The Rights of Migrant Workers in the European Union – Shadow Reports for Estonia, France, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

The main aim of this publication - edited and produced by December 18 on behalf of the European Platform for Migrant Workers Rights - is to assess the emerging Common European Migration Policy, with a special emphasis on labour migration and integration, both in terms of policies and legislation as well with respect to their actual implementation. The latter is crucially important since the respect for rights at the formal level does not automatically result in their accessibility at the practical level.

The rapporteurs use the internationally accepted human rights standards, as elaborated in the UN Migrant Workers Convention, as the reference framework for these reports.

Each of the four country reports looks at a similar range of issues. Starting with a general overview of the situation of migrant workers within the context of the national policy approach to labour migration; the rapporteurs then move towards addressing the specific core economic, social, civil and political rights. Finally, they look at the integration policies and measures, based on the understanding that there is a strong link between a migrant’s legal status and the degree to which her/his rights are respected in practice.

The general tendency emerging from these four reports is that labour migration policies are becoming ever more complex and that migrant workers are seen as having a utilitarian value, i.e. if managed properly they can contribute significantly to the economies of the receiving and sending countries alike. They are, in other words, not viewed as human beings who are entitled to fair and equal treatment.