 million young people are out of job. How would you explain to a young European person why do we benefit from labour migration? First of all, I shared the view of my neighbour. The world is out of control. Not the migration is out of control. But because the world is out of control, we have migration. And the migration is not managed. This is the biggest problem for the Europeans. We take note about migration, but we don't manage it. Because irresponsible politicians tell to citizens in Europe, we don't need migration, we can fight against migration, close the borders. This is extreme irresponsible. I'll answer immediately to your question on which is concerning labour migration within the European Union, young Europeans. But this is one part of migration. The bigger problem of migration is the north-south or the south-north migration because of poverty, civil wars. We'll talk about this, but concerning labour migration, how do you explain so much? I'll answer immediately to your question, but one important point for me is the following one. In 2050, this is the forecast for Europe. The European Union will represent 4% of world population. That means 96% of world population is not living in Europe. And this 96% of citizens have not an agreement amongst each other not to come to Europe. But in Europe are people telling to the Europeans, we are living on an island and we will not be affected by that migration. This is irresponsible. We need a legal system of immigration in Europe, like the United States has, like Canada has, like Latin America has, like Australia has, like New Zealand has. If it's so simple, why don't we get there? It's so simple, why don't we get there? Labour. Why don't we have it? Because politicians all over Europe tell to citizens, we don't need it and this is not responsible. Therefore, we need a three-part system. A legal system of immigration with quota. That means not everybody could come to Europe. But this influx to Europe, we have to manage it and we have to manage it. Taking into account that not everybody can come, that we have to define numbers, how much people every year can come, and it must be distributed amongst the 28 member states of the European Union. Secondly, we need a system of temporary protection. This isn't, for example, who are refugees from Syria coming to us. I compare them with the 80s. In the 80s of last century, we had refugees from Lebanon who went back to their country when the civil war was over. I hope that it is in a foreseeable time the case with Syria and then we need political asylum. Please, let's talk about the refugees at the latest stage. I want to stick with labour migration. For example, all these people trying to find jobs in Europe, trying to find a better life. It also is a brain drain for a country like Mali. Every young man, every young skilled man living in Mali is a brain drain. What specifically do you do, Mr President, to prevent them from leaving your country? We are very concerned with the situation concerning our youth, or at least a part of that youth. And it's always the same zone where there are a lot of people who emigrate. The Kayi region, which is close to Mauritania and Senegal, and it is in that region where there are a lot of climatic ups and downs. And that has a consequence on people's desires to leave. For a very long time now, we've had a partnership with certain countries, including France. And we try to have a kind of co-management to allow people to come back to their country of origin. And we have established programs and we work together with the emigrants themselves. And when our partners manage to set up a program, a joint program with us, we then try and get information in the countries that welcome these immigrants, such as in France. And we try to ensure that you don't have a kind of floating migrant when he comes back to Mali, and we try and help them. We also try and make sure that their savings are protected. That's very important. Somebody lives in Europe, in France, and we know the kind of jobs that they have to do. Sending back money from Mali to Mali, which is almost as much as the whole gross national product, your remittances as a life along for poor countries, how important is that concerning migration? Well, it's extremely important. If I put some things in perspective, Mali is one of our countries where we have 800 locations at West Sea Union. And it's important that this money goes to the people that are really in need. If someone in France working and sending money to Mali, the first main reason we know from West Sea Union is education. Thirty percent of the transactions worldwide sent that the person leaves the country, goes to another country, wants that their children have a better life. So the people sending money to Mali want that their children have a better life in their environment. However, that money often is not being reinvested with schools or universities. That's an assumption. That's what I heard from the Mali government. Well, we do educational programs, but one thing is very important. Fifty-one percent of the senders, in our case, are women. And women spend money for their families. And we know from our surveys that the women don't use the money from themselves. They support their families back home. So the remittances are a direct investment. It's three times higher