Metsola urges Europe's leaders to show courage and leadership

Member of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola has urged EU Prime Ministers to face down the populists and to "have the courage to give people fleeing unimaginable horror the chance at a future without fear."

Addressing the European Parliament plenary during a debate on migration and the refugee crisis in Europe, Metsola called on Europe to be an example for the world by sending an unequivocal message that it also stands with the voiceless.

"Member States seem to easily agree on how many fish we can pick up from our seas, they agree on how many plastic bags we can throw away, but when bodies of children are washing up on our shores, and we still cannot agree on how to deal with refugees humanely, then everything else we do seems to me to be of little use. Nothing is more urgent or more important. We like to say that we are a Union of shared values, but we are not yet a Union of shared responsibility and that is our collective failure," Metsola said.

Refugees are people running away from war, from death, said Metsola. She stressed that Prime Ministers simply cannot afford to look away; every single State must fulfil its moral and legal obligation to address the situation. "Walls and fences do not work and neither does simply throwing money at the issue."

MEP Metsola argued that Europe needs more than 'band-aid' solutions that serve to make us feel better before the next emergency exposes its inadequacy. 

"We need a binding, permanent, distribution mechanism for people in need of protection and we needed this yesterday. This is the challenge of our generation and we cannot be remembered as the ones who dithered while thousands suffered on our doorstep, or we will be the generation who failed,"  she said.