EUROPEAN UNION: Immigrant Reforms Endanger Rights, Warn Activists

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Jun 7 2002 (IPS) - The human rights of immigrants in the European Union are in danger, in light of recent statements by several of the bloc’s leaders and moves to reform the related legislation, says Mustafá Mrabet, president of the Association of Moroccan Immigrant Workers in Spain.

Immigration policy will be one of the main issues that the heads of state and government of the 15 EU countries will take up at the summit to be held Jun 21-22 in the southwestern Spanish city of Seville.

Spain’s centre-right Prime Minister José María Aznar, who currently holds the six-month rotating EU presidency, has said that measures must be reinforced to fight irregular immigration, without turning the bloc into a “fort”, but preventing it from becoming a “sieve”.

Mariano Rajoy, Spanish minister of Interior and current chair of the European council of such ministers, stated Thursday that immigration reforms will be approved by the bloc this year.

Among the changes to be made, he mentioned requiring visas for citizens of countries that have been able to enter the bloc without such documentation, setting up common EU consular offices and streamlining expulsion procedures.

The minister said he believes it is essential for immigrants to learn the language of the destination country. He also advocates police cooperation among the 15 EU countries and including the European Police (Europol) in efforts to control irregular immigration.

Immigrant activist Mrabet told IPS that the proposed reforms will undermine the rights of those who already hold legal resident status, and not just those who enter the EU in the future in search of work, with or without a visa.

Given the announced modifications, immigrants who are legal residents will see their right to family reunification jeopardised, even though this right is recognised by the Spanish and other constitutions, Mrabet said.

One of the changes in immigration laws that Spain is promoting would annul the right to obtain legal residency of those who can prove that they have been in the country at least five years.

Although that reform refers only to Spain, the fact that officials are discussing changes for the entire EU and the statements by Aznar and Rajoy give immigrant rights defenders reason to fear that the matter will be decided at a bloc-wide level, and potentially undo other achievements that benefit immigrants.

Mrabet commented that the move to not grant residency to those who have been in Spain or another European country for five years illegally is “odd”, because “one can count the number of irregular immigrants who have been here five years one hand.”

Living in Spain without proper documents means working under the most uncertain conditions, separated from one’s family and running the daily risk of arrest and expulsion, said the activist, pointing out that very few can withstand that situation for so many years.

“What is the Spanish government’s intent in seeking to facilitate expulsion of immigrants if the authorities already expel the Moroccans with wet clothes from the Strait of Gibraltar and those from other countries, too?” wonders Mrabet.

Illegal immigrants who cross the Strait of Gibraltar from northern Africa into Spain, generally travelling in unsafe boats, are immediately repatriated if they are discovered and arrested.

Others who reach Spain using that route, but coming from sub- Saharan Africa, cannot be expelled because repatriation treaties do not exist between Spain and their countries of origin. If caught, these illegal immigrants remain in police custody.

Nor do the immigrants arriving in Spain from Latin America all receive the same treatment.

The citizens of some Latin American countries, like the Argentines, can enter Spain as tourists without a visa. But Ecuadorians and Colombians must obtain visas, and there have been numerous expulsions of those who have arrived at Spanish airports without having met that requirement.

Government sources have suggested that the law that allows children and grandchildren of Spaniards born in other countries to obtain Spanish nationality may also be annulled.

The president of the western autonomous Spanish community of Extremadura, Juan Carlos Ibarra, said that if that law is repealed, some 8,500 grandchildren of people born in Extremadura could lose their Spanish nationality.

Extremadura, historically one of Spain’s poorest provinces, saw the massive emigration of its citizens up until the 1980s.

Ibarra, of the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), is calling for negotiating a pact on immigration among all political forces.

But in Mrabet’s opinion, the right and the left are no different on the immigrant issue once their own party is in power.

In their policy proposals for limiting immigration, the governments of Austria, Britain, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Spain “are giving into the pressure of a small political minority.”

Spain’s Labour Minister Juan Carlos Aparicio said Thursday that the Law on Foreigners, approved in late 2000, is not producing the expected results so should be modified in line with what the rest of the EU is doing.

Aparicio also stated that it does not make sense to have 15 different policies on legal admission into the EU, one for each member state, and advocates a common legislation agreed by all 15 governments.