than any aid worldwide. There are about $450 billion of remittances every year. And remittances do arrive to the person. It's no corruption between that. The money is not lost. The person gets the $300. The children can go to a school and develop themselves. Now, we need the government involvement here also to develop programs for education to use the money in a wise way. But interestingly, there's different projects of how to make use of all these labor migrants living abroad. There's banks being discussed about diaspora bonds like in Ethiopia. Mr. Lacey Swing, do we benefit from migration or do the poor country benefit from live immigration enough? Again, as President Schulz has said, if you have the right policies, basically we should not be talking about brain drain. We should be talking about brain circulation. The diaspora have the capacity to contribute to home society as well as host society. But if you don't have policies that permits that, you need a high-road scenario, multiple entry visas, multiple citizenship. We all have multiple identities today. We all have a digital world, a digital world. So why shouldn't we open up more of that? But if we don't give diaspora chance, they cannot contribute. It's very important. We also need to reduce the cost of the transfer of remittances. Today, it's about 435 billion. It'll pass 500 billion next year. But if you're paying 10 to 12% of that to get your money home, you're losing $40 billion for development, even though these are private transfers. Well, that's, you know... First of all, the average... It's a great idea, isn't it? I don't like this idea. I'm not surprised. First of all, you know, I am the only business leader here. You're strong. You can handle that. Okay. No, first of all, we're seeing it. We believe that we are in 200 countries in 500,000 locations. If we wouldn't make money, we wouldn't be there. That's, first of all, every business leader will say. The second thing on the pricing... You know, only the sender pays the fee. So the guy who has the money pays the fee. The receiver doesn't pay the fee. So they get the remittances as full amount back home, which he can send. If I send $500, I get in the, you know, $500 in Mali or somewhere in the world that I can't spend the month. The sender sends the fee. So it's a big difference. And then I wouldn't be in 500,000 locations, 200 countries. It has compliance issues. It has settlement issues. So to run a business, to be successful, obviously our aim is also to make some money. And our customers like that, actually. We wouldn't be so successful in the Western Union if we wouldn't have the competitive advantage. You know, since Davos is always trying a solution, I suggest that you, Mr. Lacey Swing, and the president of Mali, and you sit together to build maybe some project between bank lower fees. And we'll leave the topic to this. We have to move on. We have a number of pilot projects to reduce the cost. We have one now at the Universal Poster Union in Bern. We're starting a couple of pilot projects. One in Burundi, but we'll come back to that when we talk. Yeah, you know, he's not very enthusiastic about this. We'll talk about this later. Ms. Maruga, you know, talking about labor migration, just to sum up this particular point, you know, we have this discussion in Switzerland. Why don't people understand enough that we benefit from migration? How do you explain this? What can we do against this? I don't think that one can say that in Switzerland that we don't see the advantage of migrant workers. We've got 1.3 million Europeans who live in Switzerland. People who work in Switzerland live here. We've got about a half a million Swiss citizens live in EU countries. So Switzerland is a country that knows that the exchange of labor is positive for our country. But the question is always what happens when there is a conflict, for example, when migrants increase in numbers in a very short period of time. But what is very important, I'm very glad that this point has been taken up, and I think that the President of the European Parliament made this point, migration is a process. It's not a problem. Migration has advantages for the countries of origin because of the remittances. And also with the flowback of know-how, I was in Cameroon last year, and I visited a project where you've got doctors from Cameroon come to Switzerland, get training here, go back to Cameroon, and then work in a hospital and inject their own knowledge into that and train doctors themselves. That's a very positive outcome. So a very positive thing for the host country. We've got demographic change in the European countries. We really need a labor from abroad. But we've heard that there are also problems associated with it. If you've got labor migration, which takes place, but the target market simply cannot absorb those workers, then a lot of dreams are burst, and there are difficult situations where just their lives have spent a lot of money in order to find a job, and they suddenly find that there is nothing for them. And then there is another risk for the countries of origin. We've heard about a brain-dream, I think that the President of Mali said this. When you've got the bright and the youngest who leave a country, that is a problem for the sending country. So I think that we have to have a responsible migration