The members of the European Parliament gave a fairly lukewarm reception to the Commission's proposals to manage migration along the central Mediterranean route, whilst stressing that action must be taken to avoid deaths at sea.
"We need to know whether all the efforts are going in the right direction, there are some results, it is true, not enough, but we need to know what the objective is", said Elena Valenciano (S&D, Spain), stressing the importance of defending dignity.
Many MEPs opposed a migration agreement with Turkey on the basis of the model of the one in place with Turkey. "The agreement with Turkey is constantly coming in for criticism, and now another one is taking shape with Libya, even more worryingly. I wonder why the leaders are protesting about Trump when they are themselves putting a dodgy operation into place to allow people to be repatriated to Libya", said Barbara Spinelli (GUE, Italy), calling on leaders to renounce this agreement. However, no agreement of this kind is being proposed by the European Commission. For the ALDE, Cecilia Wikström (Sweden) said "we must never externalise our obligations when we talk about people in need". Judith Sargentini (Netherlands) of the Greens said that if the EU gives Libya free rein to stop migrants from reaching Europe, that would be politics Trump-style. "If we turn a blind eye to the conditions in the holding camps in the country, we won't need Trump to bring Europe down", she added.
Several MEPs joined her in flagging up the deplorable situation in these camps. They also referred to the report published the same day by the German ambassador, who compared them to Nazi concentration camps. "We have to make sure that migrants are treated with dignity", said Mariya Gabriel (EPP, Bulgaria).
A number of MEPs also asked for legal asylum channels to be developed. By way of example, Juan Fernando Lopez Aguilar (S&D, Spain) argued in favour of humanitarian visas, describing them as vital.
In the opposite corner, other MEPs called for boats of migrants to be sent back. "The only human and realistic solution to the challenge of migration is to set in place a variation on the Australian model" and consists of blocking the path to Europe, said Denmark's Anders Primdahl Vistisen of the ECR, explaining that this will put an end to trafficking. The best way of stopping migrants from arriving is to send back the boats and "deal with the migrants on dry land", added Jane Collins (EFDD, UK). She said that the EU's "naive approach [to migration) has failed, but has cost lives and financed terrorism and crime".
On Friday, it will be the turn of the heads of government to discuss the situation in the central Mediterranean, at their informal summit in Malta. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)