By Mario de Queiroz
LISBON, Sep 29 2004 (IPS)

Six months after a decree aimed at regulating the inflow of immigrant workers into Portugal went into effect, the measure has turned out to be a complete flop.

Last January, former conservative prime minister José Manuel Durao Barroso, now president of the European Commission, decided to set at 8,500 the number of annual work visas to be issued to immigrants, based on “a thorough study of the labour market,” according to the official announcement at the time.

But since the decree went into force on Mar. 12, only 60 applications have been received through foreign consulates abroad, and just three immigrants – a Brazilian, a Ukrainian and a Moldavian – were granted work permits after they were offered jobs with labour contracts.

“This only proves that businesses are not interested in legal workers,” Angolan-Portuguese national Timoteo Macedo, president of the Immigrant Solidarity Association, which groups immigrants of various nationalities, told IPS.

“Why deal with the paperwork and go to the trouble of drawing up a legal contract if there are so many undocumented immigrants out there just waiting to be exploited?” he asked with irony.

Most immigration officials admit to local journalists – although speaking anonymously – that the failure of the “quota” measure reveals that Portuguese companies continue to prefer to hire foreign labour illegally.

Former conservative prime minister Anibal Cavaco e Silva (1983-1995) already complained about that situation in the early 1990s, when he pointed out that there were around 80,000 undocumented immigrants in Portugal unable to regularise their status because of “certain unscrupulous” members of the business community.

By hiring undocumented workers, employers cut labour costs to half of what they would pay a Portuguese worker. In addition, they can freely dismiss the employee at whim, ignoring the country’s social and labour regulations.

Under the entry quota measure, a periodic study by the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP) will determine a maximum annual limit of work visas to be granted, based on the needs of the labour market.

Consulates with potential applicants are informed of the quotas, would-be immigrants apply, the consular authorities send the applications to Lisbon, and within 30 days – if the application is approved – the visa is granted on the basis of an initial promise of work. The actual labour contract is signed once the immigrant is in Portugal.

The idea was to create a new system for managing migratory flows by controlling the entry of foreign nationals.

There are currently an estimated 600,000 foreign nationals living in Portugal, a country of 10.2 million, which along with Germany has the largest proportion of immigrants in the European Union (EU). One-third of the total are undocumented, according to unofficial estimates.

The biggest communities are made up of Brazilians and Ukrainians (around 100,000 each). Smaller groups (between 15,000 and 70,000) of immigrants come from the former Portuguese colonies of Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, Sao Tomé and Príncipe and East Timor.

Also from the former socialist countries of central and eastern Europe, besides Ukrainians, are groups of Russians, Moldavians, Rumanians and Bulgarians, numbering somewhat more than 10,000 each.

In addition there are around 8,000 Chinese, 5,000 Indians and 4,000 Pakistanis, smaller but highly visible groups because they are mainly involved in commerce and the restaurant business.

The 8,500 visa quota set this year by the IEFP was based on estimates of the needs of the industrial, services and agricultural sectors.

Employers in agriculture would be allowed to legally hire 2,100 foreign workers, hotels and restaurants a total of 2,000, the construction industry 1,900, and the remaining 2,500 work permits would be distributed among various service sectors.

According to the Durao Barroso administration, the measure would thus regulate the number of foreign workers in Portugal in accordance with the needs of the market, curbing flows of “illegal immigration and keeping groups of unemployed individuals from contributing to ‘marginality’ in foreign communities.”

But business leaders say the quota set is ridiculously low, and argue that the Portuguese economy will need much more than 8,500 foreign workers a year over the next few decades.

The ministries of the interior, economy and labour, and the Aliens and Borders Service (SEF), which administer the process of authorisation of work permits, have declined to provide explanations as to why the measure has failed, despite insistent queries from analysts who specialise in immigration issues.

“This is the result of a petty, profit-oriented policy, and the study aimed at setting quotas was faulty from the start because it fails to take into account the needs of the informal economy, which amounts to 20 percent of Portugal’s Gross Domestic Product,” Carlos Vianna, the president of Casa do Brasil (an organisation that works with Brazilian immigrants) in Lisbon, told IPS.

The president of the Confederation of Portuguese Industry, Francisco Van Zeller, was among those who criticised the small work visa quota set by the government in January. “It makes me want to laugh,” given the shortage of labour power in Portugal, he said.

Van Zeller added that he was sure that there is still a large shortfall of workers in Portugal, despite the tiny number of businesses that have hired workers through the new system.

“Immigrants probably prefer to come in clandestinely. And perhaps employers are not well-informed about the process or the procedures to hire workers abroad,” he said.

Van Zeller also acknowledged the possibility that many companies facing financial or other difficulties prefer to hire undocumented workers without a labour contract, because – he said – sometimes businesses in crisis “do not pay much attention to the laws.”

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