Updates on the situation in Ceuta and Melilla

3.7.2015

Question for written answer E-010830-15
to the Commission
Rule 130
Ernest Urtasun (Verts/ALE) , Ska Keller (Verts/ALE)

On 24 October 2014 Commissioner Cecilia Malmström sent a letter to Spain’s Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz expressing concern about the Spanish Government’s plans to change the law to allow law-enforcement officers to return undocumented migrants to Morocco on the spot. In her own words, this would ‘constitute a violation of EU legislation’. In November 2014 Commissioner Avramopoulos, during the plenary debate on an Oral Question on summary expulsions and the proposed legalisation of ‘hot returns’ in Spain, also reiterated that ‘what some have called hot returns might not be in conformity with obligations arising under EU and international law’ and that the Commission would ‘not hesitate to take appropriate steps where there is evidence that a Member State has violated European Union laws’. He also announced that he was going to visit Ceuta and Melilla ‘in the coming months’.

Taking into account that the Public Safety Act legislation was published in the Official State Bulletin on 31 March 2015 and that the regulation governing ‘hot returns’ came into force in April 2015, we ask the Commission:

Has it received any response to the letter sent by Commissioner Malmström?

When will Commissioner Avramopoulos visit Ceuta and Melilla?

What steps will the Commission take now that a Spanish law has been put into place ‘legalising’ hot returns, in violation of EU and international law?