December 18 will hand over signatures to Belgian EU Presidency

The petition campaign of December 18 and its partners is now successfully completed. Today December 18 will present (over) 6000 signatures and an Open Letter to Prime Minister Yves Leterme, in his capacity as holder of the EU Council Presidency. A similar action will take place at the same time in Budapest at the Ministry of the Interior, since Hungary will take up the Presidency as of next January.

Not a single EU Member State has ratified the UN Migrant Workers Convention. Something which UN Secretary General Ban-ki Moon called a big disappointment when he addressed the European Parliament last month.

That’s why December 18 and the European Platform for Migrant Workers Rights launched a petition campaign calling for ratification of the Convention in the European Union.

The efforts already resulted in a first success: the tabling of a Written Declaration sponsored by MEPs Cornelia Ernst (GUE/NGL), Franziska Keller (Greens/ EFA), Sylvie Guillaume (S&D) and Sonia Alfano (ALDE). The document is now open for signatories in the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.

The road map for Brussels is the following:

On Wednesday 15 December at 10.30 am (16, Rue de la Loi ), René Plaetevoet, Director of December 18 will handover the signatures to the cabinet of Prime Minister Letereme. He will be accompanied by the following delegation:  Doris Peschke (General Secretary, Churches‘ Commission for Migrants in Europe), Joël Decaillon (Deputy General Secretary, European Trade Union Confederation), Dan Van Raemdonck (Vice-President, International Federation for Human Rights), nd Conny Reuter (Secretary General of SOLIDAR.

The team from December 18, together with representatives from a number of Belgian and European civil society networks, will be waiting in front of the building. At around 10.45am the delegation will be available for interviews.

For more info on the campaign: www.migrantsconvention.eu

 Contacting December 18: 02/2741435 or via rene@december18.net