Millions
of outsiders eligible for EU passports
Passport loopholes offered by three EU nations could be indirectly expanding the
boundaries of the European Union - potentially giving nearly 5 million outsiders, mostly
from Europe's poorest countries, the right to live and work in the union.
No reliable and comprehensive global tally exists of just how many people living elsewhere
are eligible for EU passports.
EU members Romania and Bulgaria already are handing out passports to ethnically linked
groups or minorities outside their borders, and Hungary plans to do the same as of January
2011. The main beneficiaries are citizens of Moldova, Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine and
Turkey, countries with living standards well below the EU average. With an ongoing
economic crisis, the mood in the EU states has been to put further expansion of the Union
on hold. The fringe countries are still years away from possible EU membership.
A figure of 4.7 million people eligible for EU citizenship under passport giveaway
programmes was arrived at by adding up the number of Romanian-speaking Moldovans, Slavic
Macedonians, ethnic Hungarians living in Serbia and Ukraine, and the number of Turks who
fled Bulgaria to escape a forced assimilation campaign there during the communist era.
Others outside Europe could also be looking to escape hardship at home. Spain enacted
legislation in January 2009 giving even the grandchildren of Spaniards whose ancestors
left due to political or economic hardship caused by the Civil War the right to obtain
passports from Madrid. The response has been huge. Spanish foreign ministry figures from
January 2010 show that over the first full year of the law, there were 161,463
applications – 95% from Latin American countries - and that 81,715 were granted. The
ministry has extended the window for applications by another year to December 2011, due to
"overwhelming demand".
More than 2.6 million people of Italian origin - most of them also in Latin America -
already hold Italian passports. And, like Spain, Portugal grants passports to children and
grandchildren of emigrés -- most of them in Brazil, a country already holding 200 million
people.
Most EU nations approved a new "blue card" workers visa programme early in 2010
to lure highly skilled labour to fill growing job gaps, and to pay for pension plans. The
concern about passport giveaways is that they will mainly attract people with little or no
skills.
A substantial level of job and social benefits protectionism already exists within the
European Union. Romanians and Bulgarians are still required to get work permits in 10 EU
nations. Austria and Germany have gone further, placing the same restriction until 2013 on
Czechs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Hungarians and Poles.
Approximately 120,000 people in Moldova now have Romanian passports. The government in
Bucharest says that another 800,000 of the nation's 4 million people have applied since
Romanian citizenship was extended at the beginning of 2010 to Romanian-speaking Moldovans.
About 1.4 million Slavs in Macedonia are also eligible for EU passports from neighbouring
Bulgaria, which considers them Bulgarians with a dialect. |
Immigration
to the UK from central Europe fell in 2009
Provisional data from the Office for National Statistics, released on 25
February 2010, suggested that in the year to June 2009 the number of immigrants entering
the UK from Central and Eastern Europe fell by a third. There were 68,000 new arrivals
from the eight central European states joining the EU in 2004 ("A8" countries),
compared with 100,000 in the year to June 2008.
Overall, the figures showed there were still more people entering the UK annually
than leaving. Just over half a million people entered the UK in the year up to June 2009,
and about 370,000 left. This gave a net increase in the population of about 147,000.
Other figures show that the number of people seeking British citizenship rose by
almost a third in the last quarter of 2009 (October-December), reaching 51,315. Almost
45,000 people who had applied were granted a British passport over the same three months -
and 204,000 people became citizens over the course of the year.
Monitoring permitted immigration rates is mainly done through the Worker Registration
Scheme which counts economic migrants from the eight central and eastern European members
of the EU. There were 28,495 applications under the scheme in the last quarter of the year
- almost half the rate in the last three months of 2007.
The number of approved workers from Poland fell to 12,125, down from 16,970 in the
previous year - but that was offset by a rise in applications from Latvian and Lithuanian
workers.
