Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2015-04-29-Speech-3-025-000"
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"en.20150429.3.3-025-000"2
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"Mr President, my parents went to Britain for a better life – a better life for them and their future children – and had they not taken that step, had they not left their homes, my life would be very different. So when I see poverty, or when I see tragedies like this, my heart wishes that we were able to offer that same opportunity to everyone, but my head tells me that we cannot.
So to solve this crisis there is no easy answer. To those who say that we should turn everyone away, or those who say that we should let everyone in: you are both wrong. So when listening to the Council and the Commission we have to ask ourselves: can we find a way for those fleeing persecution to seek asylum without having to make this perilous journey, and can we do this without creating massive camps on that side of the Mediterranean? I very much hope that the Commission and the Council can address those particular questions.
But those who seek asylum should be told quickly if they meet the criteria and if they are unsuccessful they should be returned quickly. If they are offered refuge, will it be permanent or will countries be able to ask them to return home when the reason for their asylum is no longer relevant?
So last week’s Council was really an important step forward: help for rescue operations, targeting people traffickers who profit and prey on the misery of others, helping to alleviate the problems of those at the sharp end. But in reality we will not solve this problem in the long term until we stabilise the region and we know, we all know, that this will take time, but our Member States must do all they can with the tools available to them – diplomacy, targeted aid and open trade. But we also need to seek to distinguish between economic migration and helping genuine asylum seekers.
The asylum system must not be conflated with a migration system, otherwise we undermine public trust in both. Asylum must be about people running for their lives, not for those who understandably want a better economic life. So seeking new forms of legal migration will not resolve this problem.
People talk about the blue-card system, but that is aimed at attracting skilled migrants, not people fleeing for their lives. Some speak of compulsory shared solidarity, but where is the talk of mutual trust that is sadly lacking between our Member States? Let us not forget that 75 % of asylum applications take place in six countries – Germany, Sweden, Italy, France, Hungary and the United Kingdom – and some of those countries are already facing pressures over legal migration. And let us not forget that tiny islands like Lampedusa see tens of thousands of people set sail for them.
So if we want to stop these tragedies we have to start answering difficult questions. Are we prepared to help process applications swiftly and discourage people from making a journey? Are we prepared to target and take out the people traffickers? Are we prepared for those EU countries with little immigration to take more of those fleeing persecution, to reduce the pressure, to reduce the suffering, and to reduce the tragic scenes that we see on the borders of EU countries."@en1
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