Portugal is ready to receive immigrants but will not do so “with its doors wide open”, Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro said on Thursday, expressing support for EU mechanisms to guarantee the return of migrants in irregular situations.
“We are available to welcome immigrants to Portugal from countries where people don’t see their opportunities guaranteed. We need qualified labour for various sectors of economic activity, and we are open to this, but this openness must not be confused with a policy of wide open doors,” said Montenegro.
Speaking in Brussels on his arrival at the European Council, where a discussion on migration management was due to take place, the prime minister backed the creation at EU level of ‘mechanisms to ensure that those who do not comply with the rules can be returned, can be returned in a way that, of course, guarantees respect for human rights and respect for dignity’.
“There has to be a consequence for irregular immigration because if there isn’t a consequence, it means opening the door, and everyone who arrives in Europe irregularly ends up having their situation regularised, and so it is necessary that, in cases of greater pressure, there can be mechanisms to dissuade irregular behaviour,” he said.
Pointing out that “each member state has its own reality” when it comes to migration, Montenegro added: “What we [in] Portugal are most concerned about at the moment is that there is actually a return policy that is, from the point of view of guaranteeing human rights, capable of… pursuing the goal of getting people to behave within the rules.
“We are a country that needs to welcome immigrants and also needs, as has been the policy of this government, to have regulated migratory flows in order to be able to provide more dignified reception conditions, and that is what we are willing to do,” he added.
This regular October EU summit comes at a time when Germany and France are tightening controls on their borders and migration rules, countries like Spain and Greece are also facing migratory pressures, Italy is making deals with third countries to process asylum applications, and both Poland and Finland are seeking to temporarily suspend the right to asylum in response to what they say are attempts by Belarus and Russia to use migrants to destabilise the West.
This is a sensitive debate in the EU, given the different perspectives and contexts in which EU member states manage migration. It aims to analyse how best to combat illegal immigration, strengthen efforts to return people in this situation and improve legal channels for migration and integration.
(Ana Matos Neves – edited by Pedro Sousa Carvalho | Lusa.pt)
Source: euractiv.com
