During the second session of the European Council, the topic was about the condition of entry and stay of third country nationals and each countri agrees to adopt specific instruments in order to respect the Directive 2014/36.
The Directive forms the basis of a common immigration policy guided by a spirit of solidarity between the Member States and cooperation with third countries. At this regard the Latvia’s Minister, De Angelis Ilaria, asked to the others members if it was right to establish a common law or adopt different measures for each country.
Members of the EU underlined the importance of the absence of discrimination and the need of an equal treatment between the seasonal workers. The maximum duration of stay should be fixed by the Member States and limited to a period between five and nine months. The directive does not provide family reunification.
Each country faces this issue basing on its socio-economic situation. So this is an important theme especially for countries that are going through a difficult national condition and for this reason they do not know how to improve work environment of seasonal workers.
For example, Greece is going through an economic crisis and does not guarantee high amount of seasonal worker employment. However, Greece is trying to create bilateral agreements with third countries, like Albania and Egypt, and is attempting to guarantee the return of the workers to their homeland.
It is very important also to concentrate the comunity attention on the social aspect and promote social integration for seasonal workers. Many countries, like Denmark, Finland and Slovenia, think that this point is essential also for the wealth of the nation.
At the same time, other countries want to underline the difference between citiziens and seasonal workers of third country, in fact they are against the harmonization of collective procedures for seasonal workers’ visa and their main object is to increase the national security. Romania, Poland, Czech Republic and Belgium feel the fear connected to the problem of terrorism spreading all over Europe and privilege internal European Union migration in the interest of integration in the EU area.
We can find a similar position for the Minister fron the Netherlands, which privileges a strict legislation, in order to limit the influx of foreign workers in the labour market and to safeguard local Netherland people. As we can see these States are very selective and they tend to admitt only specialized workers.
It is very important for the unity of the European Community to be united in implementing the same laws, but at the same time it is extremely useful and constructive to keep European doors open to third-country workers, in order to improve European Community and working conditions for seasonal workers.
Lavinia Giampiccolo
Sapienza moves to debate 