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States can solve the problem of illegal migration by closing their borders and implementing repressive measures”. Consequently, the ETUC proposes “more proactive policies to combat labour exploitation” including (i) provision of “bridges out of irregular situations for undocumented migrant workers and their families, and enabling them to report exploitative conditions without fear of immediate deportation”; (ii) establishment of common criteria for the admission of economic migrants, thus reducing ‘illegal’ migration; and (iii) strengthening co-operation and partnership with third countries, in particular developing countries and the European neighbourhood countries. Thus, the ETUC, without advocating large-scale regularisations, recommends the limited use of regularisation mechanisms, or “bridges out of illegality”. In addition, the ETUC insists that “the Commission and the Council recognize the social policy dimension of economic migration, and establish adequate procedures and practices for consultation of the European social partners in the legislative process.” If the Commission develops policies on regularisations, “unions should be strongly involved in policy-shaping”. 195 5.3 Employers organisations 196 5.3.1 Introduction Like trade unions, employers organisations are largely indifferent vis-à-vis regularisation and – on the whole – do not regard regularisation as a particular issue of concern. This is in stark contrast to the 1970s and 1980s, when employers (in particular, in France and the USA), were major proponents of regularisation. Only in exceptional circumstances, it appears, do employers support, or indeed call for, regularisation procedures. It is interesting to note, therefore, that the current pro-regularisation campaign in the UK “Strangers into citizens” is supported by various business groups. 197 In France, a broad range of businessmen, predominantly from small and medium sized companies, have joined calls for regularisation of illegal immigrants following a strike by illegal immigrants. 198 Various macro-economic and structural factors explain the relative indifference of employers towards regularisation. These include: economic restructuring and decreasing reliance on a flexible, lowskilled labour force and the consequent reduced likelihood that major employers will resort to illegal migrants as a significant source of labour; the fact that illegal migrants tend to be employed in small and medium sized businesses in certain sectors with small profit margins that are not well represented in employers associations; and the fact that major employers’ association, in particular those which are also organised on the European level, tend to represent larger firms whose profitability does not 195 Interview with Marco Cilento (ETUC), Brussels, 20 May 2008. 196 The following documents were consulted for this summary: BUSINESSEUROPE position on Sanctions against employers of illegally staying third-country nationals, submitted 25 October 2007. Available at: http://www.businesseurope.eu; BUSINESSEUROPE position on Commission Communication on Circular migration and mobility partnerships between the EU and third countries, submitted 26 October, 2007. Available at: http://www.businesseurope.eu, UNICE position on the Commission policy plan on legal migration, submitted 10 May 2006. Available at: http://www.businesseurope.eu 197 Liberation, 18 Avril 2008: ‘ L’appel de Londres à une amnestie’. 198 Liberation, 18 Avril 2008, ‘Les patrons avec leurs sans-papiers’; Following these protests, 741 migrants with regular employment but illegally staying have received residence permits according to the General Confederation of Labour (see Migration News Sheet, August 2008, p.11). 68
depend on (unskilled) immigrant labour. 199 Indeed, illegal labour migration today primarily seems to concern sectors such as agriculture, tourism, hotel and restaurants, and domestic services, all of which are characterised by a relatively low degree of organisation of employers (or the complete absence of employers associations in the domestic sector), decentralised production and small production units. This said, employers have been involved in regularisation policy making in Spain and other countries and thus, in particular in countries with employment-based regularisations, do play a significant role. Limitations of time and resources have not allowed a systematic enquiry into employers’ positions on the national level. In our analysis of employers’ positions, we thus focused on the European level. On the European level, we contacted the Confederation of European Businesses (BusinessEurope, formerly UNICE 200 ) and the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized enterprises (UEAPME). Of these, only BusinessEurope replied to our requests to provide information on the organisation’s views on regularisation, indicating that the organisation had no official position on regularisation policy. 201 In accordance with our view that regularisation policy must not be analysed as a stand-alone policy and that any analysis needs to consider related policy aspects (including admission policy, policies on settled immigrants, broader policies on illegal migration as well as policies on undeclared work), we will review commentaries by BusinessEurope and UEAPME, respectively, on the European Union’s policies on legal and illegal migration in the following section of this paper. This review suggests that employers organisations do have positions on particular issues related to regularisation – even though none of the organisations have formal views on regularisation as such. 5.3.2 Positions of the Confederation of European Business (BUSINESSEUROPE) Our review of relevant BusinessEurope positions is based on BusinessEurope commentaries on recent Commission proposals for new instruments in managing legal migration, including ‘mobility partnership’, ‘circular migration’ and the proposal for a framework directive on rights of third-country nationals workers. In addition, we discuss the position of BusinessEurope regarding EU policies on illegal migration and irregular work – in particular, the Commission proposal for employers sanctions regarding illegally working third-country nationals. According to BusinessEurope, the negotiation of mobility partnerships “constitutes an important new strategy in the field of immigration policies at EU-level”. 