Scotty

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3954880

Armin Papperger runs a German defense company arming Ukraine. The efforts have brought the weapons supplier unprecedented riches, and put a target on his back.

Archived link

On a clear night at the end of April 2024, arsonists slipped into a tidy residential neighborhood in Hermannsburg, a German village of about 8,000 people surrounded by flat farm fields, heathland nature reserves and military bases. Under the cover of darkness, they arrived at a large redbrick home, where they set fire to a clapboard garden house and a towering beech tree out front. They escaped undetected before the fire brigade arrived. Neighbors awoke the next morning to the smell of still-smoldering wood.

The home belonged to Armin Papperger, the chief executive officer of Rheinmetall AG, Germany’s largest defense company. Papperger, a stocky, white-haired 62-year-old engineer, wasn’t home at the time. In fact, he hadn’t been there since 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, local residents say. The war had made Papperger a busy man: He was turning a sleeping industrial giant into an international defense juggernaut on track to bring in almost €10 billion ($11.6 billion) in revenue that year. Rheinmetall had already provided Ukraine with armored vehicles, military trucks and ammunition, and Papperger had recently announced plans to set up four weapons production sites inside the country.

[...]

US intelligence agencies had warned Germany earlier in the year that Russia was preparing to kill Papperger, the most advanced of a series of plans to kill defense industry executives across Europe. The story did not mention the arson attack—which appeared to be an act of intimidation rather than an actual targeting of the CEO—but people familiar with the situation said the assassination plot involving Russian proxies was active at the time it occurred. The arsonists were never caught, leaving their possible involvement in the wider scheme a mystery.

[...]

The targeting of Papperger represented a new frontier, even when compared with Russia’s long-established and well-documented history of violence against enemies living on foreign soil. Before the war, Moscow had focused attacks on its “near abroad”—Baltic states and former members of the Soviet bloc—or on Russians it viewed as traitors. The attempted poisoning in 2018 of Sergei Skripal in England showed Russia’s willingness to use a banned chemical in a NATO country, risking civilian casualties. But Skripal was a Russian colonel who’d spied for the UK—not the CEO of a major Western defense company.

After the invasion of Ukraine, Russian hybrid warfare—not just assassinations but also sabotage, disinformation and covert attacks on critical infrastructure—accelerated sharply, reaching a fever pitch last year. During the Cold War, these techniques were known as “active measures.” Analysts say the volume and intensity of the tactics was greater during the Ukraine war’s first three years than in the heyday of the Soviet Union, though the pace has slowed in 2025.

[...]

Papperger declined to comment on the plot to kill him, about which much remains unresolved. [...] Even before the arson, the German government had quietly boosted Papperger’s security to a level equaling that of the German chancellor. This happened earlier than has been previously reported. Today, Papperger is surrounded by bodyguards 24/7. Two armed guards with machine guns are stationed outside Rheinmetall’s modern glass office headquarters in Düsseldorf, alongside two police vans. His white brick home in a wealthy suburb also has two police officers armed with machine guns, a police van and a police booth out front. Multiple guards typically accompany him to lunch or meetings.

[...]

Perhaps Papperger’s boldest move was to try to invest in Ukraine itself. When Ukrainian officials began talking to the company in 2022 about setting up local manufacturing, Rheinmetall executives were initially reluctant because of security concerns, a person familiar with the situation says. But in March 2023, Papperger arrived in Kyiv to strike a deal, meeting with Zelenskiy in his ornate gold-trimmed presidential office on heavily fortified Bankova Street in the capital’s center. Dressed in jeans and a hoodie in bright blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, Papperger spoke with Zelenskiy about creating local production capacity.

Two months later the company signed an agreement to create a joint venture with Ukraine’s state-owned arms conglomerate, Ukroboronprom. It took months to hammer out the details, in part because Rheinmetall was demanding 51% control. When the deal was finally formalized at the end of 2023, the two parties agreed to focus initially on a maintenance hub for military vehicles in Western Ukraine. But in March 2024, Papperger went further, trumpeting plans to build four factories inside Ukraine producing ammunition, military vehicles, gunpowder and antiaircraft weapons. “It is a matter close to our hearts to do everything we can to support Ukraine in its fight for survival,” Papperger said.

[...]

Russia has frequently hired criminals to carry out attacks, many of which involve setting fire to something. In the UK a warehouse in East London storing humanitarian aid for Ukraine was set on fire; in Poland a fire destroyed a large mall; in Latvia three men were imprisoned for throwing a Molotov cocktail through the window of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia.