policy, and I believe that politicians have a job to do. We've got to try and strike a balance in order to try and weigh up the risk and the advantages, and to try and keep things in balance. Easier said than done, but nevertheless just to be aware of the fact that there are advantages for both sides, but that there are risks also, and that this is a process that has to be shaped, and that you cannot allow it to run out of control. That awareness is a responsibility that is incumbent upon us. We've got to show our people that we have to find a solution. A specific aspect of migration, Martin Schulz, has already mentioned it in his initial statement, namely refugees, people trying to come to Europe in the hope of finding a better life. We have a quick video report on that topic that I would like to show you now. So it's obviously not ready. I'm asking the technicians. Can we show the video report? Fleeing from war, poverty or terror, they risk everything. Convinced by the idea of finding a better life in Europe, refugees take huge risks and strains upon themselves. They will not be deterred from their dream of making a new start in Europe, neither from high fences, nor from life-threatening situations, like treacherous journeys across the Mediterranean. For many refugees, the journey does not end as they imagined it would. Mr. Cada, let me address you directly among the 100,000, 70 people arriving at Italy's show last year, over 9,000 people were from Mali. When you see these pictures, what thoughts crosses your mind? If I may ask you. It's a human tragedy, madam. And when I say human tragedy, I mean in the fullest sense of the term. When you realise the attachment to life of our youth, if they're prepared to risk the waves and the sea and all the conditions of crossing the oceans or crossing the Mediterranean, in fact, when they get to the Mediterranean, they're almost there. If you haven't had to cross the desert to get there, imagine that. And we've seen the people drowning in the sea, but we don't see how many people who die of thirst in the desert, people who are abandoned, people who are abandoned near the mosques by the human traffickers. It is a continuum of human tragedy, and that is just the tragic end of this whole process. I think that no human being can be insensitive to this, particularly when you are head of a state like I am, particularly when you see that your nationals are the victims of this tragedy. If there were greater solidarity, perhaps we would have the Sushinar hands. Martin Schulze raised the problem of solidarity. When the state keeps on repeating slogans, or when the state really no longer functions, and there are many countries in our region where everything has to be started from scratch and where we really need to build really anew, and everything is a challenge. But we really need to consider the future of my country, and it's also the future of the world to a certain extent. And it's not just the dramas in Africa that affect us, you also have people who are trying to leave Syria and elsewhere, and so it is a question of world governance in many ways. This is something that needs to be revisited, and this is something decision-makers have to do something about. To find a way to deal with these refugees, and the first boat drowned near the end of Lampedusa, the headlines were shame on Europe, or never since Europe is trying with different search and rescue operations, whether they're called modern, Austrian or Triton, to tackle the problem. However, Mr. Swing, it was the deadest year in the history of a refugee, so what must happen that we can better the situation? Let me give you a perspective first. Just maybe a specific idea. We published a report in October that 40,000 migrants had lost their life along the migratory route, 22,000 in the Mediterranean, making Europe both the most favored and the most hazardous location in the world. We've discovered this year 5,000 more have died, twice as many as the year before. Now what has to happen are a number of things, and we've shared this for President Schulz and I were together in Lampedusa for the anniversary of that tragic October 2013 event. 368 lives were lost. We spoke to the survivors from that boat, and it was a mixture. They were part of the 33.3 million refugees in the world. They were part of the 16.7 million displaced persons. They were part of those Syrians who were going north to join their families, probably in Scandinavia. Some of them were people prostitutes going into a prostitution ring who should be sent home. It was a mixed group. It's always a mixed group, and we have to try to get on top of this. Three or four things can be done quickly. One, we need more legal channels of migration. We need to be establishing migration, reception and processing centers' own land in North Africa, perhaps in Egypt and Turkey if possible, where they could be processed. And processing will take place in Lampedusa or Malta, which is also very vulnerable. We need also, I think, to make sure that we have a dialogue going on, and I really appreciate there is a good European Union, African Union dialogue on something called the Horn of Africa Migration Initiative. Very good. If that bears fruit, that will be helpful. We need more to do more for disaster risk reduction. But doesn't the opposite happen now? The way I see it