An excessive rapporteur. The debate in the European Parliament on European citizenship left me with some regrets. The Catania report was rejected by a fairly large majority (347 votes to 276: see our bulletin 9111), avoiding the attempt to eliminate from it the parts which were rejected by some political groups while keeping the positive aspects. A compromise might perhaps have been possible by amending the excessive or inappropriate parts. As it stood, the report was unacceptable for the majority of the European Parliament in current circumstances, and following the negative vote, the rapporteur Giusto Catania certainly did nothing to brighten the prospects for progress with his outrageous and insulting comments on the Parliament. In a statement to the press, he described the vote as: “A terrible message which marks another defeat for Europe (…), a very bad signal which widens the gap between the European institutions and the political and social demands from below (…), a backward step in our efforts for European construction”, adding: “We have seen the coming-together of euro-sceptic zeal with the most retrograde impulses opposed to strengthening migrants' rights.” This kind of demagogic language does not reflect reality. In fact, several suggestions in favour of immigrant workers were accepted and supported in the plenary session. But other aspects caused confusion and should be clarified and explained. It is clearly not true that the EP contains a majority of euro-sceptics and enemies of migrants' rights. Francis Wurtz, the President of the rapporteur's group (GUE/NGL), said that the debate should continue and declared himself relatively optimistic on the chances of a positive outcome.
The reasons for the “no” vote. The outcome is, for the moment, that the progress achieved on the status of immigrant workers in the session which received majority support will be left in abeyance. It is likely that some of the votes against the report came from euro-sceptics or nationalists, as Mr Catania said, but the reasons for the large majority of the votes against lie elsewhere. The debate has not been sufficiently clear on the reasons behind the negative votes. There has been much discussion of the legal aspects, avoiding mentioning openly the prevailing mindset in public opinion in the majority of the Member States which, if consulted, would not be in favour of granting European citizenship, with all the rights that this implies, to immigrants from third countries based only on the criterion of residence.
Several Member States are in the process of tightening their conditions for granting their nationality to immigrants because certain recent experiences have hardened opinion. How could we ignore the repercussions from the fact that those responsible for the London tube bombings were not foreigners rejected by society, but British citizens? That is to say, immigrants or sons of immigrants to whom, along with citizenship, the same rights have been granted as have been hard-won by British citizens over the centuries? How could we ignore the repercussions in the Netherlands from the fact that the young man who, in an Amsterdam street, cut the throat of a film-maker whose film he didn't like had already been granted Dutch citizenship? And that the majority of those responsible for the chaos in the banlieue of Paris and other French cities were French citizens? Why ignore the fact that these observations have, for more or less valid reasons, influenced the mindset of populations and the choices of political authorities? Residence is less and less accepted as a criterion for granting citizenship. It is too simplistic to attribute the legislative turnarounds announced in some Member States to nationalism or racism when public opinion has the impression that the failure of the integration of immigrants is no longer always brought about by Europeans, but a choice on the part of those among the immigrants themselves who reject the laws, way of life and culture of the country in which they live.
In this situation it is logical and generous to continue to fight to improve the lot of immigrants and to strengthen their rights, but it is doubtful whether this is the right time to introduce into the EU the general criterion of the “citizenship of residence” and granting to anyone who has lived in a Member State for five years all the rights recognised by European citizenship, even though they do not have the nationality of any Member State. The Catania report as approved by the EP committee on public freedoms contains many positive elements which deserve discussion; some of them, and some substantial ones at that, were also approved in the plenary. But the majority of the EP has refused to introduce an automatic rule.
(F.R.)