On the 23rd october The EU Commission finally presented its two directives on immigration.
This is a major step forward : the EU is finally giving some concrete proposals on immigration, a field which is very much a soveriegn one. A brief flashback on this:
In 1999 at the Tampere summit in Finland, the EU decided to put forward proposals on a common EU immigration policy. This makes sense, bearing in mind that borders between EU member states are disappearing. However, after 9/11 most political agendas were chaotic, including the EU's, and most proposals that were made after then were to do with limiting illegal immigration.
Things changed a bit in September 2007. The EU commission published an annual report on immigration, and the Portugese presidency (of the EU) organised a high level conference on the subject on 13-14th september. The vice president of the Commission Franco Frattini, who is also the commissioner for Justice, liberty and security- and therefore immigration- gave a speech outlining what this common EU policy would consist of.
This common policy would be have two main goals : limiting illegal immigration while encouraging the kind of immigration that is good for the EU. This is relatively simple to understand : 5% of qualified workers from third states (read Africa, Asia including India, middle East etc) bugger off to the USA, Australia or Canada. 85% of economic immigration to the EU is unqualified labour. This does not mean that the EU does not need qualified labour immigration. Au contraire. In 2050 a third of the EU's population will be over 65. The total population of the EU will start declining after 2025, and from 2011 the work force will be declining, meaning a serious worker shortage in sectors such as engineering, IT or medicine.
An obvious solution to balance out demographics is to bring people in from the outside. To do this, it seems necessary to harmonise an immigration policy on an EU wide level, for the simple reason that twenty-seven different entrance and working procedures may seem off-putting to most people considering immigration to the Union.
The Commission is proposing several directives (by end of 2009) which the Parliament and the Council will have to approve if the are ever going to be enforced. Frattini, after his speech inLisbon in September, unveiled two proposals on October 23rd. One concerns are general directive framework for people (from outside the EU) who live and work legally in the EU. The other is a "blue card" to encourage the immigration of highly qualified workers.
The blue card is basically the EU's answer to an American green card ,though the two do present important differences. Check out the BBC website for these.
The basic features of the blue card are as follows : it allows someone highly qualified from a non-EU state, which means someone who has the equivalemnt of a diploma, three yers working experience and a job waiting for him that is paid at least three times the local minimum wage, to come and live & work in the EU. This blue card would allow the person, and his family to live & work in a member state, al with the same procedure. After the two years, the card can be renewed and the person can then move to any Member state he or she chooses. That said, Member states would still be allowed to determine how many people they would allow in to their territory, and the preference communautaire would apply, meaning that the job would only go to a third country national if nobody from the EU wants it.
The blue card is meant to make the EU more attractive as a single block for potential highly qualified workers. The second directive that Frattini detailed was more general, applying to all third country nationals already living n the EU and aiming to make their working conditions better. Indeed, it appears that there is a "right's gap" between EU and non-EU workers, usually concerning wages, holiday's, representation and education, etc. the nex direcive basically says hat the same rights apply no matter where you are from.
These two proposals are the first in a series. In 2008 Frattini will unveil proposals for directives on the immigration of seasonal workers, paid trainees and transfers within multinational compmanies. All to make working in modern Europe more attractive to potential brainiacs from beyond our borders.
All very nice, but a couple of problems remain. The first is the question of the brain drain. Obviously, attracting highly qualified third country workers means taking them from somewhere, somewhere that probably needs them more. So part of the plan is to introduce circular migration, a plan to kindly encourage migrants to leave after 'two or three' years. This, it appears in the speeches is terrific for everyone : Europe gets a bit of qualified migrant, third world gets a bit of European savoir faire. But is this going to work? On the one hand the EU is going to work on integration (check out the Frattini speech) and on the other they think that people should return home in order to reduce the brain drain . Sounds complicated.
The directive isn't anywhere near being enforced yet. It still needs to be approved by twenty seven member states, unanimously, and germany and Austria are already pulling faces, as is France. France has in fact unveiled a master plan for the rench EU presidency, and one of the priorities is immigration.
vendredi 26 octobre 2007
mercredi 24 octobre 2007
So here we are celebrating the Lisbon Treaty
The Constitution is dead! Long live the Treaty!
