Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-14-Speech-3-173"
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"en.20040114.4.3-173"2
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".
Mr President, I am very proud to be presenting this report today. This report is unique in that it comes from the employment and social affairs side of this House and which for the first time tries the joined-up approach pioneered at the Tampere Summit. I am proud to be presenting it because it joins up the issues of immigration, integration, employment and partnership with third countries: many of the most sensitive issues that we deal with in the European Union, but also issues with which we must deal in a comprehensive way. Very often in this House we have dealt with these issues separately and they have been sensitive separately. Indeed, they are sensitive issues together.
In this report I have tried to ensure the joined-up approach and have approached the whole task by trying to unify colleagues in this House around some key points. It is a key point that the demographic challenge that we face in the European Union of the future is one where immigration may be one solution, but not the only solution.
We have some amazing statistics. In the 25 Member States, the working-age population is set to shrink from 303 million to 297 million by 2020, then to 280 million by 2030, almost doubling the old-age dependency ratio. It is the duty of this House to deal with these kinds of statistics. We cannot plan for the future and expect that immigration is not one of those solutions. If immigration is to be a solution, it must be joined up with the vital issue of integration. Integration is often an issue which is misrepresented. It is a vital issue.
We are dealing in this report not just with new immigrants. People coming to the European Union for the first time to work may stay temporarily or they may stay forever. We are dealing in this report in a joined-up way with those ethnic minority communities in the European Union – people like myself and my family – who are settled in the European Union but who also ask Member States for solutions to discrimination to ensure that full integration really takes place. This involves the issues of citizenship requirements, language and a plethora of other issues relating to new immigrant communities, as well as settled ethnic minority communities.
We should be proud in this House that for settled ethnic minority communities, we now have – through Article 13 of the Amsterdam Treaty – anti-discrimination legislation. There is so much in this report to commend to the House; it is difficult to name just one integration measure – there are so many. I urge the House and my colleagues across the House to look very positively at those integration measures for what they are.
Where we look at more sensitive issues – for example partnerships between the European Union Member States and developing countries; family unity and immigration – I have also been very sensitive in this report. I have tried to bring together the whole House in agreement that Member States very often have the primary responsibility in these issues but that we should share best practice. That is vital because we are dealing with some issues which we know are politically charged and politically sensitive.
The key achievement, I hope, in this report and the key achievement of the Commission communication was not to deal with these issues separately, or to pretend that they could be dealt with separately. It was to take a firm hold on the Tampere agenda, bring it back to this House, use the progress of the Greek presidency which took many of these issues forward, and try to create what I would call a positive agenda.
I know that there will be some problems for some Members in this report. I have tried very hard to bring all parties together because this is a politically sensitive issue. Integration is something that should be the duty of all of us to move forward. For that reason, I realise there are some sticking points. I have done everything I can – for example on paragraph 32 and the right to vote – to bring the House together on these issues. Unfortunately, not all issues will be to the satisfaction of everyone, but I urge colleagues to look at the result of the vote in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs: 27 votes to 1, with 3 abstentions. There was a general consensus around many of these issues and in the way they were approached. I urge colleagues to vote positively and to think of the people who will be affected by this report, people who we represent: both new migrants who will perhaps become European citizens, but also people like myself who are now European citizens but look to being represented properly in a report which is moderate, comprehensive and should appeal to all sides of the House."@en1
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