EU: Charter for migrants' rights
01 September 1993
The European Parliament's Committee on civil liberties and internal affairs has produced a draft charter which recognises the responsibility of European governments in criminalising many immigrants by clamping down on lawful work opportunities in the EC countries, and which contains proposals to harmonise the status of legal residents with that of European citizens in a number of important respects.
The charter calls for the EC's legal third-country nationals (who it estimates to be around 8.5m, an apparent under-estimate according to other reports) to be given a package of rights after five years residence, including free movement throughout the EC, family reunification and protection from deportation on the same lines as EC nationals, protection from race discrimination, rights in education and vocational training, and the right to vote in local elections. It also recommends that children born and educated in a member state should be entitled to its nationality, and that dual nationality should be allowed. These proposals on citizenship are crucial to the ability of "second- generation immigrants" to insist on respect for their basic human rights. At present many second- and even third-generation immigrants in Germany, Belgium and other EC countries are denied the right to acquire the citizenship of the country where they were born and brought up. They are vulnerable to deportation if, for example, they attempt to defend themselves against racist attack or to protest workplace conditions or unemployment. Proposals on free movement in the (so far unsigned) Convention on External Frontiers allow such non-citizens movement rights limited to visa-free holidays for three months in EC countries other than their country of residence, unlike EC citizens, who have complete freedom of movement for work, study or retirement, in other EC states. EC citizens are also allowed to bring in far more relatives to live with them than are EC-born or resident "immigrants".
The draft Charter is likely to be the subject of battles both over its content and over the EC's jurisdiction to deal with such rights, if it is adopted by Parliament. The working party argues that the Commission is competent to draw up proposals and the Council is empowered to decide measures on the legal situation of third country nationals living in Europe. But so far the EC has refused to assume jurisdiction, limiting itself in the Maastricht treaty to visa requirements, and simply ignoring the position of Europe's 13 million non-national residents. While the new Internal Commissioner, Padraig Flynn, offers soothing words to groups like the Migrants' Forum, we shall wait and see whether he will be prepared to push against the entrenched positions of member states on the issue.
Working document on drawing up a European charter on immigration; Draft report on the status of migrants in the EC; Draft report on a draft charter of rights and duties of immigrants in the EC; European Parliament committee on Civil Liberties and Internal Affairs, 6.7.93, 15.7.93, 10.9.93.