Brussels, 22/09/2011 (Agence Europe) - Since the problems that occurred the previous day in Lampedusa, the EP Greens/EFA Group said, on Thursday 22 September, that such incidents once again demonstrated the need for a European response.
Violence broke out on the Italian island of Lampedusa on Wednesday 21 September between police, residents and several hundred Tunisian migrants. The latter were demonstrating in order to denounce the conditions in which they were living and the agreement sealed on 19 September between Tunisian and Italian authorities. About a dozen people were injured.
Hélène Flautre (Greens/EFA, France) said in a press release that the Italian government had deliberately allowed the situation of Tunisian migrants to deteriorate by refusing to transfer them from Lampedusa to less-crowded centres on the Italian peninsula. Italy thus created all the conditions for revolt to break out despite the many warnings that civil society has been giving for months. The Greens/EFA believe this explosive situation is the direct consequence of the indifference shown by member states to the principle of solidarity, and shows the EU's inability to propose hosting solutions in respect of human dignity. Flautre believes that the agreement signed early in the week between Italy and Tunisia, providing for chain expulsion of Tunisian migrants, must be condemned.
Currently in Libya, she adds that the situation there is very worrying. The EU must tackle the situation of sub-Saharans trapped in Libya and in camps at the Egyptian and Tunisian borders as a matter of urgency before there is a further disaster. In her view, their resettlement in member states would be an essential contribution to the democratic transition underway and a decisive step for the EU's credibility at this historic turning point for its neighbouring countries. (LC/transl.jl)