The European United Left/Nordic Green Left group (GUE/NGL) in the European Parliament published counter-proposals on 2 December to the Pact on Migration and Asylum. The group criticises the EU for shirking its international obligations to uphold human rights.
The Pact “falsely promises a new start in European migration policies, but in reality, it reinforces current failed policies by focusing on deterrence, containment of people fleeing in third countries, strengthening of the external borders of the EU, detention of people, and acceleration of procedures at the borders at the expenses of the right to a fair and individual procedure. It also maintains the principle of responsibility of the Member State of first entry”, said the group critically. It notes that “by complying with the demands of extreme right-wing governments, the Commission’s proposals push expulsion to the fore”.
The group proposes six axes, including: an end to refoulement and the setting up of an adequate control system that is independent of the actions of surveillance agencies and border police forces, a new binding system for the distribution of asylum seekers in the EU, the end of Moria-type camps (in Lesbos) and the end to a collaboration with Libya, Sudan, Niger and Egypt. There is also a need to regularise the people who are already there.
Link to document: https://bit.ly/2VtSOPL (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)