Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-13-Speech-2-257"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20071113.30.2-257"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, as everyone has said, including those speaking this morning, migration is a priority for the European Union and for Euromed relations. It is a major issue for those people who are often forced to leave a homeland that has been devastated by poverty, desertification, floods, war and so on.
Will the Euromed Ministerial Conference be equal to the task? Nothing could be less sure. The preparatory documents are hopelessly lacking in substance. This is hardly surprising since we know that none of the organisations on the ground – including those that are actually confronted every day with the situation facing migrants who are either in transit, aimlessly wandering or at risk of their life afloat on the Mediterranean – not a single one of them has been involved in the preparations, not even the HCR.
Preconclusions mean turning a blind eye to the right of asylum, to the illegal detention of migrants and the respect for their rights, whether they happen to be legitimate or not, to the unacceptable violence to which they are subjected, especially women migrants, to the rights of minors and to the criminalisation of giving aid to migrants and migrant families. This blindness is total when it comes to meeting the Union’s international commitments and the agreements that have to implemented or ratified: it is the Geneva Convention for some, and for others, which means all the countries of the European Union, it is the Convention on the Protection of the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families.
Where do we really hope we are going with such a Euro-Mediterranean policy, with such a clear absence of demands when it comes to nations’ shared rights and obligations? Where is the risk? The risk is that of having a smoke-screen of handpicked legal migrations behind which we find sustained and massive rights’ violations for all the others. If it is trying to spare the more sensitive souls by giving up on a really ambitious policy then the conference is doing its best to be a real waste of time. From the word go it would provide pre-justification for the proliferation of bilateral agreements of the Italy-Libya kind, signed on the sly, which violate the principle of the withholding of removal and do so with complete impunity.
It is not too late to act. Invite the HCR, invite a representative from the NGOs, start out again with the initial document put forward by the countries of the southern Mediterranean, which is much more ambitious, and the conference may just turn out to be a positive and significant milestone."@en1
|
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples