Labour MEP accuses EU of ‘tiptoeing’ around refugee crisis

Labour MEP Miriam Dalli urged the EU to draw up proper polices to seriously address the refugee crisis, warning that they are currently “tiptoeing around the problem”.

"Instead of addressing the migration challenge at its core, the European Union is ending up beating around the bush with policies that address only the consequences," Dalli said during a European Parliament debate on the Europe’s refugee crisis.

Insisting that the crisis should not simply be considered a European one, she called on other non-European countries to lend a helping hand.

“The challenge that the EU is facing is undermining European borders and European laws that were never drafted for the kind of crisis that the EU is facing today,” she said, referring to the Schengen Agreement and the Dublin Regulation that restricts asylum applications to the first country of entry.

She warned that the EU’s proposed relocation scheme of asylum seekers in Italy and Greece is not working and the biggest burden is being carried by the countries that are at the forefront of Europe’s borders.

“It is useless to point fingers at one country,” she said. “The reality is that countries on the EU's borders cannot be left fending on their own without any support.

“If the EU is not going to address seriously this matter it will simply continue tip-toeing around the problem and we will end up with a greater problem on our hands.