Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-14-Speech-3-366"
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"en.20010214.12.3-366"2
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"Mr President, I want to congratulate my colleague Mr Ceyhun for approaching a very difficult and sensitive issue. Referring to what Mr Kirkhope said, this is an issue of great importance and I could not agree with him more. I am sure he would agree with me that it is very sad that on an issue like this, which covers the pages of many of our newspapers, there is – to the best of my knowledge – no press here to cover it.
We have also to recognise that this report is just one piece of a jigsaw. It is a very difficult jigsaw that we are trying to put together. We need a proper system of immigration and asylum that will cater for the needs of Europe in the modern world. I say to Mrs Frahm and Mr Cappato that this is what we are aiming for, and I do not believe the rhetoric you used just now is helpful in such a very difficult situation.
On specific points, Mr Kirkhope referred to his anxieties about paragraphs 11 and 12, and I know the points that he is making there. But the reference is to legally recognised organisations, NGOs, with which all of us are familiar. We have to ask ourselves is someone or an organisation that is helping people in desperate circumstances escape persecution a criminal? Are they the organisations that we ought to be legislating against? I would say not. We know, and others have said, that people escaping from these situations are desperate people escaping conflict, war and circumstances like that. That is why we need these measures.
We must do more. We must do more to help those developing countries and help the countries that are war-torn and with regimes that we do not like. But we cannot do that overnight. I do not believe we are helping those people who are trying to get out by doing nothing and leaving the situation as it is, so they have to clamber into the back of lorries and suffocate and endure torture and misery. We have to make certain that we have a proper asylum system that is not skewed by the overemphasis on illegal immigration. Our job in the new few months, as a Parliament, will be to report on the Commission's opinions in a way that reminds all Member States that their national interest must not override our global and humanitarian obligations."@en1
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