Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-01-14-Speech-3-278"
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"en.20040114.6.3-278"2
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"Mr President, I would like to say to Mr Pirker that this is a good report, even if, personally, I would have liked to go further.
The aim of managing migratory flows is in fact rooted in the illusion of strict regulation, something which has proved impossible in the last several years. Few countries have admitted to the limitations, let alone the failure, of the programmes they intended putting in place. Those programmes are no match for the problems posed by the complexity and diversity of the flows, which encompass traditional movements of labour, people fleeing poverty and asylum seekers. National traditions, cultural peculiarities, massive or residual xenophobia and a greater or lesser openness to the claims of minorities explain the differences between the Member States’ immigration policies.
Refugee status is particularly attractive when immigration or staying in a country legally has become virtually impossible, and it is in fact the only door that stands ajar for entry to many of our countries. The many attempts to take advantage of it by persons not strictly covered by the Geneva Convention but who fall into the much wider category of economic migrants, attempts which are sometimes exploited by organised crime, have cast suspicion on all applicants and provided a pretext for considerable restrictions on the right to asylum, which is appalling. Having on our territory people with no rights, with absolutely no security, in fear of being reported to the authorities, reduced to feeding the profitable illegal labour market or resorting to petty crime, but who nevertheless prefer that situation to the risk of being returned to their countries of origin, in fact raises inevitable social, moral and legal questions.
Undoubtedly, this problem needs to be tackled as one affecting all Europeans. It is also clear that we cannot arrive at a rational policy by being guided by narrow national interests alone. With rising populism symptomatic of xenophobia, many fear seeing the common treatment of the immigration issue take on a dangerously repressive hue, although we know full well that such a policy is no answer to the problems but that, quite the contrary, it risks enflaming them.
I want to conclude by saying that stepping up the fight against terrorism must not be allowed to affect the integrity of our immigration and asylum policies and in particular the substantial development of our national integration policies. Immigration is a reality and we will always have to deal with flows of migrants into Europe seeking work or fleeing persecution. Illegal immigration will not be eliminated simply by opening channels for legal immigration, that is true, but legal immigration may help to give a positive direction to our society’s development. Migration is a phenomenon of the contemporary world. We cannot evade our responsibilities as rich nations."@en1
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