EP committee votes on controversial immigration policy

The European Parliament’s committee on Citizen’s Freedoms and Rights will vote on a significant and controversial report on EU immigration policy. Rapporteur Hubert Pirker of the EPP-ED/A Group would like to see the EU set up an integrated concept for controlling and regulating immigration to the EU.

The EP report calls on the Commission and Council to lay down uniform European legislation which covers at least:

In addition, the report also calls for:

• the laying down of certain minimum conditions for entry for migrant workers;
• Member States to retain the power to lay down, on the basis of their labour market requirements, their demographic trends and its capacities for taking in migrant workers;
• the Commission and Council to take into account the forthcoming enlargement and its possible implications for Member States;
• Member States to base the authorisation for entry and residence of migrants on requirements of their own labour markets;
• Member States to take account of the availability of job, accommodation and educational opportunities for children as a precondition for issuing of residence permits;
• Member States to take decisions on authorisation of residence irrespective of the gender, race, ethnic origin, religion or philosophy of life, disability, age or sexual orientation of the third country national concerned;
• Member States to fill job vacancies initially with third-country national already resident in Member States;
• Member States to provide migrant workers with the opportunity of sending for members of their immediate family;
• Member States to monitor immigration into their own territories with the aid of a uniform data-compilation system and forward the data to the Commission annually.