|
A
REGIONAL coalition of civil-society organizations in
Southeast Asia has criticized the European Union
Parliament decision mandating the forcible deportation
of more than 60,000 undocumented Filipino workers in
Europe. The coalition said the decision, embodied in a
draft legislation approved on first reading, negates the
goals of the proposed EU free-trade deal with members of
the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean),
seeking to open trade and investments including the
seamless entry of Asean workers to Europe.
Ellene
Sana, director of the Centre for Migrant Advocacy, noted
the irony: the EU Parliament decision comes amid a
series of Joint Committee Meetings (JCM) for EU and
Asean trade experts who will gather in Manila this week
to include cooperation in trade in services.
“The EU
is driving away our workers out of Europe, but they want
us to welcome with open arms their products and their
investments,” said Sana in a statement over the weekend.
The EU
Parliament approved on first reading last week the EU
rules on deportation of undocumented workers in all its
27 member-countries. This includes a provision of
detention for foreign workers and their families who
failed to legalize their stay under a prescribed period.
The
decision will affect close to 40,000 undocumented
workers in France, mostly in Paris and Nice; and some
20,000 in Rome and Milan in Italy. These workers are
mostly caregivers and domestic help.
Sana
cited a provision in the proposed Partnership
Cooperation Agreement (PCA) that is being negotiated by
the EU with Asean members, where the EU has taken a
defensive position on the migrant labor issue under the
movement of natural persons (MNP) in the services
chapter.
“The EU
wants to make it clear that when they speak of labor
export, they only refer to ‘skilled and highly skilled’
workers. They want the professionals who can help run
their companies but they don’t want low skilled,
blue-collar workers entering their borders,” Sana
stressed.
EU is
negotiating PCA deals with individual Asean members,
seeking to promote the EU’s key values of human rights,
democracy and rule of law. These would include the
“dignified” deportation of all undocumented workers from
Asean member countries from Europe, the ratification of
the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal
Court (ICC) and the monitoring and promotion of human
rights in these Asean states.
The
Delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines
will host a two-day seminar from June 23-24 in Dusit
Hotel in Makati City on the Trans-Regional Asean-EU
Trade Initiatives (Treati) for key trade officials and
private investors in Asean countries, with focus on the
services trade or outsourcing. The EU noted that trade
in services is a vital component of trade that must be
included in the EU-Asean free trade agreement, as it is
now the key driving force of many Asean economies,
particularly the Philippines.
The
Philippines has posted more than US$3 billion in
revenues in 2007 from the business process outsourcing (BPO)
industry, mostly coming from the US and United Kingdom.
The
Treati seminar is in preparation for the JCM meetings of
the EU and Asean trade officials from June 25-27, to
iron out the elements of a proposed free-trade agreement
between the two regions. “Contrary to the recent
statements made by European Commission representative to
the Philippines Ambassador Alistair Mcdonald that the
country should see Europe not in terms of towers
(Leaning Tower of Pisa, Eiffel Tower, etc), but in terms
of bridges, with the new EU directive, Filipinos should
see Europe once again as ‘Fortress Europe,’” added
Sana. |
