Proud to be an immigrant

“Immigrant: come as a settler to a foreign country.” That is the dictionary definition of immigrant and therefore that is what I am. So the President of the Council of Majorca, Maria Antonia Munar, wants to limit immigration and close the flood-gates because all we have “fought hard to do is at risk.” Well I suggest that before making sweeping statements she reads the Maastricht Treaty closely. Unless Spain is planning to pull out of the European Union or wants to be taken to the European Commission Munar cannot doing anything about immigration from other European Union states because it would be against the freedom of movement one of the vital points of the Maastricht Treaty. However, I don't really believe that Munar was talking about Europeans she was referring to the immigrants from Africa and further afield who were invited here to help fill voids in the labour market. As anyone who has lived and worked in Spain long enough will know, being able to work legally in Spain is a complex issue with endless paperwork. This is exactly what the immigrants have to do before they can start work. Many applications for work-permits are rejected, nearly 40 percent at the last count. So, it is not exactly as if the floodgates have been left open and thousands of people are settling.