[Arxces]

Immigration, as you pointed out, is a convenient, yet ultimately temporary solution to economic problems. However, it is an 'addiction' that is difficult to overcome. Say all that you want on the long-term effects, but all your reasoning falls on deaf ears with the short-termism of some of the EU nations. I personally think it's tragic that nations depend on immigration for growth.

Yet ask yourself, what would they turn to if not for imigration. Remember, many of these nations, especially Germany, are at the forefront of technology, thus becomming more capital-intensive, and thus less labour-intensive, is a limited option. Also, more and more of the new immigrants are actually skilled labour. We're talking about researchers and engineers here. If not for immigration, the EU nations would be unable to generate the growth they do (as their growth, unlike say China's, is mostly dependent on scientific research, not on volume). In the short-term, where the supply of minds is depleted locally (due to their huge demand for skilled labour which the universities cannot cope with), they can only turn to migration. Ultimately however, if they want to avoid immigration, they must increase their own output of expertise.

As for being a heterogeneous cleft country, the multicultural model is still a work in progress. However, I think that it can be made to work. I believe that my country, Malaysia, is at the forefront of such developments. Here we have the aboriginal Malays, people of Chinese descent, Indian descent, and peoples of many cultures co-existing (mostly) peacefully. I'm not saying that there are no conflicts. However, against external threats the nation has been known to stand united. (Case in point: the resistance of the Japanese occupation in WWII). Sadly, we do have an immigration problem. It seems that our manufacturing sector is addicted to cheap unskilled labour from neighbouring Indonesia. With any luck (and experimentation) I think the multicultural model can be made to work in Europe. But, as you say, each nation is in its own special situation...