EU MIGRATION POLICY ELUSIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 000701

SIPDIS

GENEVA FOR M.NICHOLSON

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREF PREL EUN
SUBJECT: EU MIGRATION POLICY ELUSIVE


1. France, which will assume the rotating EU presidency on
July 1, has made migration one of its top presidency
priorities, with President Sarkozy saying the EU should speak
with one voice on migration policy. But moves toward a
common migration policy reveal tensions over Commission
versus member state competencies, law enforcement versus
protection concerns, and perceptions versus realities of
migrants' cultural and economic impact on receiving
societies. As Ambassador Swing arrives in Brussels May 16
for a series of meetings with the EU and the Belgian
government, he will find an EU grappling with balancing the
need for migrant labor with security and cultural concerns.
The Commission is working on numerous migration initiatives,
including a common asylum policy, a "blue card" for skilled
migrants, support for circular migration, and a returns
directive for those denied asylum.


Who has authority? Member states versus Commission
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2. The lines between member state and Commission authority
are contentious on most EU issues, but perhaps nowhere more
so than in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA),where member
states guard closely their sovereignty over the movement of
people on their territory. In broad terms, the Commission
does not have competency (authority) over migration within
the EU, but does have competency over numerous issues
involving migration from outside the EU. Internal migration
is substantial, primarily from East to West, and can become
contentious as when the "Polish plumber" became shorthand to
describe the hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans who
migrated West, primarily to the UK and Ireland, after 10 new
countries joined the EU in 2004. But it is primarily
migration from outside the EU that raises difficult questions
about Commission competencies and reveals differences in
policies among EU member states. The issue took on a very
public face starting in 2005 when thousands of African
migrants began arriving on European shores on rickety boats
while others drowned en route. The Commission responded by
increasing its patrols through Frontex, the EU's border
protection agency, and by reaching out to African governments
to more closely monitor the movement of illegal aliens
through their territory and to take back their citizens
deported from Europe. As a result, the number of
undocumented migrants arriving in the Canary Islands, a
favorite port of call for Africans, fell 70 percent from 2006
to 2007, according to Frontex.


3. The influx of African migrants and thousands of asylum
seekers from Iraq brought to light differences both in the
way EU member states treat migrants and the disproportionate
burdens borne by those with southern coastlines. Greece,
Cyprus, Italy, Malta, Spain and Portugal have been at the
forefront of calling for central and northern EU states to
contribute money and consider burden-sharing to help the
southern states cope with large numbers of arriving migrants.
The Commission has responded with several new pots of money
designed to ease the financial burden on receiving states.
The Commission is about to solicit member state proposals for
$4.2 billion to be spent between now and 2013 for external
border control, refugee reception and processing, migrant
integration, and returns of deported migrants. But there is
no political will for burden sharing in the sense of having
interior or northern states accept and process migrants who
arrive elsewhere in the EU. Each country is expected to deal
with the migrants it receives. Sweden, for example, notes
that it may not be receiving many boat people from Africa,
but it has processed half of the asylum requests from Iraqi
refugees received by the EU. In 2007, Sweden received 18,559
asylum requests from Iraqis out of a total of 37,034 filed
throughout the entire EU, according to UNHCR.


4. On asylum, the EU is slowly moving toward a common asylum
policy and expects to have full harmonization by 2010 (though
Commission contacts say it is more likely to slip until at
least 2012). In the meantime, differences in policies have
meant that asylum-seekers receive different treatment
depending on where they file their claims. The Dublin
regulation, in an attempt to discourage asylum shopping,
requires member states to return asylum seekers to the
country of first entry within the EU. But UNHCR in April
publicly recommended that EU member states not return asylum
seekers to Greece because of inadequacies in its protection
and processing capabilities. Greece approved 146 requests
for asylum out of 25,113 received in 2007, according to UNHCR.

