“When we warned last January that Europe was sleepwalking into a new migration crisis, the social democrats and liberals accused us of fueling the flames of populism,” Manfred Weber, the head of the European People’s Party’s Committee of the European People’s Party in the EP, said at the beginning in their joint article. , and the head of the ND Eurogroup and vice-president of the EPP’s KO in the EP, Vangelis Meimarakis, which APE-MPE publishes today. And immediately they add: “They rejected our warnings and the concerns of the citizens. Instead of looking for solutions to stop the irregular flow of migrants to Europe, they ignored it.”

In addition, among other things, they highlight that “the left is slowing down the reform of asylum and immigration laws in Europe and torpedoing efforts to work with North African countries such as Tunisia to reduce the number of irregular boat arrivals” and that “political responsibility for this failure to protect Europe’s borders lies squarely in the camp of social democrats and liberals.”

“We support the fundamental right of asylum, which is a defining principle in our relations with the rest of the world,” they note elsewhere in their joint article, adding, however, that “at the same time, the scale and complexity of immigration has changed radically.” and that “the longer we wait for a more realistic and less idealistic immigration approach, the more citizens’ trust in government, local, national or European, will be undermined.”

“It is not inevitable”, they emphasize and immediately add: “We know what we have to do. What we need is for Europe to rally around an immigration and asylum reform that is achievable. We are closer than ever to reaching an agreement. Years from now, people will see this moment