Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-04-25-Speech-3-404"
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"en.20070425.39.3-404"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to thank Mr Deprez for the work he has done, which is enabling us to adopt his report at first reading. That demonstrates his ability to mediate with the political groups, the Council and the Commission.
I want to thank him even though I maintain all my reservations about this regulation, because I think that in reality its only purpose is to attribute a function to FRONTEX, that useless little agency set up by the Community institutions, which did not perform any function at all until yesterday. I believe that setting up Rapid Border Intervention Teams is merely a propaganda exercise, because it is quite clear that in reality the EU’s illegal immigration crisis is not coming from southern Europe or from the boats that arrive by sea. That is amply demonstrated by all the available data and statistics. Even the Commission says that only 14% of the illegal immigrants living in Europe arrive by sea.
I therefore do not understand the need to set up these rapid intervention teams. The same also applies to the southern European countries – Italy, Spain and also Malta, a country that we ought to help. Mr Borg certainly realises better than I do that we ought to try and help Malta, probably by amending the Dublin II regulation, and not by calling for rapid intervention teams that will find it difficult to intervene in that sea area and to tell whether they are in Italian or Maltese waters.
I believe, therefore, that we should try to implement a consistent, serious policy on this matter, probably by taking a different approach entirely. That is why I repeat that the only serious function that these rapid intervention teams can have is to save lives at sea.
Mr Deprez, the question is not whether policemen are good or bad. It has been amply demonstrated in recent years that disasters at sea are on the increase. There are statistics that show beyond a shadow of a doubt that thousands and thousands of people have drowned in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. I therefore believe that there is a purpose for rapid intervention teams whose priority it is to rescue all the men and women that are trying to reach Europe.
It would not be superfluous, in my view, to stress that need in the report we are examining, and I therefore call on the House and Mr Deprez to support my amendment, which unequivocally states that one of the primary functions of these teams should be sea rescue.
I think that if we choose this way of thinking we can seriously help to make immigration policy and external border control a joint activity that is useful to the European Union."@en1
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