Brussels, 29/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - Less than a week after the special European summit on the migration crisis in the Mediterranean, the European Parliament adopted a resolution in Strasbourg on Wednesday 29 April in which it attempts to deal with the shortcomings in the response of heads of state. The MEPs called for the mandate of the Triton operation piloted by the Frontex agency, whose budget the EU28 has tripled, to be “clarified” to extend its zone of operation and extend its mandate to search and rescue operations at EU level.
Despite a number of controversies and opposition from within the EPP Group in particular, Parliament asked the member states to accept the principle of compulsory asylum-seeker quotas for the member states. The European Commission will unveil proposals in May when it publishes a new report on legal and illegal immigration, said Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday morning.
The EPP is divided over the issue of quotas. Former French minister of the interior under Nicolas Sarkozy, Brice Hortefeux, explained that the right way of dealing with the immigration tragedies was not for the European Commission to frog-march the member states. The system for dealing with asylum-seekers in France, which saw nearly 63,000 requests lodged in 2014, is, he said, unable to cope. The EPP's political bureau meeting in Milan last week adopted a statement calling for the introduction of compulsory quotas for asylum-seekers and the group's president, Manfred Weber, who backs the idea of quotas, made ambivalent comments in Strasbourg on Wednesday morning, saying that opening legal channels of immigration and work could encourage more people to set off for Europe, as could quotas. Weber (a German), said it must not be forgotten that one in five young people in Europe is out of work. Despite these disagreements, the resolution was adopted by 449 to 130, with 93 abstentions.
The Parliament resolution says that the Triton operation should be a robust, permanent European humanitarian rescue operation acting, like Mare Nostrum, in the high seas and one to which all member states would contribute resources and equipment. The MEPs urge the EU to co-finance such an operation and urge the member states to continue to demonstrate solidarity and commitment by increasing their contributions to the Frontex budget and operations and the European asylum support bureau. The member states are also asked to provide these agencies and European bureaux with the staff and equipment they require. In Strasbourg on Wednesday morning, the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said that the EU would pledge €120 million for 2015 to allow Triton's budget to be tripled.
Ending Mare Nostrum was a mistake, says Juncker. Juncker said it was the right thing to do to triple the budget for Triton to restore it to the level of the resources for the Mare Nostrum operation that Italy put an end to for lack of aid from Europe. He said it had been a serious error to end Mare Nostrum and regretted that Italy had been left to finance it alone. This undoubtedly cost lives, he said in a speech with humanitarian overtones. Juncker said that member states simply had to increase their development aid budgets in order to deal in the longer-term with the reasons that were causing would-be immigrants to leave home.
Juncker did not take the line adopted by MEPs on the Triton mandate, stating that such a change was not needed. He said it was not true that the mandate does not allow rescue in member states' territorial waters and it did not need to be changed. Instead, Triton needs greater resources. Overall, the increase in its budget was welcomed by MEPs, despite the raised voices and strong terms used in the debate, with virulent comments from Italy's Northern League that Mare Nostrum only served to finance Islamic terrorism.
The Parliament's resolution calls for the EU28 to do more to find somewhere for Syrian refugees to live and to activate the EU temporary protection directive of 2001. Parliament calls on Europe to increase the issuing of humanitarian visas in member states' embassies and consulates outside the EU and to encourage diplomatic efforts to solve conflicts and allow a return to stability in areas of the world such as Libya, Iraq and Syria. TMEPs want the EU to boost the fight against people traffickers and to increase the penalties for those found guilty. Socialists and Democrats, particularly from France, said they were relatively satisfied with the document, although the real test will be on 13 May, when the European Commission unveils its approach to legal immigration. The French Socialist delegation said the Commission would need to be bold. (Solenn Paulic)