At last. Two and half years since the French and Dutch said "no", two and a half years that the EU has been stagnating, unloved and inefficient, two and half years of 25, then 27, countries working together with rules written for only 15. Two and a half years later, and it's now been nearly week since the Council of the European Union popped the open the Champagne in Lisbon to celebrate an agreement on the new "Reform Treaty" (aka simplified treaty aka modifying treaty).
For all those who haven't been following the EU's developments, here is a quick recap of what has been going on.
In 2005, the French and Dutch rejected the badly-named European Constitution (it was actually the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe to give it its full name, law students will appreciate the difference). They had been asked to express their views in referenda organised at the time, while some countries had simply ratified through their national parliaments.
This double rejection (which might have been far worse if other countries such as the UK had been asked to vote) plunged the EU deeper in to an institutional crisis. The Treaty of Nice, planned for fifteen states from Western and Southern Europe, was unable to take into account the particularities of working with twelve new countries including ten from Eastern Europe.
All Member states agreed that the EU needed a new, more modern, efficient and democratic set of rules to follow, but nobody dared bring the subject up.
Two years go by and Germany is set to take on the EU presidency. The presidency rotates from country to country for six months, and during that time the particular country hosts the summits and outlines priorities. The head of state is the president of the EU council, the minister for foreign affairs the EU's minister for foreign affairs and so on.
Germany takes over on January 1st 2007. At the concluding Council meeting on June 21st-22nd Chancellor Angela Merkel announces that it is time to get on with things and summons an Intergovernmental Conference. An IGC is a meeting of all the different Ministers from Member States who work together to modify a treaty. A treaty can only be modified if it has the unanimous accord of every Member State so it is vital that all the governments, who represent the interests of their individual country, work together. On June 26th a precise outline of what everybody wants is produced and handed over to the ICG who then gets everyone negociating and produce a compromise. Legal experts transcribe the whole thing in to a treaty.
Portugal takes over on July 1st 2007. On October 2nd, the Portuguese presidency announced that legal experts have come to a agreement on the text. On the 5th, all 251 pages of it (including reambules and protocols) are translated in to all 23 languages of the EU. One can imagine some pretty sleepless nights in the translating department.
Next step is the summit at Lisbon, where all EU heads of State meet for an approuval of final version of the Treaty - or not. Things did look pretty hairy for a while, as each country in turn produced last-minute extravagant or stupid demands, or simply threatened to block the process if they didn't get what they wanted.
The UK is a well known bitch in these matters. The UK is however allowed many 'opt-outs', which means it can simply opt out of any part of the treay it doesn't like. That is why the UK (and Denmark) are not part of the eurozone, and why the UK will not ratify the bit of treaty that deals with fundemental human rights.
Poland however was more problematic. The mad twins Kaczynski are anti-Europe & are supposed to stand for Polish pride & national values. They made extravagant demands for a 6th permanent Advoacte general at the European Court of Justice who would be polish. They also wanted the Compromise of Ioanina (name of the Greek place where the summit it appeared at was hosted) to be added to the treaty and not left in an annexe. The compromise basically allows a few countries, if they strongly disagree with what the majority have voted for, to delay the decision and impose a further round of negociations.
Austria wanted fewer German students over on Erasmus trips. Nobody took much notice of them except to point and laugh I would imagine.
Italy however pulled a real wobbly over seats at the European parliament. A parliament of 785 members is huge and unmanageable and the idea is to bring it down to 750. Italy however was furious that they should lose 6 MEPs (down to 72, which is one fewer that the UK and two fewer than France). Prodi threatened to veto the whole thing.
But lo & behold it all went fine in Lisbon, and on the very first night the all cracked open the champagne. Poland got a bit of what it wanted (the Ioanina compromise is in a protocol, not an annexe, and can only be changed unanimously). The UK got its opt outs as usual. As for Italy, they simply rearranged the seating pattern : the EP president no longer counts as one of the 750, whoopi! an extra seat, here you go Italy.
Things are not however over. The leaders have agreed but what about the countries? the citizens? well, for most Member states the treaty will be ratified by the national parliament, and it seems unlikely that doing it this way will be a problem. The mad twin Prime minister Kaczynski is gone, replaced by a bunch of pro-EU liberals, so Poland will probably ratify by Parliament. Only Ireland is constitutionally bound to hold a referendum on the treaty and again the outcome should be favourable. Other countries however may be problematic.
