Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-02-12-Speech-3-200"
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"en.20030212.6.3-200"2
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"Mr President, I should like to take advantage of this annual debate to express my concern about the obstacles to freedom of movement and, more generally, the immigration-policy restrictions in the Union. It has to be admitted that the call to combat terrorism is leading to so-called security measures which sometimes interfere with fundamental rights, at the risk of intensifying a trend which already exists. Therefore, although the proposals resulting from the meeting of the Convention working party are worthy of interest, the events of 11 September have been explicitly quoted as justification for a high level of Community control in fields such as cross-border crime, asylum policy or the control of the external borders of the Union, and yet this process of amalgamation has not given rise to any indignation.
In France, the so-called 'internal security' bill drawn up by the Minister for Internal Affairs targets a whole range of actions: the illegal installation of travellers, the holding of meetings in the entrance halls of blocks of flats, aggressive begging, so-called 'passive or active' soliciting, explicitly aimed at foreign prostitutes, and all these things constitute offences which attract heavy fines and, in some cases, prison sentences. In other words, what we have here is simply a bill which lumps together immigration, poverty and insecurity. In addition, as far as any immigration and asylum policy is concerned, the current French proposals can be boiled down to the setting up of quotas for tourist visas, the drawing up of a list of so-called safe countries, compulsory repatriation or the creation of a corps of European border guards. However, to impose quotas or talk about managing migratory flows, while at the same time recruiting the brains and muscle power from the South which are useful to the 'European market' is a hypocrisy which in actual fact is helping to conceal the networks of people smugglers, to encourage people to emigrate to a life of wretchedness and exploitation, and even to criminalise migrants to the detriment of a policy based on equal rights and freedom of movement.
The Seville Council gave a very bad signal here when it reduced the European approach to immigration to the setting of even stricter conditions for access and residence, and even cashed in on economic aid as a result. Yet how can talking more about policing than about trade, and more about insecurity than about liberty, contribute towards the development revelled in by so many liberal European speeches, without any human exchanges and without movement? The closure of the camp at Sangatte in the north of France is proof, if proof were needed, that the closing of borders does nothing to reduce the distress of men and women who are fleeing persecution, conflict or poverty. The most vulnerable people and ethnic minorities are the ones most severely affected by this repressive policy. I am thinking of the Romany people, whom the European Union is threatening with expulsion and rejecting in practice. I am thinking of the illegal immigrants who, in France, despite their legitimate perseverance in wanting to live there legally, are prevented from doing so by a policy of hindrance, arrest and expulsion.
Yet there is so much that needs to be done in order to take initiatives drawn up in a spirit of opening up to the world and welcoming it, for example by contributing towards real cooperation on development, ensuring equality in the social and economic services, in access to employment for everyone, but also in civil rights. I am thinking of the regularisation of the position of illegal immigrants, or the Madrid appeal for residential citizenship, the recognition of voting rights and eligibility for local and European elections. What Europe needs, therefore, is a new immigration policy."@en1
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