Last summer, US intelligence agencies learned the GRU had hired proxies to plant incendiary devices disguised in shipments of electric massagers sent via DHL’s air freight network. A device at a DHL cargo facility in the eastern German city of Leipzig exploded. Another cargo package triggered a fire at a DHL warehouse in the UK. US intelligence officials believed the parcels, all sent from Lithuania, were a GRU test run to potentially target cargo flights to North America. US officials warned Russia privately of the risk of escalation.

[...]

Arson is one of a wide range of tactics intended to annoy, disrupt and fuel fear. The use of drones is another. German authorities have suspected Russian espionage is behind a series of mysterious drones flying over military sites, including over Rheinmetall’s Unterlüss site.

[...]

The aim of all these varied active measures is to stoke divisions in the West and undermine support for continued aid to Ukraine by increasing the cost. The signature that unites them is they fall just below the threshold that would provoke a military response, while also allowing for plausible deniability.

[...]

Germany has proved to be especially fertile ground for Russian intelligence agencies hunting for operatives or proxies-for-hire. Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the KGB, and other agencies have been able to recruit from the many Russians who’ve emigrated to Germany over the years. “The FSB has a large network of permanent or occasional informants among Russians in Germany,” says Gerhard Conrad, a former senior officer in the BND, Germany’s federal intelligence agency, who headed the European Union’s Intelligence and Situation Centre until 2019. “They must have hundreds or even thousands of names they can approach and potentially activate for support.” Russia’s efforts were made all the easier when the BND stopped counterintelligence operations in the 1990s. It restarted them only in 2017.

[...]

Putin’s regime has openly threatened to attack Rheinmetall. In October 2024, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a Rheinmetall repair facility in Ukraine was “certainly” a legitimate target for the Russian military. Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has meanwhile postured aggressively against hybrid warfare, calling out the Kremlin publicly for it. “We are already being attacked by Russia,” he said following a recent NATO summit.

[...]

Less than two months after the arson attack, Papperger made another trip to Ukraine, to the Rheinmetall facility for repairing armored vehicles near the Polish border. This time he came with several armored SUVs and bodyguards and wore a bulletproof vest. He had lunch with Ukrainian officials and left after a couple of hours.

Papperger has tried to spearhead the consolidation of Europe’s defense industry, which remains fragmented as national governments continue to mostly procure weapons independently. “Contracts have to become European,” Papperger told an industry forum in Brussels in July. “We invest billions, but the coordination is not there yet.”

[...]

Last year, Papperger signed an agreement to build an ammunition factory in Lithuania, where Germany, in its first foreign deployment since World War II, is establishing a new NATO brigade that will eventually comprise almost 5,000 soldiers. Rheinmetall also entered into a joint venture with Italian defense company Leonardo SpA to create what Papperger called “a new heavyweight in European tank production.” And he moved to bolster the company’s foothold in the US, agreeing to pay almost $1 billion for Michigan-based Loc Performance Products, a vehicle specialist, in a play for a Pentagon program worth an estimated $45 billion to build the successor to the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle.

[...]

Rheinmetall remains a target. In April a hacker group allegedly linked to Russia claimed to have gained access to 750 gigabytes of data from the company and published a link on the dark web to download 1,400 documents on Puma tanks, engines and computers. Rheinmetall said the material was nonsensitive and from five years ago. Papperger said in his email that cyberattacks “are a constant threat for all of us.”

In May, Papperger secretly arrived in Latvia on a German government plane and was escorted through the capital, Riga, in an unmarked motorcade for talks with officials about producing defense equipment locally. It was the latest, and likely not the last, trip under a cloud of heavy security to boost Europe’s weapons industry—and to show that Rheinmetall is undeterred by Russian threats.

[...]

“We have significantly ramped up our security measures,” he [said]. “I feel safe.”

Armin Papperger runs a German defense company arming Ukraine. The efforts have brought the weapons supplier unprecedented riches, and put a target on his back.

Archived link

On a clear night at the end of April 2024, arsonists slipped into a tidy residential neighborhood in Hermannsburg, a German village of about 8,000 people surrounded by flat farm fields, heathland nature reserves and military bases. Under the cover of darkness, they arrived at a large redbrick home, where they set fire to a clapboard garden house and a towering beech tree out front. They escaped undetected before the fire brigade arrived. Neighbors awoke the next morning to the smell of still-smoldering wood.

