Mr President, this initiative report which we are debating today in Parliament is being produced at the request of the Euro-Mediterranean Forum for women Members of Parliament and is part of the general concept of globalisation which is going to be examined throughout this weekend at the meeting which begins tomorrow in Malta. The European Parliament took responsibility for producing this report on the effects of globalisation on female immigrants. Emigration is an ancient phenomenon but it has recently taken on some new characteristics. It is not only men who emigrate, with the women then using regrouping to later reunite their children with the husband, but rather the woman herself is now the emigrant. The woman is the head of the family and it is she who seeks, by changing country, by coming to the European Union, a better personal situation, a better future for herself and her family. The woman comes as a person seeking opportunities that are not available in her country of origin. In general, she works in the service sector, she does not have a high level of training and she finds herself in a vulnerable situation as a result of being both an immigrant and a woman. She usually does work which the nationals of the various countries do not want, but which are necessary for the economy to operate properly. Recently, female immigrants have also been important for maintaining jobs, for bolstering the active population, given the ageing of the population in certain Member States, and for future prospects. These women do not come temporarily in order to resolve a problem, but they come determined to stay, to start a new life in a country which they believe is going to accept them. In the majority of cases they come without sufficient information. They have often been deceived and are victims of mafias that traffic in human beings, from which they are unable to escape, in many cases ending up in prostitution. This lack of information is one of the most important aspects that we highlight in this report. These women must be aware of the state of the job market, the legal requirements, what their living conditions will be and what they must provide in order to work legally in the country they are heading for. There are also cases of highly qualified women who have to do work which is not appropriate for their training. There are situations of abuse, resulting from their state of vulnerability in a country with whose language and legislation they are not familiar, living isolated in a world which is difficult for them. We want these women to live in a legal situation with decent employment contracts so that they cannot become victims of exploitation. This means that they must be provided with greater information in their countries of origin. We therefore call for offices to be set up in order to resolve these problems so that these women may come fully informed about the work they are going to do. I must point out that in the Committee on Women’s Rights and Equal Opportunities, certain amendments have been introduced into the report which neither I, as rapporteur, nor my group, agree with. They refer to the concept of ‘Euro-Mediterranean citizenship’. This concept raises legal problems. There is no precedent for this concept in any report or any declaration either by this Parliament or by the national parliaments. Citizenship is a national competence of the Member States and I believe that introducing this concept into the report adds little and could, in fact, create legal problems. We have therefore requested a split vote because we would like to remove this concept from the report so that we can support it without problems. If it is retained, I think it will be very difficult for us to vote in favour of the report, which would be unfortunate since the report has some very positive aspects for women and is greatly needed given the situation in which the majority of these women find themselves. I would like to ask you to reconsider so that, by removing these terms, we can have a report which is approved by the whole House.

Political group: PPE-DE