Nationale- en Europarlementariërs bespreken Europese veiligheid (en)

Punishment for employers who employ illegal immigrants on the black market and protection for citizens' privacy and personal data while effectively fighting terrorism were among the issues discussed by MEPs and national parliamentarians at a meeting on Monday and Tuesday.

Portuguese Minister of Internal Administration Rui Pereira said that the European Union faces a great challenge to fight "modern slave patterns" of employing irregular immigrants as illegal labour.

The future directive to punish employers of illegal immigrants is necessary, said Ana Mato (EPP-ED, ES), who is drawing up the Employment Committee's position on the issue, but only if seen as part of a wider context to tackle illegal immigration: "The approach is slightly distorted if it only looks at employers and does not deal with human traffickers, border control and so on," she said.

Claudio Fava (PES, IT), the rapporteur, also had reservations as the proposal sets out sanctions for employers exploiting illegal migrants, but not if they are European irregular workers. "There are so many Polish and Romanian citizens working in the dark and completely exploited", he said, supported by several Polish national parliamentarians. Mr Fava also mentioned the need to clarify who in the employment chain should be deemed responsible (i.e. subcontractors or the ultimate employer).

Athanassios Plevris (Greek national MP) concluded that Europe "must not be scared of implementing a quota system" by which each Member State decides how many migrants can be absorbed as a sustainable migration policy.

The EP's first reading vote on the draft directive, under the co-decision procedure, is currently scheduled for the Brussels plenary session in April 2008.

Terrorism & data protection

Representing the Council, the Portuguese Assistant Secretary of State José Magalhaes said that cooperation with third countries for the transfer of passenger name records (PNR) is an important part of ensuring transport security. "Having said that, we have to use all the clauses of the agreement signed with the US government for the effective scrutiny of data protection, mobilising our citizens so they can use their right to redress," he added.

Peter Schaar (Chairman of the Article 29 Working Party) and Lord (Michael) Jopling (British national parliamentarian), on the other hand, complained that the recent EU-US agreement on the transfer of PNR breaches data protection laws and its signature had been irresponsible from the side of EU authorities. "In fact personal data is no safer than the data of the 25 million UK citizens recorded on CDs which got lost on the post", said Lord Jopling, who was also very critical of the Commission's record: "European Commission officials are very poor negotiators. I wouldn't send many of them to the market to sell a cow of mine".

Sophia In't Veld (ALDE, NL) said the real problem of the agreement signed between European and US governments is the lack of democratic control. "PNR is only the tip of the iceberg" when it comes to lack of data protection, she said. Passenger data, she said, risks being used for very different purposes than catching terrorists, including for the profiling of citizens: "Even the US government Accountability office has not been able to confirm the efficacy of watch lists to fight terrorism."

26/11/2007

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

In the chair : Philip Bradbourn (EPP-ED, UK)

Meeting with national parliaments