10th July 2012: Yesterday at the European Parliament in Brussels, Andrew Brons questioned Cecilia Malmström, Commissioner for Home Affairs, following her presentation to the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee (LIBE).
He asked:
"We heard this afternoon of the alleged need to attract skilled workers from third countries (non-EU countries).
"The EU contains some of the countries with the most educated work forces in the world. Do we really need to bring skilled workers from outside the EU?
"In the case of skilled and highly educated workers from the Third World, is it right to attract the most valuable, least numerous and expensively educated workers - especially health service workers that those countries cannot afford to lose. Perhaps cures for sickness should be a luxury reserved for people from First World countries.
"Last month, we heard from the Executive Director of Frontex that most of the illegal migrants crossing the Turkish-Greek border were 'undocumented' (i.e. they had destroyed their identification papers). Can we be assured that people from undisclosed countries cannot be granted asylum, on the ground that we cannot judge whether or not a country is dangerous if we don't know which country it is?"
Response from Cecilia Malmström:
She insisted that Europe did need to import skilled workers. However, she avoided mentioning medical workers.
She said that there were ways of finding out the countries of origin of migrants.
