The Spanish government plans to offer unemployed immigrants advance payment of their benefits if they return to their countries of origin — and agree to stay there for at least three years.
The Spanish labor ministry said 100,000 immigrants from 19 countries would be eligible to receive the payout but it expects only between 10 percent and 20 percent to agree to the trade-off. The government is expected to approve the plan in September.
Spain’s immigrant population has swelled to roughly 10 percent of the population in the past decade as builders and developers offered seemingly endless work opportunities. But with the international economy flagging and Spain’s construction boom going bust, the immigrants are expected to be among the hardest hit.
Immigrant rights groups have reacted coolly to the scheme.
“We are talking not just about workers but about human beings,” Alvaro Zuleta, president of the Colombian group Aculco, said. “We need to make sure that the immigrant who agrees to return finds the right conditions to restart his life.”
However, he expected some Colombian immigrants, who earn between 750 euros (US$1,200) and 1,500 euros a month, to agree to the deal if the economic crisis worsened.
As many as 165,000 immigrants from outside the EU are unemployed, but not all would be eligible for the deal because their home countries do not have reciprocal agreements with Spain.
Unemployed workers receive about 70 percent of their salary for the first six months without a job, then up to 60 percent for up to two years. Under the proposed deal, workers would receive 40 percent of that money while in Spain and 60 percent on arrival in their home countries. They would then have priority in obtaining working papers if they reapplied to return to Spain after five years.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS