Economic migrants should be welcomed as warmly as refugees

It’s easy to muster compassion for people fleeing wars, but Europe also needs an influx of workers to counteract its falling birth rates, says Ian Buruma 

HOW heartwarming it is to land in Germany, where football fans hold up banners welcoming refugees from the war- ravaged Middle East. Germany is the new Promised Land for the desperate and downtrodden, the survivors of war and pillage.

Even the popular German tabloids, not normally of a do-gooding disposition, are advocating a willingness to help.