The immigration policy he defended Pedro Sanchez On his African tour, he went against the grain of the rest of Europe. When European countries, including the socialist United Kingdom Keir Starmerare beginning to tighten reception conditions following the policies of Giorgia Meloni In Italy, the Spanish president is the only European leader actively promoting this policy.
This is what emerges from the reference to “safe, orderly and regular migration” that Sánchez defended this Wednesday from Gambia. The day before, the president had proposed in Spain 250,000 jobs to Mauritania to welcome immigrants in legal conditions and thus stop the arrival of irregulars.
And although later in Dakar the president declared: “he is “It is essential that those who arrived irregularly in Spain return, mainly because this return sends a discouraging, clear, clear and strong message to the mafias and those who put themselves in their hands”, the truth is that nothing in their statements allows us to affirm that there is a plan for this return, which is certainly required by European legislation.
Sánchez intends to agree on “circular migration programs, pioneers in Europe.” Or rather, to extend the current agreements with countries such as Senegal, Ecuador, Honduras or Morocco to other countries, such as Mauritania and Gambia.
These “circular migration” agreements consist of hiring a quota of immigrants to work in Spain for a few months in seasonal work. Workers who would later return to their country. This is a similar scheme to that used for seasonal workers or strawberry pickers..
The president is not wrong when he points out that “migration is fundamental for our economy”, supported by data from the Bank of Spain which predicts that our country will need twenty-five million immigrants in 2053 to maintain the welfare state. But immigration is a vector of economic development that must be managed with intelligence and calculation.
The complete opposite of this type of big advertisements with minimal credibility, coming from the president of the country with the highest structural unemployment rate in Europe.
Would it not be more reasonable, before welcoming hundreds of thousands of immigrants, to implement active employment policies for young Spaniards? A population group that the government, instead of better equipping to face a hostile labor market, has flooded with unproductive subsidies motivated by elections.
Moreover, this welcoming enthusiasm shown by Sánchez seems to consider the Spanish demographic winter as inevitable. But it is the duty of the Government to undertake a policy of promoting the birth rate to try to bring it closer to the replacement rate.
Having assumed these two commitments, he would in any case proceed to regularize the almost 700,000 foreigners who have remained undocumented in Spain since 2021.
And as a last option, we could consider attracting more immigrants. A voluntary solution that, moreover, would only produce long-term effects, while the migration crisis threatens Spain today.
This is why Sánchez’s announcement is wrong, first of all in the message. Because in principle, Sanchez’s African tour was intended to discourage the arrival of new immigrantsso as not to stimulate him or to promise, without further details, the return of those who, once settled in Spain, are difficult to expel.
The place chosen to proclaim this migratory cooperation is also wrong. Because Sánchez did not present his proposals at the UN or in a speech in an international forum, but addressed the largest country that issues canoes on the Canary Islands route to guarantee employment opportunities for its citizens in Spain.
And the timing of these announcements is equally wrong, in the midst of a real migration emergency. Sánchez was traveling to Mauritania and Gambia to try to address a crisis, not to promote increased immigration. What is the reason for this sudden turnaround that has hit communities that are suffering the consequences of the illegal immigration that has multiplied under your government?
You’re right Alberto Nuñez Feijoo when he predicted that Sánchez’s promises would generate a “pull effect” that would eventually make the problem more unmanageable. But Sánchez’s biggest miscalculation may have been to downplay the sense of social discontent that the initiative would arouse, even among his own voters.
