Brussels, 07/02/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Thursday 3 February, MEPs at the European Parliament's civil liberties, justice and home affairs committee adopted two amendments to the draft single permit for living and working abroad for non-EU nationals. These amendments focus on the two points that had blocked adoption of the text in the plenary session on 16 December last (EUROPE 10277): the additional administrative documents required for migrant workers, and corresponding tables to enable the Commission to check transposition of the text by member states.
MEPs on the committee therefore chose to go back to the Commission's initial proposals, which would provide a genuine permit “to enable third-country workers to live and work in the EU”, explained the committee, adding: “Allowing member states to issue additional documents would defeat the whole purpose of having a 'single permit', which should include all relevant information on the right to work”. One source pointed out that this return to the Commission's initial text was a key point advocated by the ALDE Group and the reason why this group had opposed the text in December, subsequently preventing a majority vote being obtained.
The rapporteur on this issue, Véronique Mathieu (EPP, France), therefore took this demand into account and also decided at the beginning of January to put the issue back on the plenary agenda as soon as possible (possibly on 14 February) and to vote only on the contentious aspects, namely the scope being covered by her committee alone.
She had previously decided to exclude the employment and social affairs committee from this work because employment and social affairs issues had been validated in December and did not need to be re-opened. The Socialists and Greens had rejected the December text due to its scope, which did not include seasonal workers or non-EU workers transferred from one company to another. They therefore denounced differentiated and unfair treatment of migrant workers in EU. Mathieu, however, consistently explained that these other categories of workers were covered by other European instruments and that she therefore did not consider it necessary to get stuck on the question of the single permit's scope.
This procedural decision drew an angry reaction from the Socialist Group (S&D) and its Spanish rapporteur, Alejandro Cercas. He is responsible for the employment committee, which is now threatening to re-open the debate on the permit's scope. Over recent weeks, the two committees have increasingly resorted to the use of recommendations from the EP's legal staff and even from the constitutional affairs committee, in an effort to legitimise or invalidate the procedure advocated by Mathieu. It is now up to the chairs of the EP groups (during the next conference of presidents of the EP) to say whether Mathieu was right to focus on two specific points and exclude the employment committee or whether “procedures must entirely begin again”, explained one source. This same source of information indicated that at this stage, nothing would suggest that “the case will go on to the plenary session of 14 February” because there is a significant risk that the group chairs will go in the same direction as the Socialists and the employment committee. (S.P./transl.fl)