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I was really pleased last week to attend our side event on “Escaping the migration poverty trap” organised during the third annual Convention of the Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion. Not only because we had several members actively participating in the event, and I would like to thank them for this, but also because we had the opportunity to hear concrete examples from migrants themselves – from the panel and the room. Our common position on migration was shared among participants and I could feel a consensus that we were on the right track when having a human rights based approach to migration in ensuring access to services such as housing, education, interpretation, or employment.  

Then I felt like I was slapped in the face just one day after our event when the UK Prime Minister presented his new policy towards EU migrants which goes in the opposite direction to ours. He proposes that migrants will have to wait three months before claiming unemployment benefits, that social benefits will be stopped after six months unless people have a genuine prospect of employment and people experiencing homelessness will be removed and barred from re-entering Britain for 12 months.

The EU did not remain silent on this issue and the Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs Laszlo Andor rightly took to the floor to state that the Commission has “been in dialogue with the British authorities, government offices, in recent years. We always encourage a fact-based debate about the current movements of workers and the implications. ‘So we would need a more accurate presentation of the reality not under pressure, not under such hysteria which sometimes happens in this case”. There was nothing incendiary just a will to work with the British authorities on that matter.  Our member FEANTSA made a public statement on the issue.

When you wonder about EU added value, here is one concrete case where we can ensure a common framework for all migrants, a framework which is based on human rights and that does not put down people who came for a better future.

We will continue to promote such an agenda with our friends and colleagues in the EU. Today we are contributing to a one-day consultation with DG Home on the future of Migration policies in the EU. We are together with the NGO Platform on Asylum and Refugees and Amnesty International. By shifting the EU agenda on migration, maybe it  can bring better prospects to migrants living close to you in your countries.

Let’s engage!

Pierre Baussand, Director