Immigration: does Luxembourg head for a tour of the screw?

“Strengthen controls at external borders and fight against illegal immigration”. On the road to Denmark, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Léon Gluden, said his support for the new German migration policy. Declarations which echo the praise also addressed to the very conservative Bruno Retailleau, on the French side, and which arouse an interrogation: does Luxembourg are heading, like its neighbors, towards a migration tour?

Yes and no, when reading the immigration bill tabled on Monday, which includes some additional locks, but also facilitations for qualified work immigration, of which Luxembourg cannot do the economy. “This is the difference between speech taking for voters and their fears, at least supposed, and the reality on the ground,” notes Sérgio Ferreira, political director of ASTI (support for immigrant workers), even if the minister never hid that the Grand Duchy needed labor.

In this sense, the presentation of the grounds for the bill aims in particular to accelerate the processing of residence permit, to simplify procedures to change employer and to offer more protection concerning unemployment. “As many elements that will have to be analyzed, because the devil is sometimes hidden in the details. But there is good and less good, “said Sérgio Ferreira, who welcomes the abolition of the” Golden Visa “system for investors. A failure.

In accordance with its economic policy, the government is more open to “chosen” work immigration (Editor’s note: a person who receives a work permit must theoretically find a job before arriving in the country) than in other forms of migration.

Thus, the family reunification of the beneficiaries of the asylum is constrained by new rules: the arrivals of the spouse, met after the entry into the country or other family members such as parents, are conditioned on the possession of “adequate housing”. All in a context of housing crisis that continues in the Grand Duchy.

The government is advancing 1,409 three -year stay authorizations. A figure that does not shock the Asti: “preventing them from coming does not promote the integration journey”, deplores Sérgio Ferreira, who also regrets the lack of desire to welcome a low-skilled workforce and a tendency to stigma migrants, in the vein of speeches held elsewhere in Europe. “With the risk that these people, who arrive anyway, be hired to black. Luxembourg has no interest in it ”.