EU Threatens Members Over Immigrant Rights

"We will start infringement procedures in the coming months, if these rights are still not implemented," Friso Roscam Abbing, European Commission justice and home affairs spokesman, was quoted as saying by Reuters.

EU members agreed in November 2003 to give third-country nationals the right to five-year residency and work permits after they have lived in an EU country for five years.

The Commission estimates about 10 million legal residents in the EU would benefit from the legislation, also allowing those holding five-year resident status in one member state to live in another.

The deadline for implementing the EU rules is set for Monday, January23 .

The infringement procedures start with the commission sending letters to EU member states, which can result in a state being taken before the European Court of Justice.

The use of such procedures is common in areas such as state aid, obstacles to creating a single EU market and the environment, but rare in justice and home affairs.

Only Five

The EU executive said only five EU countries -- Austria, Poland, Slovenia, Lithuania and the Slovak Republic -- have introduced the EU rules into their national legislation and notified Brussels of the change.

Britain, Ireland and Denmark have opted out from EU legislation on immigration and are not bound by the new rules.

The remaining 17 EU member states are behind schedule.

"The commission regrets this delay in transposition and the legal uncertainty for third-country nationals resulting from it," the EU executive said in a statement.

"It will take the appropriate procedural steps according to its power."

On Sunday, January15 , Pope Benedict XVI of the Vatican called for an end to discrimination against legal and illegal immigrants across Europe.

He told thousands of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square that global migration had to be embraced as it developed respect for other cultures and creeds.

Demographic Balance

New European statistics show that immigration is holding off the demographic decline in Europe as the natural population growth is slowing across the25 -nation bloc, reported France Presse (AFP).

According to estimates published by the EU's statistics office Eurostat, all of Europe's heavyweights, except for France, now depend on immigration to keep their populations stable or growing.

The bloc's total population, which stood at461 . 5million on January1 , grew by around2 . 0million last year compared to2 . 3million in2004 .

Most of the increase was due to net migration, more than half of it to Italy and Spain.

In 2004 , Italy's population grew for the first time in 15 years, an increase which the national statistics institute attributed to immigrants.

But the country's birth rate remains the bloc's second-lowest after Spain, which passed the 44 million mark in2005 .

The Spanish population growth was due largely to a wave of immigration from Morocco, Romania, Colombia.

Net migration into the EU, slightly down compared to a peak in2003 , was expected to stand at around1 ,691, 000for the entire bloc, with three quarter of the new immigrants heading to Spain, Italy, Britain and Germany.

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