Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-12-13-Speech-1-133"
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"en.20101213.18.1-133"2
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"Madam President, Commissioner, Mrs Mathieu, ladies and gentlemen, immigration in Europe is undoubtedly a highly important and hugely significant political, economic and social issue.
We are talking about people’s dignity, but also about the future of Europe, and I believe that in Europe, we need all workers, without exception, whatever their origins, to have all rights to the exclusion of none if they are living legally in Europe. This is the way to combat xenophobia and racism and fight for a decent Europe.
It is a massive opportunity, but it requires intelligent, fair management, as otherwise it would become a problem, not only for those arriving, as they would not be treated fairly, but also for the workers who are here whose jobs would be threatened. The alternative is that the labour market would be split and divided, and there would be ‘low cost’ workers threatening the social victories won over a century of building the European social model.
Consequently, Commissioner, Mrs Mathieu, the principle of equal treatment is the cornerstone of an economic immigration policy that is both intelligent and fair. The Council said so in Tampere 11 years ago, the Commission said so five years ago in its Green Paper, and tomorrow, Parliament must vote on a proposal for a legislative initiative. This subject of equal treatment is the focus of Chapter III of the directive. It is not just a bureaucratic directive. It lays out rights and obligations, which should apply to all legal immigrants, and it should encompass all rights to equal treatment and non-discrimination.
Unfortunately, however, Commissioner, the directive is not the one that we were promised. It is not I or the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs who are saying that, but all of the humanitarian non-governmental organisations, all the churches in Europe and all the trade unions, without exception. This directive is inadequate and even dangerous, because it excludes the very groups that most need protection; it excludes temporary workers, displaced people, those transferred by their companies, and workers from less developed countries who will be coming here under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Mode 4.
Hundreds of thousands of workers are therefore going to arrive from third countries in accordance with the country of origin principle, because they are not going to be treated equally by this directive. This is also because you are giving the Member States the option to opt out of equal treatment with regard to payment of pensions when they return to their countries, to family benefits and to welfare benefits for the unemployed, except for unemployment benefit itself. This will even apply to workers who are subject to the principle of equal treatment and who are covered by what Mrs Mathieu said. They are also excluded from grants and any type of assistance for higher education, including professional training.
For all these reasons, the Commission states in the explanatory memorandum and the impact assessment that it intends to eliminate and put an end to the ‘rights gap’, but in practice, it does not do so. This is not enough, Commissioner.
Moreover, unfortunately we have amendments tomorrow tabled by the right and centre-right groups in this House that go further, as you said, and which even adopt the Council’s most extreme positions in order to destroy the consensus that we had built in the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.
I therefore believe, Commissioner, Mrs Mathieu, ladies and gentlemen, that we need to have a much broader debate on this issue, along with the other directives, that is open to European civil society, the NGOs, the churches and the unions. We must not deal with this issue so quickly and, in my view, so irresponsibly as we would if we adopted the Council’s text tomorrow.
I believe that the majority of my fellow Members across party divides would agree to conducting a broad debate in order to reach a wide consensus in Parliament that respects the principles of our Charter of Fundamental Rights and that follows the recommendations of the United Nations, the International Labour Organisation and the Council of Europe."@en1
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