Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-02-Speech-2-051"
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"en.20011002.3.2-051"2
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"Mr President, Europe is experiencing tension between low population growth and a genuine demand for manpower in the labour market, on the one hand, and a population that is distrustful of immigration on the other.
Faced with this situation, political decision-makers can react in two ways: either by exploiting people’s fears to their own advantage, at least in the short term, or by attempting to manage the different aspects of immigration as best they can, bravely explaining the reasons for this phenomenon, the benefits it brings our societies, its more problematic aspects and the policies that are necessary.
We have seen some examples of this first approach right here this very morning. In its two communications, the Commission has, fortunately, positioned itself firmly in the second camp, and we can only congratulate the Commissioner for this and show our approval. It has also achieved this – I would like to stress – in accordance with the agreements and mandates reached at the European Council in Tampere.
Whilst I fully subscribe to everything my friend and colleague, Mr Evans, said about asylum, I would like to focus during the short speaking time available to me on the communication on immigration and the report.
Both define a clear path to be followed. The communication discusses, and the report also focuses on, the external and internal causes of immigration, the need for codevelopment policies and a new partnership with the countries of origin, a common European legislative framework to organise entry in a fair, transparent and straightforward way, residency and integration, which to me means rights. Only after this does it talk, once these standards have been established, of addressing the subject of illegal immigration, because we need legal channels to do this.
Lastly, the report speaks, and we shall be discussing this here in detail when we see the legislative proposals, of establishing new immigration policies in the twenty-first century for a new society and a new economy, that cannot simply be a rehash of guest worker policies from the industrial societies of the 1960s.
I hope that the Council will also align itself with those politicians who want to broach this subject clearly and courageously. I really hope this will be the case and I say this in the full knowledge that, on the subject of immigration, we are speaking with both our minds and our hearts – I say this knowing that listening to me today are EU citizens, some by birth and others through choice, all invited by my colleague Mr Aparicio, and who have high expectations of this debate.
Parliament will try to prove equal to events, and, despite the fact that on occasions events make things difficult for us, we are going to try, and this is something that has never been done by the PPE-DE Group with regard to asylum, to give strong support to this Commission communication and we hope in exchange, Mr President, that the European Council at Laeken will be able to once again initiate a dynamic and robust policy that will allow us to tackle this much needed common immigration policy."@en1
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