Will Spain legalise 500,000 undocumented migrants?
In Spain, around 500,000 undocumented migrants could be given the same legal status as Spanish citizens after a popular initiative was approved by an overwhelming majority in the lower house of the Spanish parliament on Tuesday. If the Senate also votes in favour, migrants who arrived before 1 November 2021 will receive residence and work permits and access to social benefits. Commentators praise the cross-party consensus.
At odds with EU policy
El Mundo is torn:
“The decision is to be welcomed in view of both the political consensus it has achieved and its origins in civil society, including the Church. ... It's a question of social justice, and migration flows are one of the keys to economic success. ... However, mass regularisation doesn't fit well into the framework of EU policy, which is a particularly sensitive issue given Spain's location on the EU's southern border. Yesterday, the European Parliament approved a new migration pact that has been rejected by hundreds of NGOs. Essentially, it tightens the conditions for admission in a bid to curb irregular immigration to the continent.”
This is how migration policy is made
El Español voices approval:
“One would be hard put to find arguments against the reasonable objective of this popular initiative, which responds to the demands of employers and organisations that take care of immigrants. ... We need a balanced migration policy that creates incentives to attract workers while at the same time promoting their integration in order to avoid tensions in society which can be exploited by the radicals. ... The strong support for the legalisation shows that, fortunately, xenophobia is a peripheral phenomenon in our country. ... We can therefore only congratulate ourselves on the fact that the migration issue, which is politically exploited by extremists in many European countries, is being addressed with a policy based on consensus in Spain.”