The home belonged to Armin Papperger, the chief executive officer of Rheinmetall AG, Germany’s largest defense company. Papperger, a stocky, white-haired 62-year-old engineer, wasn’t home at the time. In fact, he hadn’t been there since 2022, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, local residents say. The war had made Papperger a busy man: He was turning a sleeping industrial giant into an international defense juggernaut on track to bring in almost €10 billion ($11.6 billion) in revenue that year. Rheinmetall had already provided Ukraine with armored vehicles, military trucks and ammunition, and Papperger had recently announced plans to set up four weapons production sites inside the country.

[...]

US intelligence agencies had warned Germany earlier in the year that Russia was preparing to kill Papperger, the most advanced of a series of plans to kill defense industry executives across Europe. The story did not mention the arson attack—which appeared to be an act of intimidation rather than an actual targeting of the CEO—but people familiar with the situation said the assassination plot involving Russian proxies was active at the time it occurred. The arsonists were never caught, leaving their possible involvement in the wider scheme a mystery.

[...]

The targeting of Papperger represented a new frontier, even when compared with Russia’s long-established and well-documented history of violence against enemies living on foreign soil. Before the war, Moscow had focused attacks on its “near abroad”—Baltic states and former members of the Soviet bloc—or on Russians it viewed as traitors. The attempted poisoning in 2018 of Sergei Skripal in England showed Russia’s willingness to use a banned chemical in a NATO country, risking civilian casualties. But Skripal was a Russian colonel who’d spied for the UK—not the CEO of a major Western defense company.

After the invasion of Ukraine, Russian hybrid warfare—not just assassinations but also sabotage, disinformation and covert attacks on critical infrastructure—accelerated sharply, reaching a fever pitch last year. During the Cold War, these techniques were known as “active measures.” Analysts say the volume and intensity of the tactics was greater during the Ukraine war’s first three years than in the heyday of the Soviet Union, though the pace has slowed in 2025.

[...]

Papperger declined to comment on the plot to kill him, about which much remains unresolved. [...] Even before the arson, the German government had quietly boosted Papperger’s security to a level equaling that of the German chancellor. This happened earlier than has been previously reported. Today, Papperger is surrounded by bodyguards 24/7. Two armed guards with machine guns are stationed outside Rheinmetall’s modern glass office headquarters in Düsseldorf, alongside two police vans. His white brick home in a wealthy suburb also has two police officers armed with machine guns, a police van and a police booth out front. Multiple guards typically accompany him to lunch or meetings.

[...]

Perhaps Papperger’s boldest move was to try to invest in Ukraine itself. When Ukrainian officials began talking to the company in 2022 about setting up local manufacturing, Rheinmetall executives were initially reluctant because of security concerns, a person familiar with the situation says. But in March 2023, Papperger arrived in Kyiv to strike a deal, meeting with Zelenskiy in his ornate gold-trimmed presidential office on heavily fortified Bankova Street in the capital’s center. Dressed in jeans and a hoodie in bright blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, Papperger spoke with Zelenskiy about creating local production capacity.

Two months later the company signed an agreement to create a joint venture with Ukraine’s state-owned arms conglomerate, Ukroboronprom. It took months to hammer out the details, in part because Rheinmetall was demanding 51% control. When the deal was finally formalized at the end of 2023, the two parties agreed to focus initially on a maintenance hub for military vehicles in Western Ukraine. But in March 2024, Papperger went further, trumpeting plans to build four factories inside Ukraine producing ammunition, military vehicles, gunpowder and antiaircraft weapons. “It is a matter close to our hearts to do everything we can to support Ukraine in its fight for survival,” Papperger said.

[...]

Russia has frequently hired criminals to carry out attacks, many of which involve setting fire to something. In the UK a warehouse in East London storing humanitarian aid for Ukraine was set on fire; in Poland a fire destroyed a large mall; in Latvia three men were imprisoned for throwing a Molotov cocktail through the window of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia.

Last summer, US intelligence agencies learned the GRU had hired proxies to plant incendiary devices disguised in shipments of electric massagers sent via DHL’s air freight network. A device at a DHL cargo facility in the eastern German city of Leipzig exploded. Another cargo package triggered a fire at a DHL warehouse in the UK. US intelligence officials believed the parcels, all sent from Lithuania, were a GRU test run to potentially target cargo flights to North America. US officials warned Russia privately of the risk of escalation.

[...]

Arson is one of a wide range of tactics intended to annoy, disrupt and fuel fear. The use of drones is another. German authorities have suspected Russian espionage is behind a series of mysterious drones flying over military sites, including over Rheinmetall’s Unterlüss site.

