What are your ministry’s priorities during the Spanish Presidency of the EU?
[isria.com] Specifically, at the JHA Council in Toledo I would like us to approach
the phenomenon of immigration in a comprehensive manner, as it cannot
be viewed from a national perspective but rather it should be seen from
an overall European perspective. We must support regular, legal
immigration and, at the same time, make Europe a place of integration
so that all those who have migrated become integrated and share
citizenship.
How do you intend to achieve greater integration between immigration and integration policies?
Europe must commit to three courses of action: The first is to
strengthen entry controls into Europe. If we want legal immigration,
this means we must have strong border controls that are
well-coordinated between all countries.
The second stems from the fact that immigration is a reality in the
EU…and here the challenge is to create an integration policy through
the member states within a general framework. In order to achieve this
integration we must promote schools as the core element that best
integrates and provides the best training for citizenship and the
future.
The third course of action must be aimed at strengthening cooperation
with countries of origin. If we really want immigration to be
controlled so that it is regular and legal then border controls are not
enough, we must also get the county of origin involved. And for a
county of origin to become involved, it needs to see that Europe is
also committed to its present and its future.
Moreover, you aim to make progress with the common immigration policy and the single work permit.
Europe has a natural tendency to be a single market not only in terms
of goods but also in terms of work, and we should work in that direction
The Spanish Presidency will hold bilateral meetings and talk to the
Commission and the relevant commissioner to see if we can make progress
in the direction of unifying criteria on the issue of a single permit.
There is no unified criterion and there are divergent opinions on this
directive at present, but we believe that we can slowly manage to
achieve consensus and conciliation between the countries that, like us,
support this directive under specific conditions, and the other
countries that still have reservations.
At such a complicated time for the EU in terms of employment, how
can you bring the interests of immigration and the labour market
together?
The first condition is that immigration must always be linked to the
labour market. It is obvious that at a time of crisis like the present,
when Europe is in economic recession and there are job losses,
immigration is being contained because Europe has to be more inward
looking in order to meet the needs of people who have lost their jobs.
Yet we should not lose sight of the future.
We will overcome this crisis and when Europe returns to economic growth
it will once again need immigration. So we must take this opportunity
to start laying the foundations so that when we return to growth in the
economy and once again have stronger immigration quotas, we can do so
on a basis of legality.
The policy on unaccompanied minors will be another important issue.
Yes, and I want to acknowledge the major progress made under the
Swedish Presidency; in the Stockholm programme there is a special
mention of this issue and a specific mandate to develop a programme on
unaccompanied minors.
Up to now this type of immigration was more commonly seen in
Mediterranean countries and was not part of overall European concerns.
The programme on minors was included in the final meeting of the
Swedish Presidency. Spain greeted this very favourably as we are
directly affected by this issue and it is one of the programmes that we
are going to promote during our Presidency.