now, Europe is trying to find a way, which is very difficult, you know? Great Britain says, we don't want to finance any search and rescue operations, because this is another pull factor. The more people we take out of the water, the more people think we'll just go there and see what happens. Martin Schultz, how can Europe find a good way to tackle the situation in a short specific answer? Not with statements such as those we hear from the mouth of David Cameron. I can just make one sentence, shame on Europe in Lampedusa. That's something I've also read. But I'd also like to say, honour, honour to the Italian army. The pictures that you saw with the soldiers helping people in the Mediterranean, that is an honourable act. I think we have to make it clear to Europeans. The biggest destabilised regions are neighbouring regions to Europe. And the fact that they come to Europe is easy to understand. You know, unfortunately, there's always a bit of a problem because journalists always ask us questions. They sound simple, but we have to give a long answer to be able to explain things. But let me just answer your point in this way. The Globe, when I met him, said, I am the child of Italian immigrants who went to Latin America. There was massive emigration from Europe, and other parts of the Globe had massive immigration from Europe, particularly in Latin America. So I think that we have to be completely aware of the fact that as long as there is poverty in this form in the world, there will continue being migration to Europe. And we've heard what was discussed between the two here. That's a very interesting process. How do we get economic growth? How do we get jobs? How do we get stability in the crisis regions of this world? And I think I've got a bit of a provocative answer to you. If we were to see what our friend Keita has to do in his country because you've got criminal gangs who have plundered Qaddafi's arsenal and are destabilizing Mali with this, Qaddafi spent billions in order to buy ammunition. In other words, Libya is a very rich country. If we could provide stability to Libya with the money that this dictator spent on arms would be able to create wealth and prosperity. So we need a different form of international economic cooperation. And we would be able to easily solve this problem. You know, talking about the unstable political situation preventing also business from coming to African countries. The situation in the north is not yet stabilized. And you've been also criticized for not doing enough to pacify the region. You've been criticized for, you know, buying a very expensive new presidential aircraft for millions of dollars in a time where international aid donors were trying to rebuild the nation. So let's ask you specifically what do you do to convince investors to come to your country and help fighting poverty? We've got to be assured that there will be a return of investment. Investors want stability. How can you get to stability when you've got a lot of terrorism taking place? We've got a very weaker army. And there are lots of putches in Africa. And we've got to get Europe and other parts of the world to help defend us. During my presidential campaign, I said that the resources would be made available and that we wanted to make sure that we don't do things artificially. We want to do things in a dignified way. And I said that I would also implement a program to equip the army, that we would train the army. And we've also been working good together with Central African Republic. But all I can tell you is I'm doing my duty. And if in this path there are errors that are made, procedural mistakes, that can be understood and things can be corrected. But nothing will prevent me to carry out the duties of the president and to make sure that I can make Mali a country dignified of that name. And I will assume my responsibilities. And I will ensure that we will provide investments and I will make sure that those investments are secure. To sum up this last topic of refugees, Miss Samaruga, we have to talk about the sharing of burdens because this is a big issue. We will not fight poverty from one day to the other. You've been sympathetic with Nadia from Austria with large resettlement programs. You mentioned picking some refugees directly from African countries, distributing them to a certain key among the European countries. Is this one concrete way to tackle the problem? Is this realistic? I think that before we just concentrate exclusively or reduce everything to Europe, I think that you need to remember, and I said this at the beginning, that 90% of all refugees are in the neighbouring countries. And that's why the Swiss government, and this is also an European policy, that we provide the support in the countries, in the neighbouring countries. That's probably the most important thing. I went to Jordan and Switzerland is not only supporting Syrian refugees in Jordan, but we also try and provide support to the Jordanian population. The Jordanian children need to be able to go to school and perhaps the children from Jordan go to school in the morning and the Syrian children can go to school in the afternoon. I think that that is the most important thing we can do in this region because the population is making enormous effort and we've got to help the regions on site. And I just wanted to