Jean Lambert, on behalf of the Verts/ALE Group. – Mr President, I would like to add my thanks to our rapporteur for the work that she has done on this, and just say a word to the previous speaker: I would agree with a lot of what you have said, but I do not think we are necessarily making a choice here – by restricting the rights of some, you do not necessarily expand the rights of others. I think this is an important piece of legislation, and I think it is important not only for the individuals concerned or for the institutions with which some of them may be studying or working, but it is also an important part of a soft foreign policy. Some of the questions raised here today about the difficulties of access – about the feeling that you are not actually wanted as a student or a researcher in the European Union – have been raised with a number of us during many of the delegation trips that we have travelled on to various third countries.

I also want to say that I welcome the Commission’s statement in terms of its interpretation of transposition, about rejection being based on a case-by-case basis, because I think that is really important. I, too, on behalf of my Group, welcome the improvements within this directive in terms of reducing a number of the barriers and the difficulties that people have faced. While we were working on this report, we came across cases of people who had not been able to take up research positions because they had waited so long for various permissions. That not only affected their lives, but the research projects on which they were coming to work.

We also welcome the possibilities of having greater opportunities to finalise your research if there have been particular problems during the course of it, and of course the questions about families being able to stay together is also extremely important. For volunteers, the question about this possibility to develop intercultural understanding, we see the exchange of expertise, too, as crucial for strengthening civil society – such an important part of any democracy.