Maybe Gordon Brown will crack under the pressure and submit the treaty to referendum where it will promptly be shat upon. What about France? Though Sarkozy would never put the ratification of the text in to the hands of the citizens (who are restless...) maybe the socialists will once again stupidly divide over the question. Petitions are already on the net campaigning for a referendum.
Nothing is yet sure, though the series of ratification should start mid december, probably with Germany and France.
At last. Two and half years since the French and Dutch said "no", two and a half years that the EU has been stagnating, unloved and inefficient, two and half years of 25, then 27, countries working together with rules written for only 15. Two and a half years later, and it's now been nearly week since the Council of the European Union popped the open the Champagne in Lisbon to celebrate an agreement on the new "Reform Treaty" (aka simplified treaty aka modifying treaty).
For all those who haven't been following the EU's developments, here is a quick recap of what has been going on.
In 2005, the French and Dutch rejected the badly-named European Constitution (it was actually the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe to give it its full name, law students will appreciate the difference). They had been asked to express their views in referenda organised at the time, while some countries had simply ratified through their national parliaments.
This double rejection (which might have been far worse if other countries such as the UK had been asked to vote) plunged the EU deeper in to an institutional crisis. The Treaty of Nice, planned for fifteen states from Western and Southern Europe, was unable to take into account the particularities of working with twelve new countries including ten from Eastern Europe.
All Member states agreed that the EU needed a new, more modern, efficient and democratic set of rules to follow, but nobody dared bring the subject up.
Two years go by and Germany is set to take on the EU presidency. The presidency rotates from country to country for six months, and during that time the particular country hosts the summits and outlines priorities. The head of state is the president of the EU council, the minister for foreign affairs the EU's minister for foreign affairs and so on.
Germany takes over on January 1st 2007. At the concluding Council meeting on June 21st-22nd Chancellor Angela Merkel announces that it is time to get on with things and summons an Intergovernmental Conference. An IGC is a meeting of all the different Ministers from Member States who work together to modify a treaty. A treaty can only be modified if it has the unanimous accord of every Member State so it is vital that all the governments, who represent the interests of their individual country, work together. On June 26th a precise outline of what everybody wants is produced and handed over to the ICG who then gets everyone negociating and produce a compromise. Legal experts transcribe the whole thing in to a treaty.
Portugal takes over on July 1st 2007. On October 2nd, the Portuguese presidency announced that legal experts have come to a agreement on the text. On the 5th, all 251 pages of it (including reambules and protocols) are translated in to all 23 languages of the EU. One can imagine some pretty sleepless nights in the translating department.
Next step is the summit at Lisbon, where all EU heads of State meet for an approuval of final version of the Treaty - or not. Things did look pretty hairy for a while, as each country in turn produced last-minute extravagant or stupid demands, or simply threatened to block the process if they didn't get what they wanted.
The UK is a well known bitch in these matters. The UK is however allowed many 'opt-outs', which means it can simply opt out of any part of the treay it doesn't like. That is why the UK (and Denmark) are not part of the eurozone, and why the UK will not ratify the bit of treaty that deals with fundemental human rights.
Poland however was more problematic. The mad twins Kaczynski are anti-Europe & are supposed to stand for Polish pride & national values. They made extravagant demands for a 6th permanent Advoacte general at the European Court of Justice who would be polish. They also wanted the Compromise of Ioanina (name of the Greek place where the summit it appeared at was hosted) to be added to the treaty and not left in an annexe. The compromise basically allows a few countries, if they strongly disagree with what the majority have voted for, to delay the decision and impose a further round of negociations.
Austria wanted fewer German students over on Erasmus trips. Nobody took much notice of them except to point and laugh I would imagine.
Italy however pulled a real wobbly over seats at the European parliament. A parliament of 785 members is huge and unmanageable and the idea is to bring it down to 750. Italy however was furious that they should lose 6 MEPs (down to 72, which is one fewer that the UK and two fewer than France). Prodi threatened to veto the whole thing.