[...]

The aim of all these varied active measures is to stoke divisions in the West and undermine support for continued aid to Ukraine by increasing the cost. The signature that unites them is they fall just below the threshold that would provoke a military response, while also allowing for plausible deniability.

[...]

Germany has proved to be especially fertile ground for Russian intelligence agencies hunting for operatives or proxies-for-hire. Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB, the main successor to the KGB, and other agencies have been able to recruit from the many Russians who’ve emigrated to Germany over the years. “The FSB has a large network of permanent or occasional informants among Russians in Germany,” says Gerhard Conrad, a former senior officer in the BND, Germany’s federal intelligence agency, who headed the European Union’s Intelligence and Situation Centre until 2019. “They must have hundreds or even thousands of names they can approach and potentially activate for support.” Russia’s efforts were made all the easier when the BND stopped counterintelligence operations in the 1990s. It restarted them only in 2017.

[...]

Putin’s regime has openly threatened to attack Rheinmetall. In October 2024, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a Rheinmetall repair facility in Ukraine was “certainly” a legitimate target for the Russian military. Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, has meanwhile postured aggressively against hybrid warfare, calling out the Kremlin publicly for it. “We are already being attacked by Russia,” he said following a recent NATO summit.

[...]

Less than two months after the arson attack, Papperger made another trip to Ukraine, to the Rheinmetall facility for repairing armored vehicles near the Polish border. This time he came with several armored SUVs and bodyguards and wore a bulletproof vest. He had lunch with Ukrainian officials and left after a couple of hours.

Papperger has tried to spearhead the consolidation of Europe’s defense industry, which remains fragmented as national governments continue to mostly procure weapons independently. “Contracts have to become European,” Papperger told an industry forum in Brussels in July. “We invest billions, but the coordination is not there yet.”

[...]

Last year, Papperger signed an agreement to build an ammunition factory in Lithuania, where Germany, in its first foreign deployment since World War II, is establishing a new NATO brigade that will eventually comprise almost 5,000 soldiers. Rheinmetall also entered into a joint venture with Italian defense company Leonardo SpA to create what Papperger called “a new heavyweight in European tank production.” And he moved to bolster the company’s foothold in the US, agreeing to pay almost $1 billion for Michigan-based Loc Performance Products, a vehicle specialist, in a play for a Pentagon program worth an estimated $45 billion to build the successor to the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle.

[...]

Rheinmetall remains a target. In April a hacker group allegedly linked to Russia claimed to have gained access to 750 gigabytes of data from the company and published a link on the dark web to download 1,400 documents on Puma tanks, engines and computers. Rheinmetall said the material was nonsensitive and from five years ago. Papperger said in his email that cyberattacks “are a constant threat for all of us.”

In May, Papperger secretly arrived in Latvia on a German government plane and was escorted through the capital, Riga, in an unmarked motorcade for talks with officials about producing defense equipment locally. It was the latest, and likely not the last, trip under a cloud of heavy security to boost Europe’s weapons industry—and to show that Rheinmetall is undeterred by Russian threats.

[...]

“We have significantly ramped up our security measures,” he [said]. “I feel safe.”

• 76% of Ukrainians firmly reject a hypothetical peace deal on Russian terms, with only 17% willing to consider such a compromise, according to data from the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (KIIS), published on August 7.

• Support for a joint Ukraine-EU peace initiative has increased slightly, with 54% of respondents backing the plan, up from 51% in May. Only 30% found this option completely unacceptable, down from 35% earlier this year.

• 39% of Ukrainians are viewing a US-driven peace plan as potentially acceptable, a notable increase from 29% in May. However, 49% still say the American proposal is entirely unacceptable, though this marks a drop from 62% in May.

The KIIS writes:

As part of a regular survey (especially a telephone one), we cannot discuss the plans in detail with the respondents in full, because each plan includes many components. Therefore, we have prepared three shortened versions with, in our opinion, particularly important (from the point of view of public perception) elements. We are aware that the shortened versions cannot claim to be a complete reproduction of the proposed plans, but we believe that in our research version we have covered the important components and were able (as will be shown below) to clarify the differences in perception.

