Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2015-11-25-Speech-3-637-000"
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"en.20151125.30.3-637-000"2
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"Mr President, I was proud to represent the S&D Group in Valletta. I greatly appreciate that it was our own former colleague, Prime Minister Muscat, giving such European leadership, and I was inspired by efforts to find solidarity between Europe and Africa in tackling the refugee crisis. We do need more, not less political will, and we must not be deflected by the terrorism outrages. Refugees are the victims of violence, not its perpetrators.
Did the summit fall short? Of course. My Group argues for safe legal routes for migration as an essential part of combating illegal migration. We are in favour of a more-for-more approach but do not see sufficiently more. We are opposed to tied aid conditionality and insist there must be genuine new money, not recycling of existing development assistance, if new cooperation from our partners is to be expected in return.
We need high numbers to be resettled when developing countries already house over 86% of the world’s refugees. In seeking readmission agreements, Europe must be far more robust in standing out against any suggestion of forced return. The long-term solution to the refugee crisis can only come in conflict resolution, sustainable development and good governance, which prevents people from wanting to leave their homes in the first place.
Last month I met refugees, not in Africa but in Lebanon, but all were parents seeking to save the lives of their children. There are no waves, no walls and no watchtowers high enough that would prevent those families from fleeing. Which of us would do differently? We meet today as the fragile European unity on this issue, including from my own country Great Britain, appears to be approaching a breaking point. There are those opposite who celebrate European disunity and who would close European borders altogether. The way we resist those political pressures on this side is through respect for international law and by appealing to the basic humanitarian instincts amongst the people we represent and which we feel ourselves. There must be order, there must be fairness within our societies, there must be integration, but above all there must be humanity. That is why we say ‘refugees welcome’. We say it today, we said it yesterday and we will say it tomorrow."@en1
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