EU Parliament: Pact on Migration and Asylum, the floor is divided. Johansson (EU Commission), “it will improve things”. Many MEPs are against

An overheated atmosphere at the European Parliament, gathered for its plenary session in Brussels today and tomorrow. Today’s agenda includes a final vote in the afternoon on the new Pact on Migration and Asylum; tomorrow, discussion and voting on the inclusion of the “right to abortion” in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. Today, speaking of the Pact on Migration from the floor, the Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson (in the picture) also stated: “Voting for the Pact will improve things, it will prove that Europe knows how to find a compromise and knows how to deal with complex problems. If the vote on the Pact fails, we would all fail”. The Pact has been in progress for years now, and today’s vote could approve it or bury it forever. According to the Commissioner for Home Affairs, with the Pact “we could handle one of the main challenges of the EU while respecting the values” of the European Union.
The debate that ensued found a divided Parliament, as divided as were some political groups. The Swedish Tomas Tobé of the Group of the European People’s Party called on the MEPs to approve the Pact, “so we can put an end to the horrible number of deaths in the Mediterranean and not leave migrants in the hands of people smugglers”.
The Socialist and Democrat groups supported the Pact, which “is a real step forward. Today, we have the opportunity to show that common solutions to migration and asylum are possible”. But a few of the Group’s MEPs did not share such stance: they include Pietro Bartolo, formerly a doctor in Lampedusa.
Against the Pact – though for diametrically opposite reasons – the Left MEPs, the Green Party, the sovereigntist Right parties. The Left parties stated that the Pact would kill asylum rights. “Instead of heralding a new era of compassion and solidarity”, it “perpetuates a system of exclusion and oppression, condemning countless people to a life of uncertainty and fear”.
Redazione