The three plans are:

Conditional plan of the USA:

• A group of European states, but without the USA, give Ukraine security guarantees
• Russia retains control over occupied territories
• USA officially recognizes Crimea as part of Russia
• Ukraine moves towards EU accession
• USA and Europe lift all sanctions against Russia

Conditional plan of Europe and Ukraine:

• Ukraine receives reliable security guarantees from Europe and the USA
• Russia retains control over the occupied territories, but Ukraine and the world do not officially recognize this
• Ukraine moves towards EU accession
• After establishing a lasting peace, the USA gradually eases its sanctions against Russia

Russia's conditional plan:

• Ukraine must significantly reduce its army and limit its armaments
• Ukraine permanently renounces NATO membership
• The cities of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and the entire territory of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts come under Russian control
• Ukraine officially recognizes all occupied territories as part of Russia and renounces them permanently
• Ukraine moves towards joining the EU
• The USA and Europe lift all sanctions against Russia

Meanwhile in the US, a Harvard-Harris poll (open pdf) conducted July 6-8 found that a growing number of U.S. citizens want the United States to ramp up support for Ukraine.

• Nearly three in four voters believe America’s relationship with Ukraine is more important than its ties to Russia, a figure that has grown since June. In addition, the poll found that Russia is among the top 3 most unfavourable institutions in the US, with 65% of those polled choosing “unfavourable” or “very unfavourable.”

• According to the poll, about 75% of U.S. voters believe Putin is deliberately manipulating the West. In contrast, 60% say Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy genuinely wants to end the war.

• Trump’s supporters in the U.S. are more likely to view Zelenskyy’s intentions with skepticism, but even among Republicans, a significant portion backs continued US assistance to Ukraine.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3907142

In all other countries worldwide, Linux market shares are well below 10%.

Linux market shares in July 2025:

• Africa: 3.1%
• Europe: 4.6%
• Asia: 2.4
• North America: 4.9%
• South America: 3.6%
• Oceania: 2.3%
• Worldwide: 3.9%

What happens in Finland?

UPDATE: There was apparently a similar development in 2022 according to the stats when Linux market share in Finland went up to +18 by July and then dropped sharply to 4% by the end of the year. I don't understand that, but maybe the data is flawed? (My apologies for any confusion this may cause.)

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3907142

In all other countries worldwide, Linux market shares are well below 10%.

Linux market shares in July 2025:

• Africa: 3.1%
• Europe: 4.6%
• Asia: 2.4
• North America: 4.9%
• South America: 3.6%
• Oceania: 2.3%
• Worldwide: 3.9%

What happens in Finland?

UPDATE: There was apparently a similar development in 2022 according to the stats when Linux market share in Finland went up to +18 by July and then dropped sharply to 4% by the end of the year. I don't understand that, but maybe the data is flawed? (My apologies for any confusion this may cause.)

In all other countries worldwide, Linux market shares are well below 10%.

Linux market shares in July 2025:

• Africa: 3.1%
• Europe: 4.6%
• Asia: 2.4
• North America: 4.9%
• South America: 3.6%
• Oceania: 2.3%
• Worldwide: 3.9%

What happens in Finland?

UPDATE: There was apparently a similar development in 2022 according to the stats when Linux market share in Finland went up to +18 by July and then dropped sharply to 4% by the end of the year. I don't understand that, but maybe the data is flawed? (My apologies for any confusion this may cause.)

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3891369

Migration has rocketed worldwide, driven by warfare, climate change, rapid population growth in lower-income countries and the relative ease of travel ... But as well as greater supply, there has been rising demand. The birth rate in all rich countries ... has fallen well below the replacement rate at which population levels are stable ... As a result, more and more countries are becoming dependent on migrant labour to sustain shrinking and ageing workforces.

Archived link

Germany will need annual net migration of close to 300,000 until 2040 to sustain its labour force. In the US, immigrants account for about one in five healthcare workers and the sector faced acute staff shortages even before the second Trump administration. In Britain, the care sector emerged from lockdown with record vacancies – and a commensurate need for migrant workers.

[...]

Those who ... see mass migration as an existential threat to national identity, struggle to explain how their countries will manage declining populations without bringing in more working-age adults. One popular idea on the radical right – that the need could be negated through schemes to boost native fertility – runs up against the failure of any country to do so, including those like Hungary, which has put significant resources into trying. Policies such as improved childcare, cash payments to parents and better access to housing can make a small difference at the margins but cannot overcome more fundamental changes in gender roles, or the cultural impact of the internet, which means young people spend much less time socialising in person.

Some anti-immigration activists will admit they prefer the idea of gradual economic decay to solving the population problem through migration, but no government can realistically let standards of living go into permanent decline. Voters may worry about immigration, but that doesn’t mean they won’t blame the government if they can’t pay their bills and there is no one to look after their ageing parents.

