Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-21-Speech-1-071-000"
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"en.20120521.15.1-071-000"2
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"Mr President, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Romania are threatening the EU-Canada trade agreement unless Canada lifts its visa requirement for visitors from those three countries. Canadians do not need visas to visit EU countries, whereas Canada has imposed visa restrictions on these three EU Member States. This is because of a previous influx of people from those countries who outstayed their welcome.
Canada takes the quite reasonable view that not all EU countries are the same, and that some pose a particular risk when it comes to unwanted visitors and guests. The Canadians want to pick and choose who they admit and who they do not. However, this realistic view of the world falls foul of the EU ideological view that the EU is, in fact, one country, and to discriminate against one of its regions is not permissible.
The Canadian Government already has a very generous system of allowing visa-free entry for 24 EU Member States, but perhaps it has looked at my constituency, London, and seen what a completely unrestricted open-door immigration policy actually delivers. They will not get the visitors and migrants they want – the decent, hard-working and law-abiding – they will also get the down-and-outs, the deadbeats and the criminals. In Marble Arch, the very centre of London, we now have migrants living on the street, with all the unpleasant social and sanitary consequences that involves, which I will leave to your imagination.
This is what indiscriminate, visa-free travel can deliver. The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement put in jeopardy by Canada’s reluctance to open its doors to allcomers is reputedly worth a potential USD 12 billion per annum, and would boost two-way trade by 20%.
What does the world need now? Does it desperately need increased trade? Does it desperately need increased economic activity, jobs and increased prosperity? I think we would all agree that it does. Does it desperately need even more uncontrolled and unlimited migration? Most rational people would think that it does not. Let the Canadians choose who they want to let into their country, and on what terms. Let Canada and Europe get on with increasing the trade between them that can help us all out of the dire economic situation that we find ourselves in."@en1
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