The Union of Migration Technicians (STM) expressed its concern to the Presidency of the Republic on 20 July regarding the increase in hate speech against immigrants and advocated for greater development cooperation in Portuguese-speaking countries to attract qualified personnel.
The Portugal News reports that the president of the STM, Manuela Niza, told Lusa news agency at the end of a meeting in Belem with the President’s advisors on international and social affairs that: “We are obviously concerned about the climate of tension against the immigrant population” and “we expressed our concern about the hate speech that is spreading” in Portugal.
Concerns about regular immigration, strengthening the staff of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum in the Portuguese consular network, and the creation of a special career path were other warnings made by the STM, which presented the Presidency with a project to strengthen cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries, allowing for the retention of qualified personnel in those countries.
“We presented to the Presidency of the Republic our cooperation project for development with the CPLP countries, based on the mobility project between these countries, which allows not only conscious and regulated migration, but also the possibility of this very young population settling in their own countries of origin,” explained Manuela Niza.
In these cases, the objective is to ensure that “immigration is not an obligation, but a decision made with the spirit of going to Portugal legally, and not with economic pressure due to not having a solution in their own country,” she added.
At the meeting, “which went well,” the union requested increased resources for AIMA employers, with improved conditions.
There is an “imperative need for us to have a special career path,” because “the issue of migration is not just Portugal’s,” therefore “the specificity of the functions is more than proven,” alongside other special career paths in the public service, she said.
On the other hand, to ensure “regular immigration, as the Government advocates, it is only possible through action with Portuguese representations abroad,” but “for about two years, five positions for what were then called liaison officers” in consulates have been vacant.
