India “wants” thousands of extra EU visas under trade deal
The Hindu | 21.02.2011
India “wants” thousands of extra EU visas under trade deal
Hasan Suroor
LONDON: India is reported to be demanding thousands of extra visas for its workers under a multi-billion pound trade deal it is negotiating with the European Union (EU).
According to media reports, India wants up to 50,000 extra visas a year spread across EU’s 27 member-States under the proposed India-EU free trade agreement with Britain said to be under pressure to cough up 20,000 of these.
The Sunday Telegraph claimed that India was “lobbying” for between 15,000 and 20,000 extra British, 7,000 German and 3,000 French visas for its citizens.
“In return for the visas, the trade deal put forward by the Indian government is expected to be worth at least £4 billion a year to the EU. Britain is expected to win about half that trade, providing a significant boost to exports,” the newspaper said.
A first?
If the deal went through, it would be the first time that any country would have access to a fixed number of British visas every year.
Anti-immigration groups said the move made “nonsense” of the government’s efforts to reduce economic migration through measures such as the proposed annual cap on immigration from non-EU countries set to kick in from April. They said the cap was “diluted” after the government agreed not to apply it to intra-company transfers, which would allow big businesses from India and other non-EU countries to bring in high-income staff on temporary posting.
“Britain’s 2.5 million unemployed have a right to know what is going on and to be told why the Prime Minister’s pledges both to help create jobs and to cut back net immigration are being seriously undermined in this way,” said Andrew Green, chairman of the right-wing think-thank MigrationWatch UK.
‘Significant benefits’
The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills said the proposed deal would deliver “significant” economic benefits to Britain.
A spokesman said “strict criteria” were being negotiated to ensure that only highly-skilled workers were allowed to come in.
