Family reunification for non-EU healthcare staff ‘impossible’ under new rules
Changes to the rules around family reunification mean that many people who come to Belgium to fill bottleneck jobs will have to leave their families behind because they do not earn enough money, De Standaard reports.
The proposed bill on family reunification by Asylum and Migration minister Anneleen Van Bossuyt of N-VA has been approved by the majority in the Home Affairs Committee. Parliament will vote on it next week, but in principle the vote is a formality.
Applicants from outside the EU must now meet higher income thresholds, scaled according to the number of family members seeking to join.
'Complete madness'
There is no exception for bottleneck professions – jobs with a shortage of candidates such as healthcare experts and electricians. For these positions, employers can hire people from outside the EU via a single work and residence permit.
“This is complete madness. The healthcare sector is crying out for workers,” says Delphine Comijn of the non-profit Chinta, which helps care workers from India and the Philippines to work in Belgium.
“We are told we need labour migration, residential care centres and hospitals are asking us to supply care workers and nurses. But this law makes that impossible,” she told De Standaard.
When the legislation comes into force, workers from outside the EU will have to prove that they have “sufficient, stable and regular resources”. They will not be able to bring their family to the country until they earn 110 per cent of the guaranteed minimum monthly income, around 2,323 euros net.
For each additional family member, the threshold goes up by 10 per cent. The salary scales for some bottleneck professions are not high enough to meet these conditions.
“For people about whom Flanders says we desperately need them, we are making it impossible to build a future here with their families,” said Groen MP Matti Vandemaele.
"Our country has a huge number of inactive people … Let’s get them working first before we look outside the EU"
A care worker who wants to bring their partner and two children to Belgium will never earn enough to meet the conditions, according to Kati Verstrepen, a specialist in immigration law. If they retrained as a nurse, they would need 15 years of seniority before they earned enough.
Package of reforms
The reform is part of a larger package, described by prime minister Bart De Wever as Belgium’s “strictest migration policy yet”.
Other measures include prioritising subsidiary protection – which confers fewer rights than refugee status – halting resettlement, limiting reception provision and removing social aid for new asylum seekers.
Van Bossuyt says people who want to bring their families to Belgium must be responsible for their own livelihood. “Our country has a huge number of inactive people. There have never been so many people on minimum income benefit,” she said. “Let’s get them working first before we look outside the EU.”
Illustration © PHOTO JEFFREY GROENEWEG / ANP / AFP
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