Immigration in Europe : Almost general tightening

Jean-Pierre Langellier / Antoine Jacob / Olivier Truc / Thomas Ferenczi / Jean-Pierre Stoobants
Entretien avec J.P Garson, responsable de la division migrations internationales de l’OCDE, propos recueillis par Laetitia Van Eeckhoutt

Jean-Pierre

Le Monde “ French Newspaper - Wednesday, June 7, 2006

Article, Web Article

French

A series of articles on the tightening of entry requirements in the territory of the European Union. One of the reasons put forward is to soothe and diminish the tension that exists in the population with immigrant communities, especially Muslims.
The articles deal with five distinct regions of the country especially:

- Southern Europe: Border that are rather open
An example is taken from Italy, whose official number of migrants has doubled in five years (the threshold of three million was reached in late 2005)

- Great Britain : A system of points
The immigration applicants will be classified into five categories and rated according to several criteria (age, qualifications, experience, English proficiency, previous salary).

- Germany: A demand for integration
The debate focused on policies to implement for a better integration. Language test, a commitment of loyalty towards the state, citizenship lessons financed by the applicant for naturalization and subjected to a final examination.

- The Netherlands: The malaise towards Islam
After a period of integration "with maintaining the identity, the relationship between" Dutch origin "and" new Dutch "are increasingly strained.


- Denmark: Halt on family reunification.
Regular tightening of laws on foreigners, especially those concerning family reunification.

The articles come with statistics, a chronology of the immigration policy in France since 1945 and a map of foreigners in the 25 states of the Union (Year 2003 figures)

The article highlights the issues raised in Europe by the influx on its southern coasts of thousands of "boat people”. The decrease of European population made aware that nobody had any interest in closing borders completely, but at the same time that immigration could cause tensions.
Both, the differences of the policy between countries, and the difficulty in establishing a common European immigration policy are highlighted

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Frédéric Rousselle Marika Kovacs

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