take up another point. Refugees don't just want to go to Europe. Refugees would like to be able to go home and live in peace and enjoy their lives at home. That's the most important thing, and I think that in Europe we should stop to have the fear and to disseminate a fear that everybody wants to come to Europe. People want to stay home, but when they're threatened, when they're in a war zone, they'd like to be able to go back home and perhaps they would like to be in their vicinity of their homes. But if they have to leave, then they will probably go to places where they know people. And that's why we have lots of different diasporas, different refugee flows. But refugees tend to go when they have relatives. That's happening to the Syrians. We would do exactly the same thing ourselves. And that's why there are these differences. So within Europe we have a shared space with the Schengen-Dublin frontiers. And we've got to speak to one another and find out what we're going to do. In Sweden in the last four years has taken up 155,000 asylum seekers. Portugal, same amount of population in four years, 1,000 asylum seekers. And these are two countries on the edges of Europe to a certain extent. And Switzerland had approximately 90,000 asylum seekers over the last four years. We've got to talk about this within Europe so that we can have a joint refugee policy. I think that we're in the process of working on this, but there is a need to do better. And I think that Switzerland really wants to provide its contribution. But let's stop thinking that we're just thinking European terms. We've got to help those states which really have very few resources themselves. For example, there is a water shortage in Jordan, but think also of Lebanon, where you've got individual villages and cities have more refugees than they have a resident population. Those are orders of magnitude we need to think about. And I think that that would change perspectives. Globalisation, you mentioned this in your speech yesterday. There are people feeling insecure. This has an impact on the political landscape. We have prepared a video report just to frame the topic a little bit. Let's watch. European populations are haunted by fear. People go out on the street. I'm a self-employed builder. We've got far too many in here at the moment. We need to put a stop to it all, send them back. I think that Muslims should build their own countries. We don't need them. Right-wing conservative parties make an issue of foreign infiltration, thereby gaining the approval of many voters. The concept is clear. Before talking about this last point, you were still a migrant sending money back to his father. When you hear this self-employed builder saying, send them back, how does this make you feel? Not good. I remember as I was living in Europe, and I was kind of successful and, you know, I moved to Vienna from Turkey in 1979. And I had a hard time. I had to go to school and go to the university. So I was lucky that I played a little bit basketball, so they paid for my hobby. And I finished somehow my university and was then successful. And I was working on my career ladder. And people were always asking me from you, where are you from? Nobody asked me, what did you achieve? And exactly this kind of slogans are, you know, working on that your name is Hikmet. You must be a Muslim. You are different than us. So how come that you achieved that? And where are you from? And then you said, I have even a Viennese accent. I developed that. They didn't accept that, but my name changed everything. That's a kind of cover-up. Yeah, but the big difference, as I mentioned in the beginning of our conversation, the big difference in the US is that nobody asked me where are you coming from. My name doesn't matter there. It's really the environment which Europe and other countries have to work. I mean, you said there is a North-South issue, but there is also East to West issue within the Europe. The Romanians and Bulgarians, I'm sure, and part of European feel the same way when they go to Germany or other countries like UK or Latvians to UK. But there's some surveys that are quite interesting concerning Romanians and Bulgarians. 54% of the people in the United Kingdom say that this kind of migration is a damage to the economy of the United Kingdom. So there's a widespread feeling of fear, Mr. Schultz. There's an election year now, 2015. What do you do? You saw already in 2014 that this fear maker had a big profit in the European election all over Europe, in France, in UK, in the United Kingdom. What a nonsense. In my country, in Germany, without the Romanians and the Bulgarians, our healthcare system would not function. And this is the same, by the way, in the United Kingdom. But these xenophobic speeches are very meaningful for them because we must take into account people fear to lose. So it's also a failure of the established parties that didn't take the fears seriously? We are here in the World Economic Forum and therefore I want to add, since 20 years we are living in an economic development where the middle class is eroded. We have every day a billion or more and thousands and thousands of poor people more. Social justice and cohesion is in threat and that exactly middle class citizens are the big losers because the post-war society in Europe was built on an idea to