Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-05-Speech-3-340"
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"en.20060705.22.3-340"2
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"Mr President, I should like to speak briefly on the issue of integration. We know from a number of pieces of research and projects done under the Equal Programme – not least the strand on asylum-seekers – that the message coming through very clearly is that integration starts on day one for new arrivals and it starts the day before for host communities. We have a whole range of good practice there that we should be drawing on, so that this becomes a process that gives us as many wins as possible. That also means realising that for some parts of the world, migration is part and parcel of development policy.
I think we all agree that people who want to migrate should do so as a matter of free choice. We know, however, that large numbers of illegal people are actually people who have overstayed their visas; they have not entered illegally. We also know that there are large numbers of people who are semi-compliant, because rules are not clear or are difficult to access.
Until we start looking at the development aspect of this issue, it will be like squeezing a balloon: if you apply pressure somewhere, you just get a different shape somewhere else. Therefore, we need to look at this very seriously, and Member States need to stop complaining and start cooperating on a common migration system.
We also need to beware of the commodification of people. When I look at the policies of some Member States that are now considering drawing unskilled workers from new Member States and not using third-country nationals, I am not sure what message that sends out. Indeed we know that for people from some of the poorest countries, access to work in the European Union is crucially important to their country’s development, and the remittances that go back can be up to eight times the amount of aid that we are putting in. We know that people are pulled towards rich countries when inequality is most acute.
I am interested in how the Commission is going to approach the development aspect and trade policies, to ensure that our policies move in a coherent way instead of pulling against each other all the time."@en1
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