23
Nov
2022
Watch
The need for a European solution on asylum and migration including search and rescue (debate)
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, so far, what the left has demanded has been done on immigration. What was the result? Trafficking in human beings, thousands of deaths at sea, thousands of illegal immigrants on our territories, undeclared work with starvation wages and no guaranteed rights, labor available to organized crime, loss of security in our cities, a squalid and politicized hospitality business fueled by European money. Faced with this failure, the European centre-right, finally united, proposes another model. We want to combat illegal departures, to set up reception centres in countries of origin and transit where applications for entry into Europe can be examined and where those who are entitled to international protection because they are fleeing war and persecution can be determined, and those who are not. In this way it would also become possible to establish legal flows and contents of economic migrants, functional to the development of our cities. Legal migrants must be guaranteed a safe journey and be able to integrate with our populations. With regard to all others, we can only commit ourselves to promoting the development of the nations from which migration originates. Our proposal is imbued with common sense and true solidarity, but I already know that it will be opposed by the left side of this Parliament with the usual furiously ideological words. What some in here contemptuously call Fortress Europe, we simply call Europe.