Toward a common EU migration policy
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5. The Commission plans to release a paper in June outlining
the basic principals of a new common European migration
policy. France will assume the rotating EU presidency on
July 1 and plans to shepherd the proposal through the
political process with the goal of asking the European
Council of Ministers to approve a common migration policy in
October. Some of the anticipated highlights of the common
policy include the following, according to Commission
contacts: 1) A prohibition on mass amnesties or
regularizations of illegal migrants, which are seen as pull
factors encouraging more illegal migrants to come. Spain
regularized the status of some 600,000 illegal immigrants two
years ago, and a soon-to-be-released Commission study shows
that the pace of illegal migration accelerated following that
decision. Member states will retain the option of
regularizing the status of individuals on a case-by-case
basis, but not in groups. 2) A framework for immigration
governance, potentially including an oversight board that can
evaluate policies and rules throughout the Union. 3) Sharing
of best practices on integration of migrants with a goal of
putting immigrants on a path to citizenship. Current
practice varies widely among member states. France has
proposed a mandatory "immigration contract" requiring
individual immigrants to complete civics and language courses
in return for financial support from the government.

Commission initiatives
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6. The European Commission currently is working on a number
of labor migration regulations that flowed from a 2005 Green
Paper noting that Europe, with its declining birth rates,
needs to compete more vigorously with the U.S., Canada, and
Australia for skilled migrant labor. The proposed "blue
card," modeled on the U.S. green card, would give EU
residency permits to highly-skilled workers, harmonize the
admission procedures throughout the EU, and spell out a
common set of rights for legal migrants, according to
Commission officials. Other labor directives being developed
target seasonal workers, internal corporate transfers, and
paid trainees. The Commission is not currently contemplating
any directives for unskilled workers, according to Martin
Schieffer, Head of Sector for Immigration at the EC's
Directorate General for Justice, Freedom and Security (JLS).


7. The Commission also has been working on a set of
agreements governing the return of deported migrants and
denied asylum seekers to their countries of origins The EU
is in the final stages of approving a "returns directive"
that sets common deportation procedures for illgal
immigrants in the member states and covers a re-entry ban for
returnees, the amount of time a migrant can be detained while
their ase is being reviewed, and provides safeguards for
returnees. The European Parliament and the European Council
agreed on a compromise text for the Returns Directive on
April 23, and Parliament is scheduled to consider it for
approval on June 4-5. In order to ensure that home countries
will take back their citizens as well as those who transited
their territory en route to the EU, the EU has negotiated
formal readmission agreements with a number of countries of
migrant origin. Schieffer said such readmission agreements
have a deterrent effect as shown by the sharp decrease in
illegal migrants entering the EU through Albania once the EU
negotiated a readmission agreement with that country.


8. Another concept the Commission is working to implement is
"circular migration," which grew out of an initiative by the
Directorate General for Development to link migration and
development. The idea of circular migration is that
employees from developing countries would work in the EU for
up to several years, then go back to their home countries but
retain the option to return to Europe to work in the future.
It is much like the idea of seasonal workers, but has
additional aspects like allowing the migrant to retain an EU
residency permit for several years if he or she decides to
return home for a trial period. In theory, circular
migration benefits the EU by providing it with labor, it
benefits the migrant by providing him with income and
marketability, and it benefits the country of origin by
enhancing the skills of its workers. In reality, it has been
difficult to implement because it is more of a policy concept
than an operational regulation, according to Commission
officials. The Commission is establishing two pilot projects
called "mobility partnerships" with Moldova and Cape Verde
that provide a legal framework for circular migration.

Potential pitfalls
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9. As the EU moves toward its common migration policy, it
faces considerable public skepticism about the added value of

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migrants. Right-wing parties in Austria, Belgium, Italy and
elsewhere have won electoral victories in recent years
running on anti-immigration platforms. Terrorist attacks in
Western Europe by second- and third-generation immigrants
raised questions about whether integration is working. JLS
Commissioner Franco Frattini, an advocate for a "European
approach" to migration, recently announced that he will be
stepping down, and it remains to be seen whether his
replacement, Jacques Barrot, will embrace as fully the idea
of an EU migration policy. The UK, Ireland, and Denmark have
all been historically wary of ceding sovereignty over
migration issues to the European Commission and have opted
out of many EU initiatives on borders, immigration and
asylum. On the other hand, the new Lisbon Reform Treaty
currently being ratified will strengthen the Commission's
hand in migration matters by removing the pillar system that
required unanimous approval by the Council with qualified
majority voting that requires codecision between the European
Parliament and Council. And the fact that France, with the
backing of President Sarkozy, will be pursuing the common EU
migration policy as one of its top presidency goals means
that it will continue to be at the top of the EU agenda
through 2008.
MURRAY

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