Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-09-15-Speech-2-034"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20090915.4.2-034"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Mr Billström, Mr Barrot, we have no choice regarding the Geneva Convention and human rights. Our only option is to comply with the conventions that we have signed. The law is clear: sending refugees who arrive on European shores to countries that have not signed the Geneva Convention on refugees is a violation of the Geneva Convention. This is not an abstract point of law; it is a real argument.
When, through Frontex or the Member States, we send refugees to Libya, we are in breach of the convention, not least because we know from the Italian Government’s own figures that 75% of the people who reach European shores apply for asylum, and 50% of those – about 38%, or a third of the total – are entitled to humanitarian protection.
Political choices lead to moral choices, and right now we are faced with a moral choice. Is it right, is it really moral, that more than 14 000 people have died trying to reach the coast of Europe in recent years? Is it really moral that a large proportion of those people who risk their lives should be entitled to asylum in the first place? Is it really necessary that they should have to risk their lives? No, they should not have to do so.
We have been saying for a long time that a purely repressive immigration policy, such as the one that has been followed, presents us with these life or death choices for people’s lives and makes us all jointly responsible for each life or death choice.
It is not by throwing money at Frontex now, at the beginning of its mandate – money that Frontex cannot spend and that the Commission says it is inadvisable to give to Frontex at this time – it is not by doing this that we will solve the problem. The way in which we can solve the problem is by re-examining Frontex’s mandate, and then Frontex might need more money. For that to happen, Frontex would have to cooperate and provide the UNHCR with full information; for that to happen, Frontex would have to include humanitarian concerns in its policies, which it does not do at the moment. Just as serious, ladies and gentlemen, is the proposal regarding refugee funds: while we are investing more in Frontex, these funds are being cut back."@en1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples