Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-04-08-Speech-2-165"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20030408.4.2-165"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur for the work that she has done on this, and I would also like to add my voice to that of Mr Evans and to support all the comments that he made on this report.
When I was researching for the opinion of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs on issues relating to the migration of workers, I was told by employers' organisations that family reunification was a crucial factor in people's decisions on whether or not they were going to come and work in the European Union. They wanted to know whether their spouses or their partners would be able to work; they wanted to know what access to education their children would have; and they also wanted to know which of their children were not going to be allowed in and were maybe going to have to stay with other relatives while they did exams at the ages of fifteen, sixteen and so forth. So if the European Union is serious in what it is saying about labour market flexibility and the need for workers of certain categories, we have to think very carefully whether we are going to say to the people that we want to come to work as company directors, doctors, IT specialists, chefs or whatever, ‘well sorry, you need to split your family up, you will need to wait for up to three years before you can bring them in.’ People like that have a choice, and they will choose not to come here.
My group and I do not feel that we are talking about 1st and 2nd class families. All families want to stay together and they have a right under international law and agreements to stay together. The report that Parliament is putting forward recognises that there are different relationships now. We have to recognise the facts of life and we have to keep families together, particularly if we want to have the sort of economy that we feel we are entitled to."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples