By Bruno Waterfield - 31st August 2005
Legal immigrants to Europe should be required to take an “oath of faithfulness”, the EU’s justice and security chief Franco Frattini said on Thursday.
The European Commission has unveiled a raft of proposals on immigration, including EU standards for deportations and suggestions for the integration of immigrants.
As concerns over radical Islamist extremism among young second generation immigrants grow, Frattini has suggested moves to an EU-wide loyalty oath for migrants.
“I am personally in favour of exploring the possibility of having a dialogue with representative communities of immigrants and then trying to identify something whereby… one can get every immigrant to somehow declare they will respect national law, EU law and the Charter of Fundamental Rights,” he said.
Frattini cites a French charter that immigrants are asked to support – a document 90 per cent of migrants sign up to – as an model for EU proposals.
“I personally feel it is something worth exploring at European level. This may be taken up in our December initiative on integration,” he said on Thursday.
“There are a number of options covering this notion of faithfulness, an oath of faithfulness to certain values or laws.”
The Italian commissioner is not shy of using the ‘L’ word for immigrants seeking to live and work on EU territory:
“I talk about loyalty. I talk about loyalty to towards principles, towards rules. Other aspects, such as laws, are not a matter of loyalty, they are a matter of legality,” he said.
Frattini has tabled controversial proposals setting minimum EU standards for the deportation of failed asylum seekers – including individuals expelled under anti-terrorism or public order measures.
The EU executive with responsibility for both justice and security stressed that his measures had to balance “very delicate” issues.
Safeguards will allow counter-terrorist deportations to take place – ‘returns’ in Brussels jargon – but the expulsions will require compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights.
“This directive does not prevent a member state from expelling suspected terrorists,” he insisted.
The commission has published figures suggesting that of 662,046 orders for deportation an annual 225,000 removals actually took place – a ratio of three to one.
“[The directive] gives the clear message that people staying illegally in the EU should return to their country of origin,” he said.
“If we don’t ensure a human, dignified but efficient return of illegal migrants this will undermine the integrity and credibility of our immigration and asylum policies.”
Frattini also be presented three policy papers on the integration of legal immigrants, migration and development, and regional protection programmes.
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