VLD wants EU-regulated migration

25 May 2007

BRUSSELS – Flemish liberals Open VLD want to require non-EU immigrants to start learning the language before emigrating to Europe. The EU should help pay for this language instruction.

This is contained in a proposal from the Flemish liberals for a system of controlled migration. Open VLD ministers Karel De Gucht and Patrick Dewael presented the proposals to business organisation VBO on Friday. The VBO was largely positive about the plans.

If Belgium were to close its borders, it would miss out on 984,000 potential workers by the year 2050, according to a recent study by Randstad. Open VLD sees these figures as confirmation that a system of controlled migration should be set up alongside the policy already in place.

The first step will be to lift the restrictions currently in place for workers from the new EU states. The next step would be to formulate an EU-regulated system of “controlled migration.” Depending on the needs of the labour market, each member state would be able to decide how many workers per sector it needed.

But several conditions would apply. Most notably candidate migrants will have to be better prepared for integration in their host country. In concrete terms that would mean that the candidate migrant will have to follow a language course in his home country. This course would be paid for by the EU and the country of origin.

Subject: Belgian news