Migrants, the bipartisan push from EU governments on “regular” migration | EUROtoday

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The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, summarized his line in an both/or: the crossroads in Madrid is between being a “rich and prosperous” nation with the opening of the borders or “closed and poor” with their closure. Sanchez’s assault was a part of final week’s speech to Congress, the nationwide Parliament, the place the socialist chief criticized the closure sponsored by the European proper and reiterated the precedence of reception for each “humanitarian” and financial and demographic causes. The paradox is that the recipe of the Spanish chief, one of many few rising faces of the EU centre-left, finally ends up overlapping with the insurance policies launched by governments aligned along with his actual reverse.

The transversal entrance in favor of “regular” migrants

The widespread denominator materializes in the necessity to encourage “regular” migration, understood because the inflow of migrants in response to the interior wants of the labor market. In the distinction in premises and strategy, Sanchez’s enchantment to confide in common migrants coincides with the rationale of the so-called flows decree of the Meloni authorities (27/09/2023): a measure aimed on the entry of 452 thousand overseas residents for « causes for seasonal and non-seasonal subordinate work and self-employment”, divided between 136 thousand in 2023, 151 thousand in 2024 and 165 thousand in 2025.

The decree wanted by the Italian government is imposed by numbers, but the model is followed by executives sitting on the various sides of politics (and the parliamentary chamber) within the EU. Poland, governed until 2023 by the nationalists of Law and Justice, recorded an exploit of work permits for non-EU citizens, culminating in the peak of 275 thousand documents issued in 2023 alone to workers arriving from Asia and Latin America: a a 401% jump compared to 2019 levels, according to a survey by the Center for Eastern European Studies at the University of Warsaw. The Romanian government, led from 2023 by the social democrat Marcel Ciolacu, has prepared two blocks of 100 thousand visas for both last year and the current one: a ceiling revised downwards compared to the first estimate of 140 thousand permits only for the current 12 months .

Villa (Ispi): the contradiction is more in rhetoric than in politics

«In Europe we are trying to tighten up on irregular migration and at the time we are increasingly aware of the quantity of workers needed in many sectors» points out Matteo Villa, researcher at the ISPI study centre.

The contradiction, says Villa, is not found so much in policies as in official rhetoric: the forces hostile to migration “proceed to work on the argument that works greatest, that in opposition to foreigners as a hazard, and never on what they’re compelled to simply accept: overseas staff “need” firms.”