Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-09-15-Speech-2-025"

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"Mr President, the Commission’s joint EU resettlement programme certainly has noble ambitions, which aim to encourage greater cooperation between national governments regarding the resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers. However, as a British Conservative, I do remain worried about its implementation. We do not want to see the continuation of problems like those we have had at Sangatte in France. I think that cooperation and solidarity across the European Union is, of course, important when discussing the burdens that nations face but we must better distinguish economic migrants from asylum seekers. They obviously have every right to seek sanctuary, but we must also have legislation that does not tie individual nations’ hands regarding who is accepted and who gets asylum. A collective approach such as the one the Commission is proposing might undermine each EU nation’s ability to decide this. Meanwhile, though, I think a major priority should be securing the southern borders. Frontex must play a more prominent part in this regard in order to act as a strong deterrent to economic migrants wishing to make the hazardous trip across the Mediterranean. We must act more strongly against the various third countries that irresponsibly encourage those activities. The Commission says it will be national governments that ultimately decide the number of people they accept, and that Britain and other countries will not be forced to accept large numbers of economic migrants that it cannot cope with or cannot support in these economically challenging times. That is necessary and right. Countries like Britain need guarantees that our asylum and immigration policy remains for us to decide and guarantees also that the EU’s approach will remain one of open cooperation and not one of compulsion."@en1
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