The Subdelegation of the Government of Spain in Córdoba It intends to convene the Migration Flows Commission (quotants of foreign workers for the countryside), according to sources from the state agency in the province told this newspaper.
The subdelegate of the Government, Ana López, with this decision picks up the gauntlet and will answer affirmatively to the request that Asaja made this week to summon the joint body of social dialogue between administrations, agricultural employers and unions to evaluate the possibility of taking extraordinary measures in the same given the foreseeable lack of labor in the next olive and citrus harvest campaign, which is motivated by the good expectations that the crops will grow considerably compared to recent years after the March rains.
The subdelegation assured ABC that “yes” he will convene the Migration Flows Commission, although he is still working on exploring the formula to do so. In this study, “when” and “how” have not yet been decided, but the subdelegate’s decision to respond to Asaja’s request is affirmative.
Precisely, members of other agricultural employers’ associations such as COAG and UPA have joined the petition, with some nuances in their statements. In the first they understand that first it is necessary to exhaust “the possibility of hiring native personnel through job offers from the SAE”, while in the second they understand that before convening the table “other measures, such as the regularization in Spain” of people who are already here ‘without papers’.
The subdelegation, after the clashes with the agricultural world following the police charges in the midst of the protests to make the CAP more flexible, now takes the path of dialogue. The intention is to convene the commission on migratory flows, still no date or place. However, that does not mean a yes to the proposal of agricultural organizations to request a quota of foreign workers. Precisely, that decision will be the one that has to be made within the debate of the migratory flows commission when it is held. That is to say, it is one question for the table to be convened and quite another for it to decide, finally, to bet on a contingent of employees from another country.
Claims
The president of his own Asaja, Ignacio Fernández de Mesa, recognizes that “I am sure that the unions”, which are also part of the commission, “will refuse” his request to bring in new contingents of workers from other countries due to “the foreseeable lack of labor in the next campaign.” In his opinion, “the expectations are that the olive and citrus harvest will grow”, so “if there have already been problems of lack of labor these years of drought, the problem will worsen in the next campaign if we do not go to the foreign contingents.
In any case, Fernández de Mesa assured ABC that he still did not know “if the subdelegation will convene the Migration Flows Commission either officially or unofficially.” Of course, the president of Asaja declined the possibility of specifying how many foreign workers they will need. “We don’t know yet, for that we need the business owners to tell us their needs once the capacity forecast for the campaign is known,” which is clear that the forecast “is for it to grow, after the rains in March.”
He Secretary General of UPA, Miguel Cobos, assured that “it is true that there are areas, especially those with slopes, that have labor problems.” However, for Cobos it is still “hasty” to know if it will be necessary to resort to the contingents. In his opinion, “perhaps a process of regularization of people who are already here and who want to work in the field and that employers want to hire would be more effective as long as they are in a legal situation.”
Furthermore, he details that the first thing “is to be clear that the offer is not covered by native personnel through the SAE”, then it will make sense “to go and request authorization for a contingent.” However, he explains that “then you also have to take into account which country you choose, because the rate of return to its origin is not the same in all cases.”
The General Secretary of COAG, Carmen Quinteroalso explains that she is in favor of convening the Migration Flows Commission because “what cannot happen is that the product remains in the field”, but clarifies that it must be done “as long as it is not covered with workers from here through the SAE.” “, because “some solution and facilities must be given to farmers if they do not have labor.”
All agricultural organizations, despite the outstretched hand of the subdelegation to convene the table, are aware of the difficulty of obtaining a contingent. In fact, Fernández de Mesa details that the last ones were “more than a decade ago.” Specifically, more than three decades have passed. In this sense, there is no data for recent years “because there have been no contingents since Romania and Bulgaria, the last countries from which contingents arrived, entered the European Union,” recalls Miguel Cobos. For Quintero, it is difficult for them to be authorized “because I don’t even remember the last time it was achieved.”
