Spain needs immigrants. Common sense says so and the President of the Government said it yesterday Wednesday at the Congress of Deputies. Pedro Sanchez He spoke of a catastrophic future for Spain if the immigration pathway was closed and promised to regularize immigrants more quickly through new immigration regulations.
Sánchez, however, did not propose any concrete measures to alleviate the migration crisis in the Canary Islands, although he criticized the PP for its refusal to negotiate a new immigration law. According to the president, Spain suffers from a population aging problem which endangers the sustainability of social security.
Alberto Nuñez Feijóo For his part, Pedro Sánchez was disfigured by the manipulation of immigration figures. “In 2006, with Shoemaker31,678 immigrants entered through the Canary Islands. With the PP, no year has it exceeded 1,000 arrivals. From there, with Sánchez in 2020, 23,000 arrivals; in 2021, 22,000; and in 2023, 40,000.”
Feijóo also asked Sánchez to imitate other countries “around us”, in reference to Italy of Georgia Melonito put an end to irregular immigration. “Look at what works best in other EU countries and don’t go on a tour of Africa to promote Spain as a destination.”
The truth is that in this specific area, and regardless of the Spanish need for immigrants, It is Feijóo who aligns himself not only with Meloni’s Italy, but also with the rest of the EU’s great powers..
Last May, the EU approved the Pact on Migration and Asylum, which calls for strengthening European borders and toughening asylum conditions. The regulations will not come into force until 2026, but several European countries are already asking to go further, by creating deportation centers in third countries for illegal immigrants.
The failure of European repatriation policy is demonstrated by a simple fact. In 2023, the expulsion of 484,160 illegal immigrants was ordered across Europe, of which only 91,465 were ultimately repatriated, or 18.9% of the total.
Fourteen EU states, and among them Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Greece, They also signed a letter calls for a tougher immigration policy and a stricter version of the future return directive. Several of these countries favor sanctions against states that refuse to sign repatriation agreements with the EU and do not accept the return of their citizens.
That the political wind has changed in the EU since the days of Angela Merkel and its open door policy on immigration is proof of this. It is also true that the EU needs immigration, but orderly, regulated and in accordance with its needs. Europe cannot become the welfare state for the rest of the planet.
And that’s why Spain cannot become the Iberian exception to a common European immigration policy. Firstly, because it will accentuate the pull effect in Spain and will lead to the arrival in our country of many more immigrants than our public coffers can accommodate without collapsing social services.
Secondly, because the closure of borders and the tightening of immigration policies in the countries around us would make Spain a buffer country in which hundreds of thousands of immigrants would accumulate with no other option than to remain in Spain, without further ado. or personal views.
Immigration is a debate strongly intoxicated with ideological prejudices, but also with negationism. Immigration is both chiaroscuro and requires an effort on the part of the host society and the migrant who arrives in a society with legal, social and moral rules different from those of his country of origin.
Spain will therefore be wrong if it distances itself from the common European policy on immigration and decides to apply a plan different from that of the other EU powers, encouraging in our territory what is discouraged in those who surround.
