Migration plan risks UK being seen as nasty country, says EU commissioner.
Source: Guardian
Britain risks being seen as a nasty country after David Cameron mounted a new crackdown on EU migrants getting benefits, a senior Brussels official has said.
Laszlo Andor, the EU employment commissioner, said the prime minister's efforts to outlaw so-called benefit tourism were the product of hysteria and an "unfortunate overreaction".
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he also suggested Cameron was misleading the public about the potential scale of immigration from Bulgaria and Romania when current controls on migration from those countries are lifted in January.
"The unilateral rhetoric is not really helpful, because it risks presenting the UK as a nasty country in the European Union. We don't want that," he said.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/27/migration-uk-nasty-country-eu-commissioner
A European commissioner has warned the UK risks being seen as a "nasty country" after Prime Minister David Cameron outlined plans to restrict access to benefits for EU immigrants.
Mr Cameron is proposing powers to deport homeless migrants and cut rights to unemployment and housing benefits.
But Employment Commissioner Laszlo Andor urged the government not to encourage "hysteria", telling the BBC that people in the UK were not being told the "full truth" about the benefits of immigration.
In an article in the Financial Times, the prime minister said the last Labour government had made a "monumental mistake" in not restricting access to the UK labour market when Poland and nine other countries joined the EU in 2004, resulting in much larger numbers coming than expected.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25114890
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)Western Europe is really showing it's ugly side. Hey, EU, remember how you wanted to untie europe under the EU banner, which really meant that Paris, London and berlin would fight over which diva got to dominate? Guess what, you are paying the rpice of unity, and showing that for all America's faults, you cannot do the immigration thing like we do.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)The subject here is the UK. I wasn't aware you in a position to provide complete socialised healthcare , from conception to death, for all immigrants.
Please provide links to how you currently achieve this.
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)which is more than Western Europe wishes.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,321 posts)It's a question of whether they are eligible for housing benefit and unemployment benefit as soon as they come. I guess the equivalent would be Mexicans in the USA, being part of NAFTA. Are they all allowed to come in, without restriction? Does the general US population want them to be? When do they become eligible for benefits?
pampango
(24,692 posts)And polls show that, just like in the US, it is conservatives that have the most problem adapting to immigration.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)As compared to being seen as what?
''A tattered and declining former-colonial power, whose family jewels have long ago been substituted for paste and undermined by inbreeding, whose silver is so tarnished that the corruption outweighs what precious metal is left -- and whose gold is located in US Federal Reserves or so we've been told -- trying to stave off the karmic justice that it has so justly earned?''
- Or is that too much truth?
K&R
Russell Brand: ''Politicians exist solely to protect the interests of the rich & powerful''
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)why on earth immigrants would want to come here in the first place. Doubtless others will , or have already used , your quote to support that.
What's actually necessary are reciprocal agreements between the EU member states that nationals of those states are able to claim benefits including housing and healthcare mirrored on those offered by their own country to their own citizens.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)...especially the US and it's evil-twin, Great Britain are on the receiving end of what was once referred to in polite society as their ''comeuppance.'' For all the deviltry, theft, murder, rape, genocide, general mayhem and societal discord that they've sewn throughout the planet for oh, so many, many years now. This is the beginning of it anyway.
- Comeuppances don't come often enough. But when comeuppances do come, you know when they've arrived......
Nihil
(13,508 posts)... just when were Romania & Bulgaria part of the British Empire?
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)...if they'd had anything that the Brits wanted enough to invade them as they did other lands. Except instead of countries closer in development to themselves, they tended to only fight and colonize those whom they could easily defeat due to the primitive nature of tribal people's armaments. As in America, India, etc. But we knew that.
As for these Brit/EU country immigration policies, Cameron's simply trying to deflect attention away from something else. Namely his dismal leadership in-general, but something else in particular as well. That's the reason for the harsh laws being proposed and crack downs on moral issues like porn.
Politicians always go for the hot buttons when they're trying to deflect attention away from something else. As for my point about the karmic reverberation on its way to the British realms as well as America and the other fat greedy bastard states, nothing's gonna stop that.
- Fortunately, I haven't died (although that was in doubt for a while), and I'm glad I've hung around long enough to see it because I have a front row seat!