202 In particular, BusinessEurope acknowledges that the proposed new instruments – mobility partnerships and circular migration – are a reasonable and innovative response to the growing numbers of illegal migrants arriving through the Eastern and South-Eastern borders of the EU. While BusinessEurope acknowledges that the EU has an important role to play in co-ordinating and improving the relations of Member States with third- 199 Watts, J. (2002): op. cit. pp.81—100 200 UNICE stands for ‘Union des Industries de la Communauté européenne’. The organisation became BusinessEurope in 2007 201 E-mail response, D'Haeseleer, S. (BusinessEurope), 16 April 2008 202 BusinessEurope (2007): Position on Commission Communication on Circular migration and mobility partnerships between the EU and third countries, submitted 26 October, 2007. Available at: http://www.businesseurope.eu (p.5) 69
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REGINE Regularisations in Europe St
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CONTRIBUTORS Principal authors Mart
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Preface In December 2007, the Europ
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1 Terms, definitions and scope 1.1
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Table 1: Types of illegal or irregu
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1.3 Freedom of movement rights and
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1.4 The meaning of ‘regularisatio
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Regularisation Mechanism A regulari
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2 Previous comparative studies on r
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Generally, the focus of SOPEMI repo
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enefiting from regularisation has s
Page 23 and 24: amnesty and moreover involved (limi
Page 25 and 26: 2. 3 The Odysseus study on regulari
Page 27 and 28: etween expediency and obligations c
Page 29 and 30: Sunderhaus identifies several ratio
Page 31 and 32: whether it can be attributed to pul
Page 33 and 34: Box 2: 3-tier earned regularisation
Page 35 and 36: measures; it does address questions
Page 37 and 38: 3.1.1 Regularisation Programmes Ove
Page 39 and 40: Nine Member States provided details
Page 41 and 42: Figure 3 Grants of regularised stat
Page 43 and 44: Box 3: Regularisation policy in Swi
Page 45 and 46: 3.2 Regularisation as a policy resp
Page 47 and 48: Table 5: Comparative table of regul
Page 49 and 50: case in Europe, alongside the more
Page 51 and 52: that a year after regularisation so
Page 53 and 54: treatment according to nationality,
Page 55 and 56: iii. issues of advance planning iv.
Page 57 and 58: iv. the requirement to appear in pe
Page 59 and 60: denying residence permits to existi
Page 61 and 62: efugees under the provisions of the
Page 63 and 64: 4 Government positions on policy 15
Page 65 and 66: 5 Positions of social actors 5.1 In
Page 67 and 68: Since the 1990s - and in some count
Page 69 and 70: live their lives without fear.” 1
Page 71 and 72: admission policies. 181 The Danish
Page 73: and useful, if planned and implemen
Page 77 and 78: migration”. 209 In the opinion of
Page 79 and 80: stresses that “economic immigrati
Page 81 and 82: undocumented migrants by the Brusse
Page 83 and 84: NGO/Country Main activities in rega
Page 85 and 86: NGO/Country Assessment of own role/
Page 87 and 88: known that this makes them vulnerab
Page 89 and 90: eaching reforms of the overall fram
Page 91 and 92: Accord of March 2008 have not yet b
Page 93 and 94: Table 8: Suggested target groups fo
Page 95 and 96: policy measures that could be adopt
Page 97 and 98: followed by the granting of any sta
Page 99 and 100: for irregular migrants, while Italy
Page 101 and 102: interpretations of the EU directive
Page 103 and 104: considered to be “flexible, adapt
Page 105 and 106: iii. Measures and sanctions against
Page 107 and 108: of international protection, it is
Page 109 and 110: 7.2 European Union approaches to il
Page 111 and 112: immigration.” 321 Finally, the st
Page 113 and 114: involve large numbers. Secondly, th
Page 115 and 116: 8 Policy Options OPTION 1: REGULATI
Page 117 and 118: initiative. In the case of permanen
Page 119 and 120: Ultimately, a comprehensive definit
Page 121 and 122: nor need it be seen as an endorseme
Page 123 and 124: permits, Member States should take
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OPTION 6: STRENGTHENING THE PRINCIP
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Rationale and possible impact: Upon
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information exchange could contribu
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d) apprehension data should disting
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OPTION 11: REVIEW OF ADMINISTRATIVE
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9 Conclusions and preferred policy
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management of irregular migration s
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more reserved than that of Business
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9.5.2 Policy issues Previously (in
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Option 6a Facilitating access to lo
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Italy Ministerio Interno, Dipartime
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Federacion Andalucia ACOGE, Respons
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11 References - secondary sources 1
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United Kingdom, European Democrat G
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Hollifield, J. (2004): ‘France: R
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Papademetriou, D. (2005): The “Re
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Watts, J. (2002): Immigration Polic
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European Commission, Proposal for a
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