create as much as possible jobs with a decent salary guaranteed for a long time because you could rely that your employment was stable. And what we see today is the other way around. More and more exactly in the middle class you have to survive men and women working on two, three, four different jobs and even that is not enough to survive. If we will not change our economic development, if we will not reform our economy to share the wealth more just than it is the case, that will continue. Yes, but I mean you had a meeting before coming here, Mr. Schulz and Mr. Maruga. A successful one, by the way. Okay, so what does that mean? That we understood us very well and that we agreed to some points to fight together to find solutions and not short-term answer to difficult questions. Switzerland has had a vote. We had to limit migration. This collides with the European Union's free movement of people policy and we've seen that Switzerland is a role model for other people too. So did you find any agreement or do you say we have a final impasse here, Mr. Schulz? We didn't find an agreement, I repeat. There is no short-term answer to very difficult question but what we agreed about is that we will do the utmost to find a solution. Switzerland has its constitutional needs. The European Union has its treaties. For the time being, we have no solution to bring it together but what we promise to each other is to try to bring it together. It's very difficult, but we should try to find solutions satisfying Switzerland and protecting the treaties of the European Union. I repeat, not easy but we will try to do it. To implement this vote will be a big challenge for you also to satisfy all the people who voted yes on the 9th of February that Switzerland is now a role model for other countries. As I said, David Cameron not calling for quotas but also wanting to curb down immigration. What do you say to this? I think that we've got to be a bit careful that we don't transform this into a purely Swiss question. Of course there was a referendum and a decision was taken by the people and there was a very clear position that immigration has always been a cause for tension not just in Switzerland but in other parts of the world. You've got individual freedoms on the one hand and you've got governments of sovereignty. That same thing for all countries. No country says our borders are open. If you want to come in, come in. We're not going to control anything. There is always this tension and obviously that has been accentuated by the referendum in Switzerland but I believe that it is very important that we are aware of the fact that migration particularly when migration flows increase suddenly and when a lot of migrants arrive at the same time that always creates conflict and it doesn't only affect Switzerland it affects all countries and that means that for politicians the most important thing is and I was listening to what we just heard I was at a meeting recently and somebody asked the public in Switzerland who was born in Switzerland a few people put up their hands and said hold on, keep your hands up and let us ask who has parents who were not born in Switzerland quite a lot of people put their hands up how many people who have grandparents who weren't born here? I can tell you there were more hands up than down and that makes you think and it makes you really remember particularly Switzerland has always been an open country there was a lot of emigration from Switzerland 150 years ago I think that this awareness is something that is very important and your question why there is this nationalistic populist movements that has to do less with migration but with globalization with the pace of globalization with a feeling of insecurity just to give you a figure shares are held for approximately 22 seconds that is a symbol of how fast things go in our society today and this feeling of uncertainty is manifested then and it then of course impacts migration, migration policy and people then try and win votes with fear so you've got to look at the causes of the effects and then you mustn't turn things around I wanted to say that it doesn't have to do with anything other than economic development if you're in an environment where economic growth is there we're happy to have people who are prepared to work for us and who allow growth to increase and of course if you don't have economic growth in Europe things are more difficult and that is also why we're becoming more and more anti-foreigner and we've got to make sure that we look at ourselves we as Europeans we've got to get ways of increasing the economy and Europe has a demographic problem we shouldn't forget that there are older and older people we need young people who consume people who can work and it's not just Europe Japan, South Korea, Russian has the same demographic problem and this is a long-term problem which we need to address and Africa is a young continent we heard about that from the President of Mali you've got a lot of people there who want to really seize opportunities across I want to look into the audience and see whether there's any questions from you on the floor excuse me Mr President excuse me if I butt in but I just wanted to say the following before we open the debate I just want to sound a little note of optimism you said that we are one of the least developed