Sartori (PPE-DE). – (IT) Mr President, I too am pleased with the attention with which this Parliament and the Commission have begun to examine a subject that now affects all the countries in the European Union.

Emigrating has always been a necessity and often a hope, but seldom a choice. I say this as I come from a country that has had first-hand experience of the emigration problem for a great many decades. In recent years the subject of migration into many European countries has taken on bitter and often dramatic connotations. I believe it is both necessary and useful for the various Member States to share a common position on this subject, because I cannot envisage any positive scenarios unless they are regulated by all the countries in the Union. I also think, however, that this is one of the most sensitive issues, one of those issues that, more than any other perhaps, needs to be managed; and managing it means addressing matters of visas, employment, health, citizens’ rights and duties, and citizenship. I believe the right to vote, at a local and not just a European level, should be a consequence of these rights and not a precondition, as seems to have been suggested at times in some debates in recent years.

In our eagerness for integration we must not forget that our first duty, in my opinion, is to create the means for making a living in developing countries, so that everyone can find it possible to stay in their own home country. Our second duty is to facilitate the return of immigrants to their countries of origin as agents for the development and growth of their own countries. Down in third place, I put the need for Old Europe, impoverished by low birth rates and few workers, to see migration as a benefit to our countries. Having said that, there is no doubt that we should have control mechanisms to enable us to combat illegal immigration and, within the Member States, to combat breaches of the host country’s rules.