Brussels, 16/05/2007 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Commission suggested that the Union's legal arsenal should be enhanced by establishing harmonised penalties to crack down on European companies that employ illegal immigrants. Further to the European Council's appeal of December 2006 calling for concrete measures to be devised for EU migratory policy, the Commission also presented two communications on the external dimensions of migration.
The draft directive to crack down on employers hiring illegal workers aims above all to stamp out one of the main reasons for which illegal immigrants flow into European territory, often putting their lives at risk. “The possibility of finding illegal work is the main driving force behind illegal immigration. The EU must put an end to that”, Immigration Commissioner Franco Frattini said. According to the Commission, there are between 4.5 and 8 million illegal immigrants in the Union. These are joined each year by a further 350,000 to 500,000 persons. By way of comparison, the number of legal immigrants entering the Union is estimated at 600,000 annually. Between 7 and 16% of the EU's GDP is believed to go to this underground economy, mainly in agriculture, construction, cleaning, catering and domestic jobs. “We can no longer tolerate this situation”, Mr Frattini went on to say, pointing to the “slavery-like” conditions in which illegal workers are forced to work. “Only 2.8% of companies in Europe are checked. That means practically no controls at all”, he deplored, suggesting that at least 10% of companies should be inspected in order to prevent immigrants being completely destitute without access to education or healthcare. Illegal work also results in distortion of competition within the internal market between companies that abide by the law and those that operate in breach of the law, the commissioner said.
The text put forward therefore suggests that fines should be imposed on those employing illegal workers, and that they should pay the cost of sending third country nationals in an illegal situation back to their homeland, as well as paying unpaid salaries, taxes and social contributions for those workers. If necessary, other measures would also be imposed such as disqualification from public benefits, subsidies and public procurement procedures, for up to five years. Also, to the extent that a financial penalty cannot be recovered from a subcontractor it should be recoverable from other contractors in the chain of subcontracting, up to and including the main contractor. In the most serious cases, criminal penalties would be adopted against employers, but the states will remain free to decide whether this should be prison sentences or fines. Coming into this category would be repeated infringements, the employment of a significant number of third-country nationals, particularly exploitative working conditions, and where the employer knows that the worker is a victim of human trafficking. To ensure in particular that individual employers are liable to criminal sanctions only in serious cases, a repeated infringement is criminalised only where it is the third infringement within a two year period. Member states should ensure that legal persons can be held liable for criminal offences. However, as it is not specified whether the liability of legal persons should be criminal liability, member states that do not recognise the criminal liability of legal persons are not obliged to change their systems. Finally, member states must set mechanisms in place through which third-country nationals can lodge complaints directly or through designated third parties, such as trade union organisations or other worker protection associations. This proposal will soon be examined by the EU Council and the EP. It should be noted that Denmark does not have to take a decision on this text as it has chosen not to take part in EU immigration policy. The United Kingdom and Ireland should decide whether or not they will be involved in the drafting of a final text.
The Commission also adopted two communications. The first, on circular migration and mobility partnerships between the EU and third countries is to promote legal immigration. In particular, it suggests encouraging immigration flows from countries that have concluded cooperation agreements with the EU, whereby they undertake to take in workers to close the gap in high labour intensive areas (agriculture, construction, tourism, nursing, etc.). The Commission suggests there should be a system for bringing supply and demand for legal immigration together. Countries wishing to benefit from this system would receive assistance to combat illegal immigration, thanks to Frontex in particular. And, in order to prevent a brain drain from third countries, a multiple entry visa system would be set up to allow immigrants to return to their country with the guarantee that they will be able to return to the EU. Less significant, the communication “applying the global approach to migration to the Eastern and South-Eastern regions neighbouring the European Union” is mainly addressed to about fifteen countries such as Turkey, the Western Balkans and the European Neighbourhood Policy in Eastern Europe and in the southern Caucasus as well as in the Federation of Russia. Other countries further away, such as Iraq and China, are also concerned. The text briefly sets out the framework for EU cooperation with these countries in the field of immigration and stresses that any potential reinforcement of dialogue and cooperation must be based on initiatives that already exist. (bc)