With the countdown under way for renewal of the European Union’s justice, freedom and security agenda, known as the Stockholm programme, MEPs and national parliamentarians have decidedly clear-cut left or right opinions on this road map for 2010-2015, especially on immigration and asylum.

The parliamentary meeting, on 16 and 17 November in Brussels, gave some national elected officials – particularly those left of centre – the opportunity to criticise the EU’s increasingly repressive policy towards immigrants who try to reach its shores. Some, like Belgian Socialist Camille Dieu, went straight to the point: “We reject this security-based and right-wing approach,” she denounced, noting that “no one is glad to go into exile”. She added that policies to attract the most qualified immigrants would aggravate brain drain in the countries of origin and undermine the rights of third-country nationals in the EU. She called for equal treatment between Europeans and non-Europeans in salaries, working conditions, social protection and respect for the right to live with one’s family.

Mehmet Kaplan, a Green member of Sweden’s parliament, also railed against “asylum seekers being sent back home so easily”.

In the opposite camp, French national Pierre Lequiller (UMP, right) called for the strengthening of Frontex, the European agency in charge of the EU’s external borders. Otherwise, the EU cannot explain the existence of the Schengen area, which has no internal borders, he commented.

The home affairs and justice ministers will be putting the finishing touches on the Stockholm programme, on 30 November and 1 December. While the Swedish EU Presidency put the accent on European citizenship, France and Italy in particular pressured the EU summit in late October to seek even more repressive proposals from the Commission, such as a “review of the possibility to organise common charter flights financed by Frontex”.

NO STATUTE FOR NON-EUROPEANS

The same positions are found in the European Parliament. Cornelia Ernst (EUL, Germany) denounced “clichés” on the fight against illegal immigration found in the Stockholm programme, which does not address the question of “Europe of immigrants”. Heidi Hautala (Greens, Finland), chair of the Human Rights Subcommittee, noted that “this document violates the rights laid down in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights” by covering EU citizens alone. “People without a recognised legal status are handed over to trafficking and crime,” protested Hautala. That view was echoed by Hélène Flautre (Greens, France), who highlighted “the glaring absence [in this text] of a reference” to non-Europeans.