But lo & behold it all went fine in Lisbon, and on the very first night the all cracked open the champagne. Poland got a bit of what it wanted (the Ioanina compromise is in a protocol, not an annexe, and can only be changed unanimously). The UK got its opt outs as usual. As for Italy, they simply rearranged the seating pattern : the EP president no longer counts as one of the 750, whoopi! an extra seat, here you go Italy.
Things are not however over. The leaders have agreed but what about the countries? the citizens? well, for most Member states the treaty will be ratified by the national parliament, and it seems unlikely that doing it this way will be a problem. The mad twin Prime minister Kaczynski is gone, replaced by a bunch of pro-EU liberals, so Poland will probably ratify by Parliament. Only Ireland is constitutionally bound to hold a referendum on the treaty and again the outcome should be favourable. Other countries however may be problematic.
Maybe Gordon Brown will crack under the pressure and submit the treaty to referendum where it will promptly be shat upon. What about France? Though Sarkozy would never put the ratification of the text in to the hands of the citizens (who are restless...) maybe the socialists will once again stupidly divide over the question. Petitions are already on the net campaigning for a referendum.
Nothing is yet sure, though the series of ratification should start mid december, probably with Germany and France.
mercredi 17 octobre 2007
So here we are talkin' about work
As previously mentioned, the poor blog is suffering from neglect as I have started a "stage" and sit about fifty hours a week in front of a computer screen, which effectively removes any motivation for blog - writing I may have at weekends and the like.
But today a brilliant idea struck me. Why not blog from work? Actually I had thought about this already but in a fit of eager-beaverishness I had quickly dismissed the idea. Really, how could I use the time that is rightly my dear employers' to such shallow ends? Well, now that I've been here three weeks and am bored and demotivated (not so much by the job but... well more of that in a bit) I think it is time to get back to the old ways (i.e. blog about stuff rather than work, cf months of May & June).
Soooooo, here we are again.
Maybe a word on the new job.
I work for touteleurope.fr (check it out if you speak french, it's actually a really cool site).
TLE (as it will henceforth be referred to) is an website that provides news, information, analysis, reports & al on all things european union-y. It's a relatively new, under a couple of years I think but is part of a much bigger structure known as Sources d'Europe. It is funded by the French governement and the European Commission, though the latter is graciously withdrawing it's funding on 31/12/07. The first week I was here there was a certain amount of fuss over whether the site could survive without the Commission's money, but this is now better as private companies have been talked into giving TLE some funds. TLE will however have to move. Yes, a word on our office.
TLE is, basically, located in the most beautiful office in the world. The last building on the prestigious Boulevard St Germain, it is opposite the Assemblée nationale (parliament) and a two minute walk from the Place de la Concorde. We have a huge flat on the last floor of the building, all white paint and marble columns, maybe 200 sq meters for all twelve of us working here.
My office, which I share with E. and M. , two others stagiaires, and A. and R., my superiors (R. is the editor), is circular, set in the tower-roof of the building and has seven windows through which I can see various Parisian landmarks : place de la Concorde, Eiffel Tower, Invalides, the river, Sacré Coeur and the Assemblée nationale. Very nice indeed.
My job involves all kinds of exciuiting stuff, press reviews, article writing, report updating, news feeds selecting, buyt all of this has boiled down in toa kind of routine (not in the bad sense of the word) which is as follows :
Whoever arrives frst (of the three stagiaires, the other two cruise in a bit later) picks up the newspapers from the local kiosk and starts to read : la Croix (catholic), L'Humanité (communist), Libération (left wing), Le Figaro (right wing), Le Monde (centre left), Les Echos (business and economics), La Tribune (ditto) and whatever weeklies there are that day. At the office one scans them to pick up anything to do with the EU. This is for the press review which is put online (along with a synthesis of the day's story) and sent off to the suscribers (it's free).
This actually takes most of the morning, the longest part being putting it all in the software (typo 3) and sending it/putting it online. Once a week we also send off a newsletter which is invariably late (due to be sent on tuesday pm, to wednesday am, to wednesday pm) and chaotic to write up.
In the afternoon we get down to our little tasks. I have the honour of sifting through 300 RSS feeds (links that come from other sites), chucking the ones that have nothing to do with the EU and classiying those that do. I also write up the 'in briefs' that I collect from the various institutonal sites. other than that we work on a certain number of projects. My first one (very traumatic) was on driving licences in the EU. I am currently doing one on an EU immigration policy and updating the enlargement pages.
