Move to stop firms hiring illegal workers

Date: 21/01/1999

By Renée Cordes

THE European Commission will next week call for measures designed to prevent companies from hiring illegal immigrants to do short-term work.

Internal Market Commissioner Mario Monti will unveil two proposals for new guidelines to govern the activities of firms which take on non-EU residents for construction or other projects.

Under the proposals, which are due to be approved by the full Commission next Wednesday (27 January), firms which send staff abroad to work would be required to ensure that they returned to the country in which they were hired once the specific scheme was completed.

The move is aimed at discouraging companies from seeking cheap labour by hiring migrant workers in other countries on low wages. It is also part of a campaign to promote the free movement of foreign workers throughout the Union.

The promise to send workers home would apply both to full-time staff and self-employed people. “This would provide a kind of insurance that everything is legal,” said a Commission official, although he stressed that it would still be left to individual member states to lay down immigration and residency rules.

But Brussels-based employment lawyer Julie Nazerali warned that the proposals were likely to face a rough ride in the Council of Ministers. “This is going to be difficult to get through,” she said.