[...]

There have been some attempts to tighten up routes for legal migration at the margins: in the UK, most international students are no longer allowed to bring dependents, and the salary required to be given a visa has gone up (though not for NHS workers). But net migration is still expected to be about 200,000-300,000 for the foreseeable future – well above historic levels.

Even countries with radical right governments are attempting the same strategy. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni has pushed EU colleagues to go further on reducing irregular migration, while quietly pushing through two increases in the number of visas available for non-EU workers (alongside already high levels of migration from eastern Europe). [In the UK], the new Reform administration in Kent recently wrote to the home secretary complaining that new rules preventing care homes from hiring from abroad would “leave providers on a cliff edge”. In opposition, it is easy to use immigrants as a punching bag but, when governing, the trade-offs become more apparent.

[...]

It is going to become increasingly difficult to maintain the levels of economic migration required to sustain labour markets facing demographic decline. To date, demand to come to rich countries has been so strong that it has been possible for governments to allow in the necessary numbers but then treat them badly to play to domestic audiences.

[...]

Demand for migrants is going to keep growing, owing to falling birthrates worldwide, while supply shrinks for the same reason. To date, emigration hasn’t been a big political issue in most countries, with high numbers leaving because birth rates have been so high. But falling birth rates across middle-income countries, as well as rich ones, are changing the dynamic. Global births peaked in 2016. Currently, only 94 countries are above replacement rate, and that’s projected to fall to 49 by 2050. India has seen more emigration than any other country over the past few decades, but its birth rate fell below replacement in 2019 and continues to drop.

[...]

We’re starting to see how this could play out in the healthcare sector, where global demand for migrants is insatiable. The UK and US have been reliant on international recruitment for a while: last year, 40% of nurses recruited into the NHS were non-EU citizens. Now other countries, such as Germany, that have traditionally relied on home-grown staff, are also becoming more reliant on international recruitment. The effect has been to put huge pressure on healthcare systems in middle-income countries and attempts to stem the flow.

Earlier this year, Nigeria announced new rules that require newly trained nurses to work in the country for two years before being eligible to work abroad. Given Nigeria is the third-largest provider of international nurses to the NHS, this may well have a knock-on effect on the ability of hospital trusts here to recruit. Ghana and South Africa have introduced similar rules, as have some Indian states (India is the largest provider of NHS nurses).

[...]

This is a pattern that will become more prevalent across a wider range of skilled professions, as middle-income countries seek to keep more of their graduates and drops in birth rates become more widespread.

[...]

How rich states manage this tension will be a key political dynamic over the coming decades. Combining tacit support for economic migration with rhetorical hostility will not be sustainable – both because that hostility will mean losing out in the global competition for workers, but also because voters who object to migration can see right through it, undermining trust further.

[...]

Migration has rocketed worldwide, driven by warfare, climate change, rapid population growth in lower-income countries and the relative ease of travel ... But as well as greater supply, there has been rising demand. The birth rate in all rich countries ... has fallen well below the replacement rate at which population levels are stable ... As a result, more and more countries are becoming dependent on migrant labour to sustain shrinking and ageing workforces.

Archived link

Germany will need annual net migration of close to 300,000 until 2040 to sustain its labour force. In the US, immigrants account for about one in five healthcare workers and the sector faced acute staff shortages even before the second Trump administration. In Britain, the care sector emerged from lockdown with record vacancies – and a commensurate need for migrant workers.

[...]

Those who ... see mass migration as an existential threat to national identity, struggle to explain how their countries will manage declining populations without bringing in more working-age adults. One popular idea on the radical right – that the need could be negated through schemes to boost native fertility – runs up against the failure of any country to do so, including those like Hungary, which has put significant resources into trying. Policies such as improved childcare, cash payments to parents and better access to housing can make a small difference at the margins but cannot overcome more fundamental changes in gender roles, or the cultural impact of the internet, which means young people spend much less time socialising in person.

Some anti-immigration activists will admit they prefer the idea of gradual economic decay to solving the population problem through migration, but no government can realistically let standards of living go into permanent decline. Voters may worry about immigration, but that doesn’t mean they won’t blame the government if they can’t pay their bills and there is no one to look after their ageing parents.

[...]

There have been some attempts to tighten up routes for legal migration at the margins: in the UK, most international students are no longer allowed to bring dependents, and the salary required to be given a visa has gone up (though not for NHS workers). But net migration is still expected to be about 200,000-300,000 for the foreseeable future – well above historic levels.