Alternative data comes from the issue of National Insurance numbers - meaning people who
are probably employed and paying tax. These showed that there were 186,000 NI numbers
issued for central European workers in the year to June 2009.
The latest Migration Statistics Quarterly Report was released jointly by the Office for
National Statistics (ONS), the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Home Office.
The report presents a range of migration-related data. Provisional estimates from the
International Passenger Survey suggested:
| * |
There was little change in long-term immigration to the UK in the
year to June 2009 (518,000 in the year to June 2009 compared with 531,000 in the year to
June 2008) |
| * |
There was little change in long-term emigration from the UK in the
year to June 2009 (371,000 in the year to June 2009 compared with 363,000 in the year to
June 2008) |
| * |
Long-term immigration of A8 citizens declined in the year to June
2009 (68,000 in the year to June 2009 compared with 100,000 in the year to June 2008, a
fall of 32%) |
| * |
Long-term emigration of A8 citizens increased in the year to June
2009 but the rise was not statistically significant (58,000 in the year to June 2009
compared with 43,000 in the year to June 2008) |
The report can be downloaded as a PDF document:
Migration Statistics Quarterly
Report no.4: February 2010 |
New EU regulation allows accents for some web domain names
A new EU regulation now makes it possible to register domain names that contain
diacritics - as long as they end in .eu. Demand in the Czech Republic, where a domain
ending in .cz cannot contain diacritics, has been substantial. Just one a day after the
regulation came into effect on 10 December, some 38,000 new domains were registered.
The system which makes that possible is called IDN and is already being used in Spanish
domains, but now website hosts in countries like the Czech Republic and Germany, where
national domains cannot contain diacritics, will be able to use them - provided they
choose a web address that ends in .eu.
Experts from the Czech domain registry CZ.NIC cite a lack of demand and difficulty of
access from abroad as the primary reasons why there has been no effort to introduce
diacritics in .cz domains. But Regina Fuchsová, the regional manager for the central
European office of EURid, an organization that oversees the domains ending in .eu, says
that demand for websites with diacritics has been rather high. “Yesterday, the first day
that registration of IDNs was possible, there was a really big interest in IDNs, within
the first hour, we saw the registration of 38,000 domain names.”
Germans were the quickest to jump at the newly available domain names, with the Czech
Republic coming in second and France third.
Based on a decision by the European Commission, this new regulation also opens the gate
for domain names that are not spelled with letters of the Latin alphabet, particularly
Greek and Cyrillic.
In some cases, the new regulation may lead to legal disputes between the owners of already
existing domains and the owners of newly registered ones with the same name, now with the
correct accents. Lawyers at the Czech Republic’s Arbitration Court say they are curious
how these complications brought by the new regulation will pan out.
Regina Fuchsová explained that “From the practical point of view, users have to check
if their browsers and email clients support IDNs, and if it’s not the case, they have to
download the newest versions of the programs.”
|
Anti-federalist
MEPs form new EP group
55 MEPs from eight EU member states have agreed to form a new “anti-federalist”
group in the European Parliament. UK Conservatives will be the biggest party in the new
group with 26 MEPs, including Northern Ireland's Jim Nicholson of United Conservatives and
Unionists. A mixed bag of other MEPs have agreed to join. They include 15 MEPs from the
Poland's PiS opposition party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość
- Law and Justice), 9 from the Czech ODS (Obcanská Demokratická Strana - Civic
Democratic Party), and one each from minority parties in Belgium - Lijst Dedecker (LDD),
Hungary - MDF (Magyar Demokrata Fórum), Latvia - Tevzemei un Brivibai/LNNK (TB/LNNK), and
the Netherlands - ChristenUnie. One member of Finland's Centre Party also intended to join
the group, although the remainder of that party's MEPs would remain in the liberal ALDE
group.
To form a group in the European Parliament and gain EU funding, the group had to attract a
minimum of 25 MEPs from at least 7 EU states.
