Brussels, 20/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - MEPs of the Socialist Group returned scandalised from their visit to the refugee detention centre in Lampedusa (southern Sicily) last Thursday, they said at a press conference on Tuesday. The delegation, composed of MEPs from all parliamentary groups, had been officially sent there by the European Parliament to inspect the conditions in the centre where many asylum seekers and immigrants from Africa end up, and which has been at the centre of a polemic since Italy sent many such persons back to Libya (EUROPE 9029).
Martine Roure of France, who chaired the delegation, denounced the “dramatic masquerade” that went on as nearly all refugees had been displaced from the centre by air-lift before the delegation arrived. There were only 11 asylum seekers present when the delegation reached Lampedusa, whereas there had been sometimes up to 1,000 before, she stressed. It was the first time during an inspection visit of a retention centre that the MEPs outnumbered the refugees, stressed Martine Roure, Claudio Fava and Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler, speaking to the press. Displeased with “not having seen the centre as it usually is”, the MEPs protested against the fact that the Italian authorities had not given them access to the register of arrivals and expulsions to Libya or elsewhere. From what was seen of the centre - there were only 12 toilets, without doors, and 18 washbasins - the MEPs consider that the conditions for hosting the refugees are “dramatic” and “violate human rights”, Ms Roure said. Next week, in Strasbourg, she will be presenting a report to the EP Committee on Citizens' Freedom and Rights.
Wolfgang Kreissel-Dörfler and Martine Roure indicated that the public freedoms committee is going to carry out an inspection in other Member States, particularly Poland and Malta in coming months and also wants to go to Libya.
The European Commission is not ruling out, in theory at least, the possibility of carrying out these investigations itself in order to ensure respect for the directive on minimum standards for reception of asylum seekers, which entered into force in February. Commissioner Franco Frattini's spokesperson indicated that this would normally be part of its job and underlined that only five officials at the Commission were involved with asylum. The European Commission, to its knowledge, has never carried out such inspections, he explained.
Although 256 new illegal immigrants were rescued on Monday nigh and Tuesday on the Lampedusa coast, the Commission was very cautious in its reply to the question on expulsions and underlined that in the absence of European legislation, it was “up to Italian judges and perhaps the European Court of Human Rights” to say whether expulsions from Lampedusa by the Italian authorities conform with the UN Convention on Refugees and the European Convention on Human Rights.