Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-08-Speech-2-154"
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"en.20030408.4.2-154"2
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".
Mr President, Mrs Cerdeira Morterero, ladies and gentlemen, before starting the debate on Mrs Cerdeira’s report, I should like to thank her for its quality and to congratulate her personally on being here with us and to wish her a full and speedy recovery.
The new amended proposal for a directive on the right to family reunification, on which the European Parliament is to make a decision today, was adopted by the Commission in response to the mandate given by the Heads of State and Government meeting in Laeken on 15 December 2001. The European Council confirmed at that time that a common asylum and immigration policy presupposed the establishment of common rules on the subject of family reunification.
The European Council recognised, however, that progress on this was slower and less substantial than expected and that new impetus and new guidelines were needed in order to make up for the delay. To this end, the European Council called on the Council of Ministers to speed up its work and asked it to approve the provisions on family reunification by July 2003. The Commission considers that family reunification is an essential element in the successful integration of third country nationals into European societies. This instrument is for us, therefore, an essential aspect of the common immigration policy proposed by the Commission and was, in fact, the first of all the proposals that the Commission presented to the Council in execution of the Tampere mandate.
For this amended proposal, the Commission has used a new approach to the points that for two years have led to insurmountable differences between the Member States. This new approach recognises that several stages will be needed to achieve the harmonisation of national laws. This proposal is thus just the first stage towards such harmonisation. To this end, we have enshrined a certain amount of flexibility in several of the instruments, especially in relation to the points that caused differences between the Member States.
This flexibility is incorporated in two ways: first, as regards the background, through the use of a standstill clause, the idea of which is to prevent Member States from misusing derogations introduced subsequently in relation to the legislation in force at the time this directive is adopted; there is a kind of freeze on the level of protection for family reunification as it exists today in the legislation of the Member States. Secondly, the Commission is introducing a rendezvous clause, which lays down a period of two years after the transposition of the directive and specifies exactly which provisions must be subjected to priority review so as to open up the second phase, the second stage in the process of harmonising national legislation.
It is obviously a question of those provisions that are considered more sensitive, such as the definition of family members and the possibility of also covering family members of Community citizens who have not made use of their right to freedom of movement. The main changes brought in compared with the initial Commission proposal first of all concern the definition of family members: the right to family reunification is guaranteed for the spouse and minor children. With a concern for flexibility, it is specified that a Member State may examine whether a child below twelve years of age meets an integration criterion, but only if its legislation provides for this today or on the date when the directive is adopted.
The admission of unmarried partners, relatives in the ascending line and adult children, on the other hand, becomes optional for the Member States, which must decide on this through legislation or regulation. In matters of family reunification procedures, requirements concerning accommodation, material resources and sickness insurance will remain optional. It is expected, however that they can be monitored after reunification when the family members’ residence permits are renewed.
A derogation will also allow Member States to retain national laws relating to their reception capacity when examining applications for family reunification. In such cases, depending on the reception capacity, applications may be dealt with in stages, provided that the family members’ waiting period is not longer than three years. Lastly, the provisions dealing with the family reunification of refugees were put together in the same chapter to reflect better the specific nature of their situation. Overall, the proposal falls short of our initial intentions but it does not, however, involve any obligation to harmonise family reunification requirements downwards, and we see it as a first step on a path that we wish were faster but which we shall continue to tread with conviction and persistence. I thank the rapporteur and Parliament for supporting this debate throughout the three long years that our journey together has taken."@en1
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