Verbatim report of proceedings

Tuesday, 12 March 2019 - Strasbourg

Asylum and Migration Fund (debate)

  Martina Anderson, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group. – Madam President, the scale of life lost in the Mediterranean is nothing short of abhorrent. EU migration policies have essentially authorised the death of thousands of refugees at sea. The EU has washed its hands of its responsibility for this humanitarian crisis. The Libyan coast guards are still dragging vulnerable refugees from unseaworthy rafts. Refugees are still being thrown into detention centres to rot. Refugees are still being starved, beaten, deprived of water, forced to live in abhorrent squalor and some are even murdered.

The scale of this crisis has been fed by EU asylum policy, which is facilitating torture. Shame on the European People’s Party (EPP) and the far right who argue to use the large-scale amount of funding to force vulnerable people into unsafe countries under the guise of flexibility and balance. We need a sustainable solution based on the principles of dignity, safety and fundamental rights. No human being is illegal.