EU must lead international cooperation on refugee crisis – Dalli

Maltese MEP Miriam Dalli welcomed a speech by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who acknowledged that the European Union needs to be far stronger on the international stage.

In his first State of the Union address, Juncker focused on the refugee crisis currently faced by the European Union. The immigration situation in the European Union was further discussed during the plenary sessions of Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.

Dalli, a member of the European Parliament’s Migration committee, said the EU needs to take a leading role and push forward international co-operation to address at source the refugee crisis and the migration issue.

She also described a proposal to prepare a list of safe countries of origin without removing aslyum rights as “an interesting one”.

Whilst addressing the EP during the debate about the relocation mechanism for Italy and Greece, which provides for the relocation of 40,000 people that entered these two countries, Dalli said that a long-term initiatives are needed and not patch-work solutions.

“We need European solution but also international solutions. After all this is not an issue that the EU can solve on its own. The relocation of people from on EU country to the other, with the participation of all EU Member States, is just one measure that can help us start seriously managing the issue at hand,” she said.

Dalli made it clear that this was not an issue for the EU alone, but this is a global reality which calls for international co-operation.

Dalli insisted that even though the debate was focusing on Italy and Greece, Hungary, Austria and Germany were being impacted too. This shows more than ever before that this is not an issue for the Mediterranean alone.

“This is not an issue that countries in Southern Europe alone have to address. This is an issue for every country to address and it is only if all countries do a collective effort that the situation can be managed,” Dalli emphasised.

The Maltese MEP mentioned how certain EU leaders continued pushing for a voluntary system of relocation, however she emphasised that volontary mechanisms do not work.

“Experience shows that voluntary mechanisms do not provide the results that we want. Malta’s pilot project for voluntary relocation is a case in point,” she added.

Malta’s pilot project which was based on a voluntary relocation system saw the participation of very few Member States, with low numbers of relocation.

Dalli called for the EU to stop dragging its feet and review as soon as possible the Dublin Regulation that places the responsibility of migrants on border Member States.