Even countries with radical right governments are attempting the same strategy. In Italy, Giorgia Meloni has pushed EU colleagues to go further on reducing irregular migration, while quietly pushing through two increases in the number of visas available for non-EU workers (alongside already high levels of migration from eastern Europe). [In the UK], the new Reform administration in Kent recently wrote to the home secretary complaining that new rules preventing care homes from hiring from abroad would “leave providers on a cliff edge”. In opposition, it is easy to use immigrants as a punching bag but, when governing, the trade-offs become more apparent.

[...]

It is going to become increasingly difficult to maintain the levels of economic migration required to sustain labour markets facing demographic decline. To date, demand to come to rich countries has been so strong that it has been possible for governments to allow in the necessary numbers but then treat them badly to play to domestic audiences.

[...]

Demand for migrants is going to keep growing, owing to falling birthrates worldwide, while supply shrinks for the same reason. To date, emigration hasn’t been a big political issue in most countries, with high numbers leaving because birth rates have been so high. But falling birth rates across middle-income countries, as well as rich ones, are changing the dynamic. Global births peaked in 2016. Currently, only 94 countries are above replacement rate, and that’s projected to fall to 49 by 2050. India has seen more emigration than any other country over the past few decades, but its birth rate fell below replacement in 2019 and continues to drop.

[...]

We’re starting to see how this could play out in the healthcare sector, where global demand for migrants is insatiable. The UK and US have been reliant on international recruitment for a while: last year, 40% of nurses recruited into the NHS were non-EU citizens. Now other countries, such as Germany, that have traditionally relied on home-grown staff, are also becoming more reliant on international recruitment. The effect has been to put huge pressure on healthcare systems in middle-income countries and attempts to stem the flow.

Earlier this year, Nigeria announced new rules that require newly trained nurses to work in the country for two years before being eligible to work abroad. Given Nigeria is the third-largest provider of international nurses to the NHS, this may well have a knock-on effect on the ability of hospital trusts here to recruit. Ghana and South Africa have introduced similar rules, as have some Indian states (India is the largest provider of NHS nurses).

[...]

This is a pattern that will become more prevalent across a wider range of skilled professions, as middle-income countries seek to keep more of their graduates and drops in birth rates become more widespread.

[...]

How rich states manage this tension will be a key political dynamic over the coming decades. Combining tacit support for economic migration with rhetorical hostility will not be sustainable – both because that hostility will mean losing out in the global competition for workers, but also because voters who object to migration can see right through it, undermining trust further.

[...]

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3890678

Ukrainian refugees prefer countries with better job opportunities to countries with higher social benefits. This is the finding of a recent study by the ifo Institute, which surveyed over 3,300 Ukrainian refugees in Europe.

“The prospect of a job that matches their qualifications and a higher wage level has a much stronger effect on refugees than social assistance or child benefits,” says Panu Poutvaara, Director of the ifo Center for Migration and Development Economics. “We see that wage differences play an almost four times greater role in the choice of destination country of Ukrainian refugees than differences in social benefits. That, of course, does not mean that social benefits play no role at all.”

[...]

Job opportunities and higher wages are decisive factors also to refugees who are currently unemployed. They apparently plan to enter the labor market in the future. In addition, friends or family in the destination country are 8.5 percentage points more important than immediate geographical proximity to Ukraine. Intentions to return also play a role. Refugees who plan to settle outside Ukraine in the long term prefer countries further away with economic advantages over countries where family and friends are located.

“Understanding why refugees choose certain countries is crucial for designing appropriate policies nationally and internationally,” says Yvonne Giesing, Deputy Director of the ifo Center for Migration and Development Economics. One example of this is the debate about cutting social benefits to make fleeing to certain countries less attractive. However, the study shows that higher wages and easier access to suitable jobs are a greater incentive for refugees than social benefits. Therefore, cuts in social benefits are likely to have little effect. “Cutting government aid could also have a negative impact on integration in the long term,” says Giesing.

Ukrainian refugees prefer countries with better job opportunities to countries with higher social benefits. This is the finding of a recent study by the ifo Institute, which surveyed over 3,300 Ukrainian refugees in Europe.

“The prospect of a job that matches their qualifications and a higher wage level has a much stronger effect on refugees than social assistance or child benefits,” says Panu Poutvaara, Director of the ifo Center for Migration and Development Economics. “We see that wage differences play an almost four times greater role in the choice of destination country of Ukrainian refugees than differences in social benefits. That, of course, does not mean that social benefits play no role at all.”

