The European Commissioner for Asylum and Migration Magnus Brunner said on a Wednesday internal E.U. parliament document that Spain’s mass amnesty plans for 500,000 illegal migrants may have wider “consequences,” the Spanish newspaper El Mundo reports.
Brunner, in a missive dated April 8 obtained by the newspaper, noted that Brussels has not received any official note from the government of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez over its mass amnesty plans. The Commissioner issued the letter in response to a request presented before the European Parliament by lawmakers from the Spanish center-right People’s Party (PP).
“Without prejudice to the division of competences established by Union law regarding policies and individual decisions on regularizing the status of third-country nationals in an irregular situation, decisions taken by Member States, in an area without internal borders, may have consequences for other Member States and for the Union as a whole,” the document reportedly read.
“A national residence permit does not authorize travel within the EU, but only allows the holder to live and work in the Member State that issued it. The EU has clear rules that must be followed,” Brunner stressed.
The Commissioner noted that, for example, if it is discovered that one such beneficiary holding a national residence permit is residing illegally in another part of the EU, or if that person applies for asylum in another Member State, the person “must return to the Member State that issued their residence permit.”
“National authorities must act in a spirit of loyal cooperation to ensure that this happens quickly,” Brunner wrote, and detailed that the cost of said process “should be negotiated among the countries.”
El Mundo noted that while the Spanish government has confirmed that the amnesty will grant work permits for illegal migrants in Spain, it has made no mention of the potential consequences for other EU countries.
Sánchez first announced in January that he intends to grant mass amnesty to 500,000 illegal migrants presently in Spain provided that they comply with a list of notably lax requirements. The socialist Prime Minister intends to grant the amnesty through a through a Royal Decree — which allows him to bypass the need from parliamentary approval despite an absolute majority of the Spanish parliament and nearly 70 percent of Spaniards being against the amnesty.
At press time, the decree, which is expected to be published sometime during April, with leftist non-government organizations reportedly expecting it to be issued as early as April 15. Per the Argentine outlet Infobae, Spain’s Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration Ministry is expected to begin the amnesty process “in the coming weeks.”
A report published by the Spanish newspaper El País last week indicated that, based on internal documentation from the Spanish Inclusion Ministry, the ministry is expecting to receive as many as 750,000 requests for the 500,000 mass amnesty plan.
“The scale of the operation […] will have to handle a number of applications and files that exceeds the estimated number of potential beneficiaries,” the Ministry documentation reportedly read.
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