Migrants’ rights in the EU discussed in Rome
On November 10-11 Social Platform attended the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights Conference in Rome on ‘Fundamental Rights and Migration to the EU’.
Here are a few points of particular interest to Social Platform’s work on migrants’ rights in the EU:
- Laura Boldrini, President of the Chamber of Deputies in Italy, opened the conference with a point on the importance of using figures to debunk myths about migration. For example, there is a misconception in Italy that migrants make up 30% of the population, while in truth they only constitute 7%. If the EU would accept an equivalent number of refugees from Syria that its neighboring countries take in, it is likely that Italy would receive 14 million.
- Morten Kjærum, Director of Fundamental Rights Agency, urged the EU to respond positively to unplanned migration, as we witnessed in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Furthermore, he addressed the EU’s need for migration, as well as the necessity of fighting racism and exclusion.
- Dimitris Avramopoulos, European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, stated that fundamental rights are not optional and the EU needs to cooperate with third countries, reinforce its border surveillance and fight against smuggling (an area the EU is currently developing a plan on). He mentioned the need for legal channels, resettlement efforts and regional development and protection programmes, as well as the commitment of the new commission to take on horizontal issues in terms of gaps in education, social exclusion and poverty.
- Nils Muižnieks, Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, criticised the EU for not responding in a coordinated way to the issues surrounding the sea borders of the Mediterranean – what has become ‘a graveyard of migrants’. He called for an urgent paradigm shift separating migration from security.
- One fundamental rights challenge outlined by François Crépeau, UN Speccial Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, was that the lack of legal channels available to migrants forces irregular migration, and migrants tend to take up the dirty, difficult and dangerous jobs EU citizens do not want.
- Nicolas Beger, Director of Amnesty International’s EU Office, highlighted the negative distribution of EU funds; for example, in Greece €207 million is spent on borders, and only €21 million on refugees, contributing towards the construction of ‘Fortress Europe’.
- In a workshop on migrant integration, Chiara Adamo, the European Commission’sHead of Unit for Fundamental Rights, spoke about the single market logic of mobility that is anchored in Article 2 of the EU treaty, which should apply to migration and integration as well (‘ two sides of the same coin’). We should encourage political participation and local voting rights of migrants, because integration happens locally.
- A European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey (EU-MIDIS) shows how important evidence and communication is; while 56% of the population in the EU worries about immigration, when given the real figures this perception drops by half.
- Thomas Huddlestone, Policy Analyst from the Migration Policy Group (MPG), explained how MPG studies the effects of implemented policies, who they benefit and who they should benefit (e.g. see their MIPEX). He explained that, problematically, when it comes to social inclusion the EU lacks indicators to measure e.g. the take up of social entitlements, health care, housing and family life as a way to access employment.
