As Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero visits the Canary Islands, it emerges Spain is considering offering temporary work permits to illegal immigrants.

12 July 2006

MADRID — As Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero visited the Canary Islands on Wednesday it emerged Spain is considering offering temporary work permits to illegal immigrants.

Social affairs minister Jesus Caldera told an EU meeting in Rabat, Morocco, those immigrants who could not be repatriated may be offered short-stay work and residency permits.

Zapatero was visiting the Canary Islands where 11,000 West African illegal immigrants have arrived this year alone.

He promised the regional authorities he would not make compromises over providing resources to the islands which have been overstretched by the immigration crisis.

But Caldera's comments may been seen as acting as an incentive to more illegal immigrants to try to get into Spain.

Under Spanish law, migrants can be held for 40 days in a detention centre.

If Spain has no repatriation agreement with their country of origin, they must be released.

Most disappear and work in the black economy.

But Franco Frattini, EU justice commissioner, told the Rabat conference, countries cannot carry out legalisations without investing in migrants' futures.

[Copyright EFE with Expatica]

Subject: Spanish news