countries in Mali that's true madam but the whole question of Lampedusa really moved me a lot and when I took over I thought well I have to create the conditions so that my country becomes attractive and so that in spiteful difficulties young Malians really can stay in Mali and I can tell you that today in the few months that I've been in power my country has become the fifth country sorry I should say in the West African Union but we've got the fifth largest growing economy and in the West African Unity we're doing the first country for ease of doing business so we have really understood that we have to fight so that there is space for investment that our country can develop until we do that we can sort of cry about our misery but nobody will help us apart from ourselves and that is my duty so for every step that is undertaken to fight poverty of course now let me ask the audience is there a question you would like to address to a specific panelist here on stage and before doing so please identify yourself and because we're running out of time I beg you to be short and concise well that there's one question in the second row please wait for the microphone to arrive Hi, my name is Telben Jami I'm a global shaper from Brazil from Rio de Janeiro so I come from a developing country I was in Paris last week just after the attacks and I would like to ask Mrs. Swing what are your thoughts how could this incident in Paris could influence this whole xenophobic movement and the whole thing especially you two were discussing before thank you thank you very much for the question it's a very important one I hope that out of this we can resist from becoming more anti-migrant anti-Islamist anti-anything foreign because we need to keep things in perspective and this is not to say that Europe's challenge is not an important one but if you look at if you say 170,000 migrants went there we call irregularly in other words without proper papers in 2014 we need to keep in mind they're going into a population area of 500 million now Europe's challenge in many ways I think is both psychological and political psychological in the sense that for four centuries Europe was basically a continent of origin Europe people the world for four decades they've become a continent of destination and that's an enormous psychological shift and I'm not making light of it we want to be helpful we want to consider ourselves partners with the EU all 28 EU members are also members of IOM we want also to help people to keep it in perspective that there are not that many more there's only 3% of the world's people on the way how do you want to do this how do you want to influence first of all you have to accept some political leadership it takes a lot of political courage and quite frankly my judgment is there's not a lot of political courage to change the migration issue there needs to be more so you need to do more public education public information talking letting migrants speak for themselves and I would say that you've got two challenges you have to meet number one to change the migration narrative from what's essentially negative now to a more historically balanced narrative and that means the media also that overwhelmingly migration has been historically positive most of our country built on the backs of migrants secondly we have to learn and help countries to manage in actually growing social, cultural, religious and ethnic diversity my colleague from western union is just saying this is a diversity question if we don't master that we'll ultimately fail another question from the audience seems to be a huge challenge though because there was also a survey in Switzerland that every second person feels threatened by Muslims after the attacks in Paris so that was a very legitimate question thank you so much time is running out and rather than me summarizing this discussion and talking about the core findings why don't we do this together as a group just to remind us of what's been said on stage today because the spirit of Davos also implies finding interesting people clever people to find solutions so let's try this you've been listening to each other for an hour now was there anything that one of your co-panelists said that maybe will change your work concerning migration or that will have an impact a small impact on your work that it will take back home please don't say no now otherwise I'm very disappointed who wants to go first maybe Mr President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita I was helped a lot by Martin Schulz and others and he has called Europe to be more realistic I think that basically he has underlined the fact that we're all interdependent and I think that there is a very nice image when I arrived at the march President Hollande said to me Mr Ibrahim the honour of Mali, the honour of France has been saved by Malien and this young man saved Jewish lives and there was a man standing on my right and who linked arms with me and he said to me Mr Keita that image is very very nice this young Muslim from Mali saving Jewish lives he was a hero it's something we need to speak to the world about and I really think that that's the image I'm left with what else have you gained from your co-panelists over the last hour yes I'm going to continue to stay as a business leader so that's for sure but one thing I