EU enlargement - access to Ireland 'is on a contingency basis'.
international |
eu |
news report 
Thursday February 05, 2004 20:21
by Fergus
newsforthedeaf at yahoo dot com
Britain announces EU-turn
The front page of todays Irish Times runs a story on yesterdays announcement by Britain to restrict immigration in an 'enlarged' EU.
Britain is now the fourth of five EU countries to back down on promises made during EU enlargement negotiations in Dec. 2002.
According to todays Irish Times frontpage headline, 'Ireland is now the only EU state not to restrict access'.
However in the article an Irish govt. spokesman commenting on Britains announcement admits that Ireland,
"retained the power on a contingency basis to impose necessary controls should there be a major disruption in the labour market."
Todays Irish "suspect headline" Times reports that Britain yesterday signaled plans to restrict access to welfare benefits to citizens of the 10 new EU members.
Britain is now the fourth of five EU countries to back down on promises made during EU enlargement negotiations in Dec. 2002.
Background to the Back-down.
In Dec. 2002 it was claimed that negotiations for EU enlargement had been completed.
Ireland, Britain, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands announced at the time that they would welcome workers [people ?] from the new member states from May 1st 2004.
During the past two months, however countries have drawn back from their promises.
Denmark's EU-turn,
last Dec. announced "we can all celebrate that Danish social security schemes are fenced".
Holland's EU-turn,
on January 23rd announced that a max of 22,000 workers [people ?] would be admitted during the first year of enlargement.
Sweden's EU-turn,
last Friday announced restrictions preventing "people from East Europe to work for peanuts and giving them access to our social benefits".
Britain's EU-turn
Prime Minister Tony Blair said he would consider whether Britain's benefit system was so generous that it would attract unmanageable numbers of immigrants after joining on May 1st.
"We will take whatever measures are necessary to make sure that the 'pull factor' which might draw people here is closed off," he told the House of Commons yesterday.
Mr. Blair's spokesman said yesterday London was not considering denying citizens the right to work, but was examining ways to tighten controls of the welfare system.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,3605,1141167,00.html
Commenting on the issue that Ireland now remains the only EU country offering equal work and welfare rights to citizens of the new EU members a government spokesman said.
"Our position is still the same. We are confident that the free movement of workers from May 1st will not cause disruption to the Irish labour market.
However,
we have of course retained the power on a contingency basis to impose necessary controls should there be a major disruption in the labour market."
[ie conditional enlargement]
He said the current position on the right to receive welfare benefits was that this would be the same for citizens of new member-states as for existing members.
[ie after implementing measures such as the recent cutbacks to rent allowance ?]
"If there were strong indications that the Irish welfare system would become overburdened, then it may be necessary to put in place restrictions."
[Restrictions ?]
[On more immigration ?]
[On the overall Irish welfare system ?]
Ireland's EU-turn ?
The Dept. of Enterprise and Employment believes the bulk of Ireland's labour needs will soon be fulfilled from within an enlarged EU.
[ie for business in Ireland to remain competitive, immigration is a solution to reduce wage costs]
The Irish government seems to have responsed to fears that immigrants will "work for peanuts".
This week saw the introduction of a new minimum wage of 7 euro per hour.
Much to the dissatisfaction of business representative group IBEC.
Co-incidentally ?
This week also saw the government introduce cutbacks to the Irish welfare system.
"New eligibility criteria", mean that access to rent allowance is now restricted.
"A situation where very many will....have access to the entire social security net.", seems to have been limited in an underhand fashion.
The chicken shit Irish government has attacked what it see's as an easy target.
The unemployed, lone parents AND immigrants get kicked in the face with the solution.
Comments (8 of 8)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8Todays Irish Times, reports
In late Autumn 2003 an inter-departmental committee of officials began an examination of the implications of EU enlargement on the Irish State, including housing and social welfare costs.
"They have been looking at this for months. They are not looking at the impact on the labour market, but, rather what happens on housing, health, social welfare fronts."
said a government spokesman.
Yesterdays Guardian reports
Ministers from the Foreign Office, the Department for Work and Pensions and the Home Office have been meeting to discuss measures that would withhold benefits from
migrants from the 10 accession countries when they join the EU in May.
Britain is examining tighter benefit controls to prevent increased immigration from mainly eastern European countries joining the EU, the prime minister said yesterday. Responding to pressure from the rightwing press and the Conservative leader, Michael Howard, Mr Blair said the government was looking at the "potential risk" and might close off concessions if necessary.
Downing Street said it wanted to ensure no one from EU countries could immediately claim means-tested benefits. At present access to means-tested benefits such as housing benefit is available under the habitual residence test if someone is deemed resident for at least six months. This may be extended by the government to at least 18 months
[On more immigration?]
[On the overall Irish welfare system ?]
>We asked for a govt. representative to join the discussion but none was made available...
from an RTE Radio 1 feature on May 1st enlargement.
economist "We are exposed to possibilities that could be very serious for the govt. and society, thats absolutely true.
The difficulty is this - that we're in this community , there is a set of rules, which means that we must abide by them, we have a liberal social welfare regime, we are also constitutionally bound in terms of immigration by the Good Friday Agreement and we now find ourselves with people coming in, possibly looking for social welfare, and we will have a choice between either accommodating them or changing the rules for social welfare for everybody.
Now there will be some people and I will be one of those saying maybe we should contemplate that..."
>So are you saying if there's a wave of immigration into the State on May 1st and social welfare rules have to be changed, they'll be changed for everybody ?
economist "They'll have to be, you can't discriminate".
>Everybody ? You can't discriminate ?
economist "You can't discriminate, no. How are you going to discriminate ?"
>So the threat to social welfare is even stronger then ?
economist "Something will have to give. There's no doubt about that."
[The overall Irish Welfare system]
Tom McGurk gets the economists viewpoint on this mornings Sunday Show.
I don't have the facilities to listen on line myself, but I think you'll find the interview around
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/infocenter/audio_weekend.html
Excellent article. Story is also covered in todays Sunday Business Post - in 'The Market' section.
This mentions not only social welfare, but also the minimum wage - and raises the spectre:
'So, through no fault of the immigrants, the minimum wage policy, combined with the immigration policy, will push unemployment up.
'
You want immigration - dismantle the social contract. Reduce social welfare, cut the minimum wage...
Somebody is playing the race card - maybe a log of tabloid and other coverage will be usefull here. Of course the thread will have to be troll monitored - don't feed them, they'll be pruned.
We're about to be swamped by hundreds of thousands of Roma gypsies from Slovenia. They have no culture of working for a living. We have to keep them out.
'They have no culture of working for a living. We have to keep them out.'
much like the irish - no wonder they come here!
May 1st might be even more ironic than we first thought
Yeah, I read the SBP article.
But I think its got a limited viewpoint.
I reckon the Irish govt. know what they're doing.
And that means meeting the demands of multi-national corporations.
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