Memorandum by the Commission for Racial
Equality (CRE)
The Commission For Racial Equality (CRE) welcomes
the opportunity to feed into the inquiry being carried out by
the European Union Committee on the European Commission's Annual
legislative Work Programme for 2007 (LWP 2007). For the purposes
of this inquiry, the CRE will aim to address the policy areas
in the LWP 2007 that are most relevant to its work, namely: working
towards the elimination of racial discrimination, promoting equality
of opportunity and promoting good relations between persons of
different racial groups.
1. In this submission the CRE will aim to make
comments of a general nature on the overall aims and ambitions
of the LWP 2007, and then comment in more detail on the strategic
and priority initiatives contained in the annex of the LWP 2007.
2. The CRE welcomes the reference in the LWP
2007 to several critical issues facing the EU-27, including: unemployment,
demographic ageing, migration and sustaining the environment.
The CRE welcomes the general focus in the LWP 2007 on social,
employment and equality policies on the one hand, and the particular
focus on migration and integration policies on the other hand.
3. The CRE is, however, concerned that despite
reference in the narrative of the LWP 2007 to the social, environmental
and employment challenges facing the EU, the 24 pages of policy
proposals contained in the annex to the LWP 2007 contain few new
policy initiatives on these areas.
4. The CRE considers that the LWP 2007 should
be clearer in making the link between the inter-connected nature
of many of the policies it outlines in the narrative of the LWP
2007. For example, it would be more compelling to consider simultaneously
the issues that have a knock-on effect on each other to ensure
policy consistency between the EU's different fields of competence.
Immigration, environmental change, demographic ageing and equal
access to employment and anti-discrimination must be addressed
as part of a picture of the issues face by the EU-27.
5. The CRE is concerned that the section "Addressing
challenges of European Society", only looks at structural
barriers to the labour market for younger people. The CRE considers
that the narrative of the LWP 2007 needs to consider the considerable
barriers in access to the labour market faced by other groups
and individuals, such as European ethnic minorities. The Commission
has already recognised this in its 2006 Communication for Consultation
on Action at EU level to promote the inclusion of the people furthest
from the labour market. Attention must not be diverted from the
persistent elevated rates of unemployment of European ethnic minorities
and the over representation of these groups in some sectors of
the labour market. The CRE looks forward to the report due on
2007 of the EU high level groups of experts that was convened
in 2006 to consider labour market inclusion, and urges the European
Commission to feed the report's conclusions into the proposed
social stock taking exercise.
COMPREHENSIVE STOCKTAKING
OF EUROPEAN
SOCIETY
6. The CRE welcomes strongly the proposal by
the European Commission in the LWP 2007 to undertake a "comprehensive
stocktaking of European society", with the aim of creating
a basis for a new agenda for solidarity, access to the labour
market and equality of opportunity. The CRE hopes that the final
result will act as a catalyst for a fresh approach to how social
policy is developed in the EU, based on a picture of the social
situation in the EU that is more comprehensive than ever.
7. The CRE considers that a "social stocktaking"
has the potential to be one of the most progressive aspects of
the LWP 2007 and the CRE will reiterate the points made below
in the European Commission Consultation on the stocktaking exercise
foreseen for late January 2007.
The CRE has the following comments to make about
the proposed comprehensive stocktaking of European society:
(a) The aim of the exercise is to analyse
major trends in societal change and assist in identifying appropriate
policy responses. The CRE would like to underline that data collection
in several EU member states is often lacking entirely, scant in
places or even prohibited by law (in the case of data collection
on race and ethnicity). This poses a barrier to identifying societal
change in some EU member states and therefore in its endeavour
to take stock of the social situation of the EU, the European
Commission needs simultaneously to urge member states to collect
data more rigorously on all grounds of inequality in order that
the exercise obtains results that are more truly reflective of
European society.
(b) The CRE urges the European Commission
to follow up on this first stocktaking exercise with an annual
"state of the EU" report, which should generate a normative
debate with member state governments and with European citizens
and led by the EU, on what should be the EU's role in addressing
issues of poverty and inequality in the EU.
(c) The CRE considers that the social stocktaking
exercise needs to have at the forefront of its thinking the issue
of migration and immigration in the EU. Legal "third country
migrants" (otherwise known as economic migrants), constitute
a significant part of the. EU's population and knowledge about
the numbers coming into the EU and leaving the EU, on what is
the social situation of economic migrants and the challenges they
face to integrating into European countries is at best scant,
and generally non-existent.
(d) The CRE urges the European Commission
in its social stocktaking exercise to give more than snap-shot
description of the social situation in the EU and ask in addition
more probing, normative questions about what are the main drivers
behind the social transformations in European societies and how
should the EU address these. The EU also consult widely on and
consider why some Member States have been so much better than
others at achieving equality of outcomes for some groups, and
in particular ethnic minorities. Some member states have, for
example, been more successful in integrating migrants and their
offspring, enabling them to achieve more in the education system.
This is an opportunity to exchange best policy practice and for
the EU to address difficult issues and potentially act where member
states are failing on their own to tackle persistent challenges
to equality and integration.
(e) The EU social stocktaking exercise is
unprecedented, and the results could potentially create a European
consensus to take a fresh look at what social model the EU needs
to deliver for the 21st Century. However, the CRE is concerned
that the success of the stocktaking initiative could be impaired
by an apparent lack of legislative initiatives. The CRE considers
that vague support for equality of opportunity is almost meaningless
unless it is accompanied by policies and where fitting, legislation.
The CRE considers it to be crucial to include more policy proposals
and potential legislation in the exercise, drawing on examples
of best policy practice from the EU-27.
IMMIGRATION, MIGRATION
AND INTEGRATION
8. The CRE is pleased that the European Commission
is taking up migration policy in the LWP 2007, starting with the
positive assertion that "The pressures of demography have
added to the need for the European labour market to attract economic
migrants". There are some promising concrete proposals to
bring forward more legislation on migration, including:
(a) A legislative proposal for a general
framework directive addressing labour immigration. The objective
of this is to promote better integration of economic immigrants
into the labour market, with fair and clear rules and rights for
them. The CRE considers that such a directive is overdue, but
that the focus needs to be on the rights (as opposed to the rules)
side of the equation; elevated rates of exploitation of economic
migrants need to be redressed at the level of the EU, as does
the issue of integrating economic migrants into European society.
(b) On the general issue of migration and
integration, the CRE considers that the issue of intra-EU migration
is missing from the LWP 2007 and should be included in future
work programmes. Notwithstanding that there is no concrete legal
basis in the treaty to address the issue of integration of EU
nationals (as is the case with Article 63 of the EC Treaty for
third country migrants), the UK, as one of only three member states
to open it labour market fully to A8 migrants in May 2004, is
grappling with a number of challenges linked with this migration
from within the EU, including exploitation of migrant EU workers,
social cohesion issues in poorer areas of cities (especially London)
and in rural areas. There is also a widely-reported pressure on
some public services owing to mass internal migration from the
EU. The CRE therefore considers that infra-EU migration deserves
attention from national and EU policy makers as part of the wider
debate on the social situation in the EU.
11 January 2006
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