The EU has set itself social targets through the Europe2020 Strategy including investment in employment and education, improved social inclusion and substantial reduction of poverty. Migrants, and particularly undocumented migrants, face an increased and disproportionate risk of poverty and social exclusion but in practice, these concerns have not yet been sufficiently addressed in the implementation of the Strategy’s social targets.
PICUM's new position paper entitled “Undocumented Migrants and the Europe 2020 Strategy: Making Social Inclusion a Reality for all Migrants in Europe” aims at informing the debates on poverty and social inclusion, education and on labour migration. The paper develops links with the three social targets of the Europe 2020 Strategy – poverty, employment, and education - offering insight to how the targets could positively impact undocumented migrants and how the inclusion of this group could help achieve the objectives of the Strategy.
The paper provides recommendations on concrete measures to include undocumented migrants in each of the three social targets in the areas of legislation, policy, data and funding.
Among other, the paper recommends to create a better regulated EU labour market by creating more entry and stay opportunities for third country migrant workers across skill levels and labour sectors through the reintroduction of a framework directive on admission and stay; it calls to establish a ‘firewall’, meaning, for instance, that a migrants worker’s right to report labour exploitation and an undocumented child’s right to go to school are clearly separated from immigration law enforcement; and it advises to integrate the specific concerns of migrants, particularly undocumented migrants, in all EU instruments and initiatives designed to improve progress on the Europe 2020 Strategy, including the implementation of the EU Social Investment Package, the Scoreboard for Social and Employment Indicators and Country Specific Recommendations.
