madam president there is an urgent need to protect workers from exploitation in these times of economic trauma and the case to ensure the terms and conditions of european workers are not systematically driven down by exploitation of vulnerable migrant workers is unanswerable
responsibility for this rests squarely with member state governments and authorities
while member states need to take steps to regulate immigration i regret very much that the legal base for this proposal is the fight against illegal immigration
the real fight is against rogue exploitative employers and what we need at this time is an agenda that is pro-worker not anti-immigrant
the political and economic imperative must be to stop the exploitation of irregular migrants to punish rogue employers not to scapegoat or criminalise workers migrant or otherwise
the use of criminal sanctions in this proposal should not be the competence of the eu and those that argue that the expulsion of migrant workers is the solution to exploitation are misguided
this directive does not strike the right balance
