Western Europe Tries to Keep Out Flood From East : Immigration: In recent talks, the ‘haves’ called for tighter controls on travel and the ‘have-nots’ pleaded for open borders and economic aid to encourage people to stay home.

Faced with what could be the largest population migration in Europe’s history, the prosperous West is threatening to erect border barriers a year after a joyful East threw them open.

“Since the wealth will not come to the poor, the poor will come to the wealth,” German refugee expert Thomas Schmid said in Vienna. “It remains to be seen whether the Continent is able to prevent the destructive collision between democracy and poverty.”

Responding to growing panic among West European nations that they could be overwhelmed by a tide of migrants from newly democratic Eastern Europe, government ministers from 35 countries met in Vienna in January to discuss the issue.

The result of the two-day talks appeared to be a widening gulf between the haves and have-nots as the West called for tighter controls on travel and the East pleaded for open borders and economic aid to encourage people to stay home.

A communique said migrants seeking a better life should not be given refugee status and urged tougher measures against illegal workers and their employers.

Horst Waffenschmid, delegate from Germany, a glittering goal for many of the migrants, made it clear that after absorbing a million mainly East German refugees last year, his country would send back all future illegal migrants.

He said he hoped that this would discourage others from trying. “It will have its effect, word will soon spread in these countries.”

The only concrete idea to emerge was creation of an information exchange to offer would-be migrants advice on work opportunities and legislation in other countries.

The East European reaction to all this was best summed up by Soviet delegate W.J. Sherbakov, who complained: “Western countries that insisted on the need for free movement for Soviet citizens are equally unanimous today in trying to restrict that movement.”

Rejecting proposals to give emergency aid to countries receiving migrants instead of those exporting them, he compared this to “(someone) who keeps mopping up the puddle under the dripping tap instead of trying to fix the leak.”

Welfare and refugee organizations expressed disappointment. Helmut Schueller of the Vienna-based Caritas, who attended as part of the Vatican delegation, said the communique’s message, in “cold, defensive language,” was: “West Europe is full up.”

The leader of the Vatican delegation, Donatus Squicciarini, appealed for a broader definition of refugee status under the 1951 Geneva Convention, now limited to racial, religious or political persecution.

Delegates said his proposal to extend this to those fleeing civil war and environmental disasters, which are not covered, met with little response.

Vienna’s conservative daily Die Presse dismissed the final document as “a feeble response to the biggest problem facing Europe in the immediate future.”

According to French demographer Jean Claude Chesnais, East-West migration in Europe is likely to follow three scenarios:

* Ethnic migration or the regrouping of scattered communities such as Germans, Jews and Armenians.

* Ethnic conflicts following the end of Soviet control.

* An economic exodus--as he put it, “The quest for Eldorado.”

The big question mark for Europe is the Soviet Union, where according to some forecasts there could soon be 40 million people out of work and where some opinion polls have shown that every fourth person among the 285 million there is considering going abroad for “an extended period.”

Soviet officials estimate that 7 million to 12 million of their people are likely to travel abroad every year after the government brings in a new travel law this year or next. Sherbakov estimated that 1.5 million to 2 million would stay away.

Czechoslovakia, trying to rebuild its shattered economy after 40 years of communism, fears a mass influx from the East while seeking more open borders to the West for its own people.

Foreign Minister Jiri Dienstbier said: “The risk of an uncontrolled wave of migration passing over our territory in this context is a potentially destabilizing factor.”