[...]

Job opportunities and higher wages are decisive factors also to refugees who are currently unemployed. They apparently plan to enter the labor market in the future. In addition, friends or family in the destination country are 8.5 percentage points more important than immediate geographical proximity to Ukraine. Intentions to return also play a role. Refugees who plan to settle outside Ukraine in the long term prefer countries further away with economic advantages over countries where family and friends are located.

“Understanding why refugees choose certain countries is crucial for designing appropriate policies nationally and internationally,” says Yvonne Giesing, Deputy Director of the ifo Center for Migration and Development Economics. One example of this is the debate about cutting social benefits to make fleeing to certain countries less attractive. However, the study shows that higher wages and easier access to suitable jobs are a greater incentive for refugees than social benefits. Therefore, cuts in social benefits are likely to have little effect. “Cutting government aid could also have a negative impact on integration in the long term,” says Giesing.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/3873756

[...]

While the US often relies on innovation funded by Big Tech monopolies and China leans on state-driven manufacturing strategies, Europe’s robotics sector is built on modular collaboration. Startups and research labs spin out into well-funded clusters, often supported by EU-backed initiatives like RI4EU and EIC Accelerator. These programs offer access to testbeds, pilot funding, and collaborative R&D networks.

Furthermore, Europe’s geographic and industrial structure gives it a special advantage: close proximity to real-world use cases. Having neighbouring logistics hubs, manufacturing zones, and retail chains in contiguity helps speed iteration and aligns development with the continent’s actual operational pain points. McKinsey estimates that in some of Europe’s critical sectors — including retail and logistics — payroll alone amounts to $1.7 trillion (€1.55 trillion). This makes automation highly profitable and ripe for disruption.

[...]

There are still concerns in European robotics that need to be addressed. As of 2025, China controls 63% of the humanoid hardware supply chain, from rare-earth magnets to key actuators. However, we’re now seeing global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) based in Europe partnering with humanoid creators early on to co-develop hardware components together. This strategy can mitigate the risk of over-dependence.

On the other hand, while the US dominates in AI software, few actors globally offer fully-integrated stacks. We see some moves in that direction in the US and China, and Europe — which is still dependent on imports — must learn to navigate this space assertively.

[...]

What’s at stake isn’t just who secures the most patents — we’ve already seen that happen without meaningful real-world deployment. The true challenge is whether we can build systems that integrate safely into human environments, uphold public trust, and address the real concerns people have — from privacy and transparency to everyday safety and interaction.

Europe doesn’t need to mimic Silicon Valley or Shenzhen. Instead, it needs to double down on what it already does well: interdisciplinary collaboration, ethical tech design, and industrial pragmatism.

[...]

[...]

While the US often relies on innovation funded by Big Tech monopolies and China leans on state-driven manufacturing strategies, Europe’s robotics sector is built on modular collaboration. Startups and research labs spin out into well-funded clusters, often supported by EU-backed initiatives like RI4EU and EIC Accelerator. These programs offer access to testbeds, pilot funding, and collaborative R&D networks.

Furthermore, Europe’s geographic and industrial structure gives it a special advantage: close proximity to real-world use cases. Having neighbouring logistics hubs, manufacturing zones, and retail chains in contiguity helps speed iteration and aligns development with the continent’s actual operational pain points. McKinsey estimates that in some of Europe’s critical sectors — including retail and logistics — payroll alone amounts to $1.7 trillion (€1.55 trillion). This makes automation highly profitable and ripe for disruption.

[...]

There are still concerns in European robotics that need to be addressed. As of 2025, China controls 63% of the humanoid hardware supply chain, from rare-earth magnets to key actuators. However, we’re now seeing global original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) based in Europe partnering with humanoid creators early on to co-develop hardware components together. This strategy can mitigate the risk of over-dependence.

On the other hand, while the US dominates in AI software, few actors globally offer fully-integrated stacks. We see some moves in that direction in the US and China, and Europe — which is still dependent on imports — must learn to navigate this space assertively.

[...]

What’s at stake isn’t just who secures the most patents — we’ve already seen that happen without meaningful real-world deployment. The true challenge is whether we can build systems that integrate safely into human environments, uphold public trust, and address the real concerns people have — from privacy and transparency to everyday safety and interaction.

Europe doesn’t need to mimic Silicon Valley or Shenzhen. Instead, it needs to double down on what it already does well: interdisciplinary collaboration, ethical tech design, and industrial pragmatism.

[...]