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They are not tourists, they are Romanians called to fill the huge holes in the agricultural workforce caused by the closure of the borders due to the pandemic.
As the silent army of seasonal agricultural workers, the majority of immigrants from the EU and outside the EU, it is now dramatically missing in Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Denmark, the UK and Portugal.
A letter sent in March by COPA-COGECA (European Confederation of Agri-Food Associations) and the European Council of Young Farmers to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called for “all measures” to be taken in the face of a crisis that “It has dramatic consequences in the most affected rural areas of the EU.”
“The impending shortage of seasonal agricultural workers, as a European Parliament report shows, is a major concern, as it could seriously jeopardize food production and processing,” said Norbert Lins, chairman of the Committee on Agriculture of the European Parliament. , proposed a special “permit” for seasonal workers.
In Italy, the Coldiretti Association warned a few days ago that 40% of uncollected fruits and vegetables are at risk of “rotting in the fields”.
The Commission is also lobbying for states to allow access for seasonal workers based on a 2014 directive that sets the framework rules.
But the responses, as in various areas of this crisis, are mainly national.
Not without hairpin turns, a striking example is Germany, where 360,000 seasonal workers, most of them migrants, work each year, mainly from Eastern Europe.
In March, with the closure of the borders, the Government also decreed the cessation of the activities of seasonal workers. “This ban seriously affects our business,” said DBV, the German farmers’ association.
Berlin Agriculture Minister Julia Klöckner warned that 35,000 workers are needed in April and 85,000 in May. The German government had to change its mind and allow 80,000 Romanians to arrive in April and May, with ad-hoc charter flights from Cluj to Berlin and Düsseldorf.
Britain also turned to charter flights, an irony of fate, after the country made immigration detention one of the key points of Brexit. According to the CLA association, the country, which mainly uses eastern migrants in the fruit and vegetable sector, has faced “a hole between 70,000 and 90,000” workers.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Mark Bridgeman, president of CLA. The government has organized a first series of charter flights from Bucharest to London Stansted, so far 600 people will arrive, others will arrive.
However, not just charters: Germany and the UK have launched a local recruitment campaign, which is working well in the UK, but not in the Federal Republic.
A similar initiative was taken by France, where 200,000 agricultural workers are missing.
Thus, the Minister of Agriculture, Didier Guillaume, launched an appeal to hairdressers, waiters, florists who lost their jobs, calling for an “army in the shade, made up of all the people who want to work”. We have to produce to feed the French. “
There is interest, but it is not known who will actually work in the fields. Red alert in Spain: in Aragon, Catalonia, Murcia, Extremadura, 30,000 seasonal workers, 85% foreigners, come every year to pick cherries, apricots, and peaches.
In the province of Huelva in Andalusia alone, 16,000 seasonal Moroccan workers are employed annually. According to the FEDPEX Association, 18,000 workers will be needed in May and 28,000 in June. The government has decided to allow the unemployed to work in the fields without losing subsidies, but also illegal immigrants, around 100,000-150,000 people.
Also in Germany, the government announced temporary work permits for asylum seekers between April and October, around 156,000 people.
The most radical was Portugal: it granted temporary residence and work permits for migrants and asylum seekers, due to the often dramatic conditions of these migrants who, the Confederation of European Trade Unions (ETUC) warns, have problems with “access to holidays ” medical, unemployment benefits, protective materials
The illegals are particularly at risk, especially because “they will not go to the hospital if they contract the virus for fear of being reported to the police.”
The answer? “Measures to allow access to the health system and / or regulation of their state”.
