Proposition de résolution relative à la dénonciation des accords bilatéraux de main-d'oeuvre conclus avec le Maroc, la Turquie, la Tunisie, l'Algérie et la Yougoslavie.
General information ¶
- Authors
- VB Alexandra Colen, Filip De Man, Peter Logghe, Bert Schoofs
- Submission date
- Nov. 25, 2010
- Official page
- Visit
- Status
- Rejected
- Requirement
- Simple
- Subjects
- Algeria Yugoslavia Morocco Tunisia work family migration international agreement migrant worker resolution of parliament
Voting ¶
- Voted to adopt
- Groen CD&V Vooruit Ecolo LE PS | SP MR
- Voted to reject
- Open Vld VB
- Abstained from voting
- N-VA LDD
Party dissidents ¶
- Bart Somers (Open Vld) voted to adopt.
- Peter Luykx (CD&V) abstained from voting.
Contact form ¶
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Discussion ¶
March 17, 2011 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)
Full source
Rapporteur Daphné Dumery ⚙
Mr. Speaker, colleagues, I will briefly explain what this resolution is about. It is actually an important resolution and it is a pity that it was not approved in the committee. She talks about the employment agreements of the 1970s that made the migration waves most known.
Mrs Alexandra Colen’s resolution was actually aimed at terminating the bilateral agreements. During the discussion in the committee, the N-VA group submitted an amendment aiming not to terminate the bilateral agreements, but to renegotiate them. The cancellation could indeed have the effect of compromising important agreements with these countries. It could also be an opportunity to discuss a number of other matters, such as the re-admission agreements of out-of-course asylum seekers and the readmission agreements of foreign criminals.
This amendment and the resolution did not succeed in the committee. The amendments were rejected with six votes for and five against. The resolution was eventually rejected by six votes against one and four abstentions.
On the basis of Article 88, Ms Alexandra Colen requested that this proposal be included on the agenda of the plenary session. He calls for this to be re-debated.
Alexandra Colen VB ⚙
Mr. Speaker, colleagues, as Ms. Dumery has pointed out, this is a proposal for bilateral employment agreements with Morocco, Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria and Yugoslavia.
The purpose of my proposal for a resolution was to challenge those agreements, which are silently renewed each year, but can in principle be cancelled by the government each year. I will explain you why.
Recently, several Chamber Committees have held meetings to discuss proposals to strengthen the immigration and integration policy in this country. In 2006, the provisions of the Foreigners Act on Family Reunification were already amended. In a number of points, stricter conditions were introduced for applying for family reunification. Both partners must have reached the age of 21 years. Those who caused family members to suffer had to have sufficient housing to accommodate their family members. In the same sense, the government now also wanted to tighten a number of things.
However, the above-mentioned attempts are nothing more than an attempt to give the outside world the impression that the government wants to introduce a stricter immigration policy. After all, in practice, most of these proposals and legislative provisions are not applied, as the target group escapes it due to the existence of the bilateral agreements. There are still so many rules to be approved, they do not apply to foreigners who wish to join in Belgium with a citizen of one of the countries with which Belgium has concluded such a bilateral treaty.
The bilateral employment agreements were concluded, among other things, with Morocco, Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria and Yugoslavia. Approximately half of foreigners applying for family reunification have the Moroccan or Turkish nationality. Also the introduction of an income condition would not apply to foreigners from the aforementioned countries who wish to make use of family reunification. Any tightening of the rules is reduced to an empty box.
Furthermore, the bilateral employment agreement with Turkey even specifies that Turkish workers can also be permitted to leave not only husband or wife and children, but also ascendants, thus also their parents and grandparents.
The provisions of the treaties concerned have a direct effect. As such, they shall prevail over all other provisions of Belgian domestic law relating to the same subject.
Foreigners from countries with which Belgium has concluded a bilateral employment agreement must not meet any other conditions than those contained in the aforementioned conventions for a request for family reunification. As a result, any rule that we still invent, approve, and with a lot of bombardment in the press propose as a tightening of immigration policy, is ultimately not applicable at all.
Family reunification is the most important legal immigration channel that currently exists in Belgium. Restriction of family reunification is therefore an absolute requirement to reduce the influx of newcomers to an acceptable and manageable level. Moreover, and we all know this, it is true that family formation, in which foreigners born and raised in our country import a spouse from the country of origin, constitutes a non-underestimatable barrier to the integration of the already present foreigners, because the process of integration of the family must always start from the beginning.
In 2008, approximately 50 % of family reunification visas were issued to foreigners from countries with which Belgium had a bilateral employment agreement at the time. These agreements were made years ago in the context of host workers programmes and are now hopelessly outdated.
In short, since those employment agreements with Morocco, Turkey, Algeria and other countries actually make a more restrictive immigration policy a complete illusion, and since the context in which they were created has now changed drastically, my proposal is to terminate these treaties. The possibility of cancellation is provided in the various agreements. An identical clause was explicitly included under which they are silently renewed from year to year, unless they are terminated by either of the contracting parties three months before the date on which otherwise a silent one-year renewal would take place. So it is not even difficult: every year the government can decide to cancel those agreements.
If you really mean it with the tendency that we now see in many parties that formerly called the Flemish Interest racist when we criticized the lax migration and integration policy, when those parties really think and really want to do something about the migration and integration problems in this country, then it is really not difficult to act. The only thing they have to do is ensure that the government cancels those agreements this year. Subsequently, it may be possible to consider re-negotiation, which will condition better conditions, as proposed, among other things, in the amendments of the N-VA on arrangements relating to the readmission of asylum seekers who have been processed out of the N-VA and the like.
So that is actually the content of the resolution I had submitted in the committee. I am curious which political parties will support the resolution during the vote and which they will reject.