Brussels, 13/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament, which is concerned and shocked by conditions at the asylum seekers' centre in Lampedusa, Sicily, and the tragic events that have occurred at the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, raised the question of immigration into the EU before the Council and Commission at Wednesday's plenary in Brussels (see other articles on this subject of discussion at the JHA Council and the proposals of the European Commission). Speaking for the Council presidency, Douglas Alexander, although not mentioning Ceuta and Melilla, acknowledged the unprecedented scale of immigration flows into the EU and the burden that is put on Mediterranean member countries. He noted, however, that this is a problem that affects the whole of Europe and its neighbours and not just Italy, Spain and Malta. The British minister for European affairs stressed how important it was to have common European standards on asylum and immigration, to improve border control and also to cooperate with the countries of origin (a readmission agreement has been signed with Russia and progress is being made in talks with Morocco, he said) and with Libya. On the subject of Ceuta and Melilla, European Commissioner Jan Figel (replacing his colleague, Frattini, who was in Council in Luxembourg) admitted that the solution is not to build walls and fences. He said the EU will have to face up to the problem of immigration “today, tomorrow and the days after” because Europe has become a more “attractive place”. Figel stressed the need to guarantee adequate standards in centres for migrants in several Member States, and welcomed in this context the visits made by MEPs to Lampedusa. He went on to confirm that, by the end of the year, the Commission will present an action plan on legal migrants.
During the debate, most MEPs called on the EU not to follow a purely repressive approach. The only discordant voices were those of Mario Boreghezio (Lega Nord, Independence and Democracy Group) who called for borders to be closed and said the EU should be grateful to the Italian government for having spent so much money on Lampedusa. Then there was Frank Vanhecke (Vlaams Belang, Belgian Far Right, NA), who felt that Spain and other European countries were responsible for the current crisis because of their excessive generosity towards immigrants. More funding is needed to improve the situation in the existing centres, Romano La Russa (UEN, Italy) said, whereas Guido Catania (GUE, Italy) was highly critical of the Italian government, mainly for having transferred asylum seekers from Lampedusa to another place (just before the arrival of a group of MEPs). The pictures one sees of Ceuta and Melilla are “just the tip of the iceberg”, several speakers warned, including German Christian Democrat Ewa Klamt, who exclaimed on the idea of establishing centres outside the EU: “Transporting people into deserts is inhumane and a signal of capitulation in our policy”. “Fortress Europe is a chimera”, French Socialist Martine Roure said, saying the EU should do more to eliminate poverty. Spanish Socialist Enrique Baron called for the informal summit in Hampton Court to take an initiative, for example a sort of “Marshall Plan for Africa”. He took a stance in favour of holding an Euro-African Conference on migration (with the participation of the EU, the UN and African countries) as suggested by the Spanish and Moroccan governments. Walls and camps are not the solution, exclaimed Dutch Green member Kathalijne Buitenweg, adding that a Commission delegation had gone to Ceuta and Melilla and that Commissioner Frattini must now “provide for similar monitoring of the situation in Malta and Lampedusa”. Liberal Group President Graham Watson noted that thousands of persons were massing fifteen kilometres south of his Gibraltar constituency, suffering hunger, disease and exploited by criminal gangs. He went on to add: “The poor vote with their feet. Either we accept their produce or we will have to accept their migrants”.