Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-06-17-Speech-2-020"
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"en.20080617.4.2-020"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, this directive is a disgrace and an insult to Europe’s legal culture. It is totally unacceptable and liable to cancel out the culture of welcome we have had for thousands of years, and the deep roots of a European identity that has been forged through the practice of hospitality. The directive is yet another monument to Fortress Europe, the materialisation of a reactionary utopia seeking to obstruct the freedom of movement of men and women.
The right to mobility cannot be checked by shutting men and women up behind barbed wire or inside a foul detention centre. Mr Mate, we are talking about 18 months – the maximum detention period – not 6 months, as you said. That is 18 months without having committed any crime!
I would like to refer to the words of Archbishop Agostino Marchetto of the Council of Migrants of the Italian Episcopal Conference, when he said that a person cannot be detained for a mere administrative infringement and also that persons cannot be kept in inhuman and degrading detention centres such as those visited by this Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.
Furthermore, this directive is an inhumane directive because it makes provision for return to a country of transit. Libya is likely to become a mass deportation destination for migrants. It makes provision for the detention and expulsion of unaccompanied minors, it lays down a re-entry ban, thus systematically infringing the right to asylum, and provides for discretionary legal aid. That is the true nature of this directive.
What is more, the directive is being imposed by governments. In this Chamber we have been party to the dictatorship of the Council, which has said to Parliament: ‘like it or lump it’, even issuing threats against the idea of any sort of continuation of the debate on immigration. The European Parliament is passively submitting to this decision. I appeal to the dignity of European Parliament. This is not co-decision. What we are looking at is giving assent to the Council. The truth is that governments want to activate immediately the EUR 700 million allocated by the Return Fund. That is the true nature of the directive.
What we ought to do, though, is to listen to society, to those outside this Parliament, the heads of state of third countries, Amnesty International, the churches, the European Episcopal Conferences, the trade unions and the Council of Europe: all of them are telling us not to adopt this directive. Even the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which according to the Treaty of Amsterdam should be consulted on all matters relating to asylum and immigration dealt with by the European Commission, is telling us not to adopt this directive.
Repressive policies like these are the real cause of the European Union’s greatest tragedy: deaths at sea. Yesterday 150 died, and over the last ten years there have been 12 000 such deaths. The European Union is staining itself with an unacceptable crime and this directive makes it further complicit in these killings that have turned the Mediterranean into a graveyard. It would probably be a good idea, as a tribute to these martyrs, not to adopt this directive."@en1
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