I want to illustrate the links between governance and politics. Governance is like a bottle and politics is the liquid in that bottle. We have to be like a governance bottle that can hold different kinds of liquids. In order to do so, you have to take into account some general characteristics that are common to all approaches. What are the quantity and the temperature of the liquid? If you put that to the migration issue, there is an enormous amount of liquid there. We have a deficit in the migration policy that has been accumulated over the last two years.
 
In 1974, we had a migration stop. We can show what happened during that period in Belgium. The main entrance to Belgium was closed, but different smaller doors remained open. Over those years, our country lost the overview of the migration flux.
The bottle of governance has to be able to gather all this in one area. The temperature of the liquid is hot, because there hasn’t been a lot of debate on the issue, certainly not a structuralised debate.
 
On the EU level, the Treaty of Amsterdam says that in the five years to come, we had to bring the migration policies of all the member states together. Now, we see that most of these states have no clear policy or systematic approach to migration.
 
I have worked out what should be the federal migration bottle. We have set up new ministries that didn’t exist before WWII, like the Ministry of Environment, Mobility, etc. Some of them have transversal authorities: they have to agree on some sort of a mainstream as a migration policy. They are spread out over the different ministries (of interior affairs, of foreign affairs, of employment etc.). A radical solution is to create a ‘Ministry of Migration’ and we get from all those ministries all the know-how. I think that is a very tempting solution, but an utopia.
We should start on a modest level.
 
We should set up a Secretariat of State reporting to the Prime Minister and who will be in charge of all the dispositions that are currently taken by the different ministries without having really a common goal. This secretariat should also consult with the different governments, with the regions etc.
 
The policy of residence permits is now being issued by the Federal Government. What are we going to do when someone start an “inburgersbeleid” and then goes to Germany and have to start again? What about Wallonia, where you don’t have such a project? Those things have to be fine-tuned and brought in line with each other. The secretariat of State should be in charge with. That is a fist step on the executive level.
 
The second is the consultative level. These last years, there has hardly been a debate about migration fearing that such a discussion would play in the hands of xenophobic movements within our society. This approach has not brought any result. So, we need a qualitative consultation on migration. We can focus on the model of the CFDD, the Federal Conference for Sustainable Development, where you can gather experts from migrant networks, universities etc.
 
The third level would be an Observatoire to make sure that solutions are viable. A lot of statistical data on migration-flows are at your disposal. We try to set up all kinds of observatories for migration. For example, at the ACP level (countries of Africa, Caraibs and Pacific), the establishment of a Virtual Migration Observatory has been proposed. All these observatories will take on the task of analyzing data and proposing basic policies on migration issues. Data can be used by politicians. It is a public service.
 
I have to say something about the need to set up observatories. In February 2003, the Centre for Equal Opportunities and the Fight against Racism was awarded the task to analyse and explain the size and the dynamics of the current migration waves to public authorities.
We try to clarify as much as we can. In three years we have never been contacted to give information. Belgium set up an instrument that is efficient, but they don’t really use it. I want to make an appeal to the public and the politicians to really use our Observatory. Of course, our role is important in that three-level approach. Every level has to play its role. It is time to get the right bottle for that liquid, because the situation is becoming very urgent. On the one hand, there is a strict asylum policy, on the other hand, there is the need to get critical information and to be able to recruit people that were in the fast refused.
We hope that the next government declaration will take that into account, which will help Belgium to focus in a virtual triangle with the EU and third world countries to work together in this respect.
Thank you.