In fact, I will soon blog about the immigration policy, which is illogical and weird at best.
Hours are usually 9 to 6 though i've done 8.30 to 8. My salary is 370 euros a month, which is just a third of the minimum wage and lunch vouchers are not included.
But the biggest issue is the boredom. You would think that a newsroom belonging to a company employing just 12 people to handle all the info coming out of the EU would behectic, but it's not. Or maybe it should be, but the superiors float around giving us the odd job, but rarely come back to us with feedback on what we've done. So when I have done whatever was asked of me, it's just boooordom. Thank god for blogs.
But today a brilliant idea struck me. Why not blog from work? Actually I had thought about this already but in a fit of eager-beaverishness I had quickly dismissed the idea. Really, how could I use the time that is rightly my dear employers' to such shallow ends? Well, now that I've been here three weeks and am bored and demotivated (not so much by the job but... well more of that in a bit) I think it is time to get back to the old ways (i.e. blog about stuff rather than work, cf months of May & June).
Soooooo, here we are again.
Maybe a word on the new job.
I work for touteleurope.fr (check it out if you speak french, it's actually a really cool site).
TLE (as it will henceforth be referred to) is an website that provides news, information, analysis, reports & al on all things european union-y. It's a relatively new, under a couple of years I think but is part of a much bigger structure known as Sources d'Europe. It is funded by the French governement and the European Commission, though the latter is graciously withdrawing it's funding on 31/12/07. The first week I was here there was a certain amount of fuss over whether the site could survive without the Commission's money, but this is now better as private companies have been talked into giving TLE some funds. TLE will however have to move. Yes, a word on our office.
TLE is, basically, located in the most beautiful office in the world. The last building on the prestigious Boulevard St Germain, it is opposite the Assemblée nationale (parliament) and a two minute walk from the Place de la Concorde. We have a huge flat on the last floor of the building, all white paint and marble columns, maybe 200 sq meters for all twelve of us working here.
My office, which I share with E. and M. , two others stagiaires, and A. and R., my superiors (R. is the editor), is circular, set in the tower-roof of the building and has seven windows through which I can see various Parisian landmarks : place de la Concorde, Eiffel Tower, Invalides, the river, Sacré Coeur and the Assemblée nationale. Very nice indeed.
My job involves all kinds of exciuiting stuff, press reviews, article writing, report updating, news feeds selecting, buyt all of this has boiled down in toa kind of routine (not in the bad sense of the word) which is as follows :
Whoever arrives frst (of the three stagiaires, the other two cruise in a bit later) picks up the newspapers from the local kiosk and starts to read : la Croix (catholic), L'Humanité (communist), Libération (left wing), Le Figaro (right wing), Le Monde (centre left), Les Echos (business and economics), La Tribune (ditto) and whatever weeklies there are that day. At the office one scans them to pick up anything to do with the EU. This is for the press review which is put online (along with a synthesis of the day's story) and sent off to the suscribers (it's free).
This actually takes most of the morning, the longest part being putting it all in the software (typo 3) and sending it/putting it online. Once a week we also send off a newsletter which is invariably late (due to be sent on tuesday pm, to wednesday am, to wednesday pm) and chaotic to write up.
In the afternoon we get down to our little tasks. I have the honour of sifting through 300 RSS feeds (links that come from other sites), chucking the ones that have nothing to do with the EU and classiying those that do. I also write up the 'in briefs' that I collect from the various institutonal sites. other than that we work on a certain number of projects. My first one (very traumatic) was on driving licences in the EU. I am currently doing one on an EU immigration policy and updating the enlargement pages.
In fact, I will soon blog about the immigration policy, which is illogical and weird at best.
Hours are usually 9 to 6 though i've done 8.30 to 8. My salary is 370 euros a month, which is just a third of the minimum wage and lunch vouchers are not included.
But the biggest issue is the boredom. You would think that a newsroom belonging to a company employing just 12 people to handle all the info coming out of the EU would behectic, but it's not. Or maybe it should be, but the superiors float around giving us the odd job, but rarely come back to us with feedback on what we've done. So when I have done whatever was asked of me, it's just boooordom. Thank god for blogs.
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