Senior UK Conservative William Hague said the new anti-federalist bloc in the European
Parliament should be "good for European democracy". But former Tory MEP Caroline
Jackson warned it could create "bad blood" with traditional centre-right allies
of the EPP group.
A UK Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Ed Davey commented that the Conservatives
had left the mainstream of European politics and joined forces with “a rag-bag of
parties with extreme views”. |
European
Parliament 2009 elections
|
Schengen area enlargement
 |
The Schengen area
On 21 December 2007 nine newer EU member states, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenija joined the Schengen
area.
Before then the Schengen area was composed of 15 European countries. Although not part of
the European Union two other countries, Norway and Iceland are part of the Schengen area
through a co-operation agreement. The Principality of Monaco allows informal entry to
Schengen visa holders. Two other countries, the United Kingdom and Ireland, while part of
the European Union do not belong to the Schengen area, and Schengen regulations only apply
to the European territories of France and the Netherlands. |
The Portuguese EU presidency announced in Brussels on
4 October that passport and customs controls at the borders between the new and the old EU
member states will be abolished on the 21 December, two weeks before the original date.
The Schengen area will open to nine of the new EU states.
Portuguese Interior Minister Rui Pereira, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency,
confirmed that the Schengen expansion should take place just before Christmas this year.
The original plan had been to start the new year 2008 with an expansion of the Schengen
zone. The border-free zone currently includes 13 EU countries plus Norway and Iceland.
Many of the 2004 accession states have said that an end to border checks is essential for
their citizens to feel part of the EU.
In Malta on 24 September the Ministers of the Interior for the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovenija and Slovakia had
met to endorse progress on the agreement on the border information exchange system called SISone4all.
It was agreed that the SISone4ALL project could be successfully
implemented and that controls and checks at the internal borders between the Schengen
Member States should be lifted by the end of December 2007 for sea and land borders, and
by the end of March 2008 for air borders.
Cyprus is working to join Schengen in 2009 along with non-EU member Switzerland.
Romania and Bulgaria may qualify to be included in 2011. |
|
How the European Union has grown
| 1951 |
Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and
Luxembourg founded the European Coal and Steel Community and, in 1957, the European
Economic Community. |
Dates of joining |
|
1973
1981
1986 |
Denmark, Ireland, United Kingdom
Greece
Portugal and Spain |
| 1992 |
EEC is renamed European Union, aims to adopt
a single currency and a common foreign policy. |
| 1995 |
Austria, Finland and Sweden |
2004 |
Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenija,
plus Mediterranean islands Cyprus and Malta, joined EU on 1 May. |
| 2007 |
Accession on 1 January of Bulgaria and România,
subject to conditions on further adjustments. |
Applying to join |
|
1990
1994
1995
1996 |
Cyprus, Malta apply to join
Hungary and Poland
Romania, Slovakia, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria
Czech Republic and Slovenija |
1999 |
EU agrees Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania,
Slovenija, Slovakia, Cyprus and Malta can join by 2004. Romania and Bulgaria must wait
until 2007. Turkey ruled unready to open entry talks. |
2002
2003 |
Entry negotiations completed with 10 states.
Accession treaties signed.
EU regards Stabilisation and Association agreement with Kosovo desirable, under UN
Security Council Resolution 1244/99. |
| 2004 |
Accession on 1 May of 8 central European
countries: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia,
Slovenija, together with Mediterranean states Cyprus and Malta
Croatia given official status of candidate country on 18 June. |
| 2005 |
Croatia and Turkey began accession negotiations.
Macedonia (FYROM) granted candidate status |
| 2009 |
Iceland submitted application for membership on 23
July. |
| 2010 |
New government in Moldova encouraged to prepare for an
application. |
The future |
|
| 2011 |
Croatia may be ready to join. |
| 2012-15 |
Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and
Serbia may begin formal accession negotiations. |
|
The European Commission Strategy Report
and reports on accession progress for each of the applicant countries can be
downloaded from the Europa
website. |
|
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