Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-05-21-Speech-1-083-000"
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"en.20120521.15.1-083-000"2
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"Mr President, today’s debate is a ‘semi-final’ in a contest, culminating in a final involving visas being waived for Romanian, Czech and Bulgarian citizens, which have been imposed by the Canadian authorities for the same old reason: the high rate of asylum applications from some East European citizens, especially from those belonging to certain minorities, once they have arrived in Canada with a tourist visa.
As a member of the EU-Canada interparliamentary delegation, I have used every opportunity I have had, including sending letters to the Canadian authorities, to support the need to amend the asylum procedure for European citizens to eliminate the constant abuse of this procedure.
A few months ago, Canada finally adopted new immigration legislation, which, in the case of citizens from democratic states, has resulted in a reduction in the period for settling asylum applications from several years to several weeks. I hoped that, once the problem of illegal asylum seekers had been cleared up, Canada would drop visas, as there were no longer any reasons for keeping them. Unfortunately, however, I regret to note that Canadian officials have not changed their tune at all on this issue, which means that the last chance to change this attitude lies in the call for European solidarity.
During the second half of this year, the long-negotiated EU-Canada free trade agreement will be submitted to Parliament for approval. This agreement does not currently feature any visa waiver provision. In the context of this debate, I myself and other colleagues who have submitted questions to the Commission want to send a strong message both to the European negotiators, so that they regard the visa problem as a priority, and also to the Canadian Government, so that the European Parliament is not put in the position of rejecting the free trade agreement for the reason that there is no regime allowing the free movement of persons.
As is well known, the European Parliament is highly sensitive to issues arising from human rights, as has been demonstrated on a huge number of occasions, to the surprise of many. Indeed, in the case of a free trade agreement, we obviously cannot talk about free movement of goods, capital and services while not having the free movement of persons."@en1
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