Civil Society, Europe, Headlines, Human Rights, Migration & Refugees

MIGRATION-PORTUGAL: Government Tables Ambitious Integration Goals

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Dec 19 2006 (IPS) - Immigrant associations, human rights organisations and groups against racism are discreetly applauding the measures announced this week by the Portuguese government to encourage fuller integration of immigrants who are in the country legally. But what the activists really want are results.

A lengthy document containing policies benefiting the large foreign community was handed over to civil society organisations Monday for consultation, by the socialist administration of Prime Minister José Sócrates.

But the non-governmental organisations first want to see concrete improvements in the daily lives of immigrants, who are often victims of police and government red tape.

The government’s plan was first communicated to the Consultative Council for Immigration Affairs (COCAI), to which the largest associations of foreign residents in the country belong, at a meeting on the weekend, and it was publicly announced on Monday at the celebration of International Migrants’ Day, established by the United Nations in 2000.

“From what I know of the document, it lacks quantitative targets, and many of its 123 measures are, quite frankly, redundant,” Eduardo Tavares de Lima, president of the General Assembly of the Casa do Brasil, an association of Brazilian immigrants, told IPS. The Brazilian community of 120,000 people is the largest national group of foreign residents in Portugal.

There are a total of 650,000 immigrants, 450,000 of whom have their papers in order, in this country of 10.2 million people, making the proportion of immigrants in the population one of the highest in Europe.

The government programme defines 123 integration targets, involving 13 ministries, and offers itself as “a reference programme for civil society.” It recommends that the various associations participate in the open discussion of the lengthy document.

Some of the measures would reinforce ones that have already been approved, but that bureaucratic difficulties have made hard to put into practice, such as family reunification, full political rights and access to Portuguese citizenship. The law on the acquisition of Portuguese citizenship by migrants entered into force last Friday, when it was published in the official newspaper Diario de la República.

The Sócrates administration assured the country that when the measures now on paper are put into practice, immigrants will have full access to recognition of professional certificates, qualified trade jobs, and translation services in the justice system, all essential factors for jumping through the bureaucratic hoops.

The document also provides for a massive inspection and control effort, including hefty penalties for unscrupulous employers who recruit undocumented immigrants and pay them less than the legal minimum wage (equivalent to 450 dollars a month), while evading taxes and social security contributions.

But the touchiest aspect of the government’s plan was made public on Monday by the Platform of Representative Structures of Immigrant Communities in Portugal (PERCIP), which is calling for the legalisation of all undocumented migrants.

Without prejudice to “the positive aspects” of the government proposal, PERCIP said it ought to be changed so as to “permit the legalisation of undocumented immigrants,” of whom there are already 200,000.

Carlos Vianna, executive vice-president of Casa do Brasil, told IPS that “there are thousands of undocumented immigrants in this country, who are ‘illegal’ in the eyes of the ministry of the Interior, but ‘legal’ in the eyes of the ministry of Finance, because when it comes to accepting tax income, the Portuguese state isn’t interested in whether the money is ‘legal’ or not.”

The government’s draft document is open for discussion until Jan. 5, and is expected to be approved by the Council of Ministers, with amendments contributed by civil society organisations, in the second half of January 2007.

Tavares de Lima said that in spite of the doubts he had expressed, “it is positive that a matter of this importance should be debated publicly, and that the voice of civil society organisations should be heard.”

Putting the plan into effect “will mean the creation of structures and services, such as a reception centre for victims of human trafficking,” who are for the most part poor Brazilian women, he added.

As for other structures, Tavares de Lima said that legal aid offices to help people obtain recognition of their degrees, and services for foreigners at the universities were “positive, because many immigrants have university degrees or technical qualifications, yet they have to work as waiters, bricklayers or carpenters.”

A similar opinion was held by Portuguese-Angolan citizen Timóteo Macedo, president of the Associação Solidariedade Imigrante (Association for Immigrant Solidarity) which represents people of 70 different nationalities. He also voiced his fears of the heavy machinery of Portuguese bureaucracy.

The plan is “a very important political document,” said Macedo, who said, however, that he had “plenty of reservations” about its effects in practice, because many of its proposals “require additional laws, and training for public officials.”

“The intentions are very good, but they must be implemented with a regard for equality of opportunities,” Macedo told TSF-Radio Jornal, a local radio station. He warned about the risk of “supposedly positive discrimination” towards foreigners, when all they want is “to be treated as equal citizens.”

Macedo considered the most positive aspects of the programme to be participation in political life, recognition of professional qualifications, access to bank loans and stricter surveillance of breaches of labour legislation.

Igor Khashin, president of the Association of Immigrants from Eastern European Countries (Associação dos Imigrantes dos Países do Leste), said the most positive thing was the recognition of degrees and technical qualifications, as workers from the former east European socialist bloc and the now-dissolved Soviet Union are among the best-qualified foreign immigrants to Portugal.

Recognition of degrees will particularly favour Ukraine, the country of origin of the third largest national group of immigrants after Brazil and Cape Verde, but will also benefit a good number of immigrants from Rumania, Russia, Moldova and Bulgaria.

According to Khashin, the programme is “a good and ambitious plan,” but he shared the doubts expressed by Macedo and Tavares de Lima. The document now being discussed in the public arena “will only change things if it works in practice,” and for this to happen, “the nuts and bolts of the mechanisms of the proposals must be clearer.”

The government says that it is on top of all these situations, and has committed itself to creating what it calls “a battery of indicators for monitoring” the document’s proposals. It will also form an inter-ministerial commission which is to report on a six-monthly basis to COCAI.

At the presentation of the document on Monday, the minister of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Pedro da Silva Pereira, said that the 13 ministries implementing the plan would be assisted by the Immigration Observatory, an agency of the High Commission for Immigration and Ethnic Minorities.

The programmes in different areas will rely on cultural and linguistic interpreters, and mass media information campaigns, leaflets, and Internet web sites.

All these campaigns include information about the help available to people living in extreme poverty, whether or not they have a residency permit, and include also the obligations immigrants have, such as social security contributions, payment of taxes, their obligations as consumers and the duty to respect the environment.