Europa sucht seine Wanderungsstatistik: Rückblick und Ausblick

The quality of European’s migration statistic cannot keep up with the political relevance of this subject. The national definitions are too different regarding the group of people which are counted as immigrants and emigrants in a certain time frame. Likewise different are the research methods. Some states (e.g. Austria) comprise migration by means of registrations and deregistrations in a register, Great Britain surveys a sample of all immigrants and emigrants and other states (e.g. Poland and France) only comprehend the immigration by census or administrative statistics. In 2005 the European Commission suggested the further development of a harmonized European migration statistic. Since this proposition is dependent on the willingness to cooperate of the member states, it is a rather difficult undertaking. This article shows that the search for a European migration statistic dates back long time ago and that it has been affected by the national peculiarities.