BUENOS AIRES (dpa) – Argentines are leaving the country in droves to escape the continuing economic crisis. Those with claims to a passport from another country – preferably European – have the best chance.
Help with the embassy formalities is available through agencies. One such agency has placed a banner with large lettering in downtown Buenos Aires. It reads: “European Nationalities”. It gives a telephone number.The number leads to an agency where a German-Argentine pensioner, Wolfgang Metsch, processes about 50 inquiries per week from people of German origin. Every day, he fills out forms and asks to see birth certificates, death certificates, divorce papers – documents proving lineage.Metsch has a somewhat world-weary attitude towards the entire exercise: “People think the streets (in Germany) are paved with gold but, I do not think that most people who have up grown up in Argentina know what real, target-oriented work is.”But people keeping applying to leave. The truth is that this former land of immigrants has become a country of emigrants. The queues at the Spanish and Italian embassies grow longer and longer.There are no statistics on the number of Argentines wishing to flee since the economic crisis began four years ago. The La Nacion daily estimates that 140,000 have departed in the past two years alone.But the real number is probably far higher. Thousands of Argentines live illegally in North America and Europe, which is why Spain is considering introducing visas for Argentines.Most emigrants want to go to Spain.And most people leaving are middle class because the middle class is becoming rapidly impoverished – and that means the country is losing well-trained people who have no work.Lia Amartino would rather flee to uncertainty than endure misery. Everything in the 51-year-old’s apartment is on sale. Even the shiny balls for the Christmas tree are going at 30 centavos each (8 Euro cents). Visitors rummage through the offerings. The housebell rings again and again as more people who have seen the small ad come to look for a bargain.Everything has to go. She cannot take more than 20 kilos with her on the aircraft. Her voice is choked as she says: “I never wanted to leave. But I have worked hard for 25 years and my life is now in ruins. When the country that you have invested so much in gives nothing in return, then you have to leave.”She once had a small sewing business. Her husband was an entrepreneur who manufactured 2,500 decorated tin cans a day. The couple had a good life together. They even had a little holiday home on the coast.But then everything happened fast. The company went bankrupt in October. The market for sewing quickly collapsed. The couple are now unemployed and live from savings.They want to go to Teneriffe and, from there, to travel to her great-grandfather’s birthplace in Italy and apply for an Italian passport. They have 90 days before her tourist visa expires. They need to tie up the formalities within that time – or return to Argentina.Things are much easier for Argentina’s 200,000 Jews. Israel, the so-called Alia, wants migrants as a matter of policy. Newcomers are offered free accommodation, financial assistance in the first six months and plenty of help in other ways.Every Tuesday, about 100 Jews board a plane in Buenos Aires to fly to Tel Aviv – three times as many as a year ago.Better a new life in the Middle East hotspot than misery in Argentina.
