Brussels, 24/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - With the Belgian government having announced an agreement on criteria for the regularisation of people in its country illegally, on Sunday 19 July, the European Commissioner Jacques Barrot has rejected the idea that Belgium was moving towards mass regularisation. "Regularisation in Belgium is carried out on a case-by-case basis (...). I am not certain that it will be a mass regularisation", he said. "Humanitarian situations deserve specific treatment", he added, responding to Vlaams Belang MEP Philip Claeys, who took the view that the decision of the Belgian government ran counter to the European pact on immigration and asylum, which was adopted in 2008. However, Belgium reiterated that the pact did not prevent it from carrying out individual regularisations, as provided for by the Belgian national legislation. Furthermore, the ban on mass regularisations, which was strongly supported by France, was withdrawn from the pact, with the Member States having only to limit themselves to regularisations on a case-by-case basis for humanitarian or economic reasons. In early August in Italy, the government may decide to regularise, in accordance with very specific criteria, several thousand of illegally employed domestic workers. Of the 300,000 people involved, 170,000 extra-Community nationals may benefit from this measure, according to estimations. (B.C./trans.fl)