Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-04-11-Speech-4-156"
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"en.20020411.8.4-156"2
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"Mr President, I am not speaking as one of the authors of the motion, because the Group of the Greens does not support this compromise proposal. What exactly are we talking about here? Are we talking about Eurotunnel’s loss of earnings and the disruption to traffic under the Channel or are we talking about what should be the subject of this afternoon’s debate, human rights and, in this particular instance, the rights and the human tragedy of the Sangatte refugees? The refugees in Sangatte are not illegal immigrants. They are living in a centre opened by the French government, managed by the Red Cross and subsidised by the French state. The refugees are Kosovars, Kurds and, nowadays, mainly Afghans. All the people who feature in today’s headlines are flooding into Sangatte. If we want to talk about human rights, then let us do so and stop talking about money and the safety of traffic under the Channel. There is something obscene about confusing the two. This centre was opened thanks to important work by the associations who wanted to respond to the emergency, and to close it would be a humanitarian catastrophe. We know what Calais and Sangatte are like without the centre. We have seen the refugees risking their lives to get to Great Britain, wandering the streets of Calais with their children in the pouring rain, with the associations doing their best to get food to them every day. Is that really the sort of situation we want to revert to in a debate on human rights? Frankly, this debate has got off to a very poor start, which is why the Greens do not support this motion and call on their fellow members to do likewise, because there is something improper about it. The Group of the Greens, having taken the view that the French Government was demonstrating a measure of bad faith regarding the right of these people to demand asylum in France, supported the publication of a document, in collaboration with the associations, which is in huge demand among the refugees in Sangatte. What does this document say? It simply tells the refugees how to demand asylum in France and what rights asylum seekers have in France. This is the road we should be going down, obviously in the long term, with our sights set on a European refugee statute, in order to deal with this situation."@en1
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