learned from Ambassador Lacey is that what he mentioned also Mr Schulz mentioned that is the political leadership a leadership like in the business there is the Europe needs leadership that the people can follow and talking about the migration and talking about the refuges issues in a way that the people understand I don't think we have a message the people don't want the people want to understand the issues but we don't do our job we don't have the leadership in Europe or different parts of the world it's not a European issue we talk a lot about Europe you are right Mrs President it's not only European issue it's a world issue but leadership on the migration is needed that's the political leadership I believe also Mr President for me is the the name of the male guy who you know survived is a hero I hope it's a rest union customer also but I just I just want to he is he did he said I did not know or care if they were Jewish or Christians we were all in the same boat and I think we are all sitting in the same boat it's not a European issue it's a world issue that we have to overcome this would already be a final statement however I would like to address the three remaining co-panelists from you know there was the question of leadership Mr Schulze said you're missing a sense of common policy what have you gained from this round maybe that will inspire your work I have two things I've learned two things all is I got a confirmation of them what you said that people don't ask you what you can but where you come from and I think there is a kind of bitterness for people and I've often experienced this I was a mayor of West German city where there were a lot of Turkish citizens a lot of people who were working in the mining industry and nobody asked them what can you do but rather where you come from that is a humiliation for people and I think we need to fight against this and from a simulator Samaruga I've learned that we've got to organize help in the different regions and the fact that Switzerland is doing something so that Jordanian schools are open to Syrian children to Syrian refugees I think we need to do both things and we often leave the space open to populace they get their message across but we should put facts across and I think that these are things that I will take away from this debate with me Swing what have you learned today? I learned from all of our colleagues you're starting with my colleague from Western Union because he's I think probably the only true migrant on the panel and migrants voices are very important you were I think very eloquent on that obviously from President Cahit he is someone I always learned from and what he had to say about the kinds of challenges that have to be met if we're going to try to we cannot stop people and shouldn't stop them from migrating but we have to help give them a better life at home and that's what the president sees with of course President Samaruga I also learned a great deal from but I particularly liked your formulation that migration is a process not a problem it's not a problem it's a challenge and I think we need and from that of course from President Schulz I always listen very carefully to giving us the figures the demographic figures that were mentioned several times is very important but I think overall I came away with a perspective that leaves me with the thought of two paradoxes that we're going to have to conjugate or deal with or resolve one we've got to learn to deal with the problem of national sovereignty versus individual freedom and the other paradox between national security and human security if we can wrap those two paradoxes up in a formula like you said a process then I think we'll be alright but there's a lot of work to do thank you Mrs. Wing time is running out but for a bonus president in one single learning that you gained from your co-panelists maybe I think what was important is what we've heard here and which I like to take away as a message the president of Mali made the point it is not correct that the southern countries aren't or don't care when the young people leave their countries and go to Europe and we'll get a better life in Europe on the country a state and a president of a state has an interest that his population his young people stay in the country and that they have prospects in that country and I think that Switzerland has migration partnerships with a number of countries in order to achieve that migration is a subject which can only be approached on a partnership basis it's not we're helping people both have an interest in dealing with the challenge and looking for common solutions but you said or you asked rather what we've learned I hope and it's looking pretty good the panel has led to a situation where we have the president of the international migration office and the western union are together and if something of the four billion francs or euros or dollars if that money could go into the countries of origin then we will have really produced some real effect an effect that we all would like to hope will be realized discussion we've learned fighting migration doesn't go without fighting poverty this time leadership, political will and also people like you who are ready to deal with this issue in public so thank you so much thank you to your audience and a warm round of applause for our panelist