IMMIGRATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
May 4th, 2007 by kendi
Immigration and integration are issues currently top on the political agenda of the European Union. This was not the case previous to the French riots and the killing of the Dutch journalist Van Gogh. The issue of integration is not just legislative, but should be of interest to all member states of the European Union. Integration and assimilation go hand in hand, because if an immigrant is integrated, then assimilation will come naturally. Creating the right atmosphere to integrate emigrants into the cultural dynamics of the society is beneficial to the host country, since exclusion brings about the problem of assimilation in all its ramifications. Therefore immigrants on their part need to understand the important position and role they can play in the adopted country.
Again, when assimilation is difficult, then a gap or vacuum develops, and when this happens, many aspects of the society are affected, most especially, the labour market. The heart of integration is the labour market.
Mr. Franco Frattini, Vice President for the European Union and Commissioner for Justice, Freedom, spoke at length on immigration and integration, Enumerating programmes that would not only encourage the immigration of skilled workers but their integration as well. He emphasized the need for employers in Europe to have a work policy that must correspond to some of the guidelines of the European Union, which will make the functioning of the European Union more transparent. Laborers of high professional calibre must be made to feel welcome; engineers, doctors and architects cannot be invited and then have to accept jobs of lower status. Important are the working conditions for these class of workers, as well as other less skilled labourers. According to Mr. Frattini, this is a necessary and crucial strategy of integration. He also focused on integration as a vital and unique aspect of immigration. He acknowledged the respect for the common values of the European Union. This, he said, is attributed to two institutions, first the institutions that offer the instruments and the migrant communities that have to accept the instruments. Migrant communities must be willing and ready to integrate, as the willingness must be offered by both sides. Accordingly, the plan of the European Union is to organise a social forum on the true meaning of integration, whose focus will be connecting with citizens and employers to help provide an accountable programme of immigration.
IS THERE A PLAN TO INVOLVE COUNTRIES OF TRANSIT LIKE MOROCCO , ETC, AND HOW INVOLVED CAN THEY BE?
Countries of transit like Morocco, Egypt, Algeria and many others should be helped because we cannot ask these countries to be guardians of Europe without providing or assisting them with appropriate instruments. I strongly advocate an international conference of Europe and Africa dedicated to immigration, because we cannot talk about integration into a small Europe of only 450 million inhabitants when there is a huge continent in which there is poverty among one billion persons. We simply cannot be indifferent to this. This is the other instrument on which Europe is working besides the political strategy.
IS THERE ANY PROPOSED PLAN FOR THE GROWING NUMBER OF AFRICANS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION?
The plan is to first strengthen and compose our relationship with Africa with a comprehensive pro gramme that will be arranged in the shortest possible time, a European-African interaction based solely on immigration. Without a European-African strategy we cannot succeed.
WHAT ABOUT COUNTRIES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION THAT DELIBERATELY KEEP AFRICANS FROM FULLY PARTICIPATING IN THE DYNAMICS OF THEIR ADOPTED COUNTRIES?
Again, this is a mistake because we should all be involved . The African people and African Government in a strategy that will help to address issues like immigration at length.
HOW IS THE POLITICAL RIGHT OF EACH MEMBER STATE BEING ADDRESSED?
It is up to each member state to decide, because each member state has a constitutional provision which in my personal view is useful to increase the level of political participation in councils.