Brussels, (EFE).- The Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament decided this Wednesday to keep the petition open to investigate the complaints of violation of fundamental rights in the settlements of temporary immigrant workers in the provinces of Andalusia, Huelva and Almería.
The president of that parliamentary commission, the Spanish MEP of the PP Dolors Montserrat, also agreed to share the file with the parliamentary commission on Employment and called on the European Commission to continue informing the European Parliament of the evolution of the situation.
The petition, transferred to the European Parliament by Izquierda Unida and the NGOs Asociación Multicultural Mazagón and Almería Acoge, seeks to improve the conditions of nearly 10,000 immigrants who work in agriculture in Huelva and Almería and who live “in inhumane conditions” in shacks without access to basic services, denounced the petitioner and coordinator of UI in Andalusia, Toni Valero.
The municipalities “look the other way” and refuse to register these employees, mostly women, due to “institutional racism”, he said.
Mechanisms in the CAP
The European Commission, for its part, explained that it is monitoring the situation, which affects people of Moroccan, Bulgarian or Romanian nationality but also Spanish, and noted that “national, regional and municipal authorities have begun to resolve the situation.”
He also recalled that the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) for 2021-2027 includes for the first time a conditionality mechanism that requires that workers be given a written description of their tasks and that they be provided with safe housing.
The Community Executive is finalizing the monitoring of the implementation of the Seasonal Workers Directive, which will include Spain, and is working to “identify potential holes in the application” of the regulations.
However, Brussels recognized the “quite worrying reality” due to the “extremely high rate of people at risk of poverty among the immigrant population and, above all, the great difference with the native population, being 56% for the first and 22% for the second”, which has also increased “very significantly in the last two years, by 8 percentage points”.
Spain has the highest rate of workers at risk of poverty in Europe, with 34% compared to the European average of 20%, said the experts who represented the Executive at the parliamentary hearing.
Increase of inspectors
They also stressed that Spain must monitor the capacities of the Labor Inspectorate, which is “a fundamental instrument”, and in particular to guarantee that certain minimums are respected in the field of immigrant workers in an irregular situation or access to decent housing and celebrated that in February 2023 Spain has announced an increase of 2,200 inspectors and sub-inspectors.
All MEPs who spoke, regardless of their political color, asked to keep the petition open.
The German Peter Jahr of the European People’s Party, the only non-Spanish parliamentarian who intervened, asked “that the Commission deal intensely with this issue”, which leaves the European Parliament open on temporary settlements in Andalusia.
PSOE parliamentarian Cristina Maestre called on the European Commission to “subdue control of this type of action”, while BNG deputy Ana Miranda, on behalf of the Greens group, denounced a situation of “labour slavery”.
The popular Juan Ignacio Zoido considered that “immigration in Andalusia is becoming an increasingly present problem”, said that “we have to eradicate this situation” and defended the business confederations, which have signed collaboration agreements.
The United Left MEP, Manu Pineda, of Andalusian origin, pointed out that “it is not only a problem of money, but also of political will” and lamented that those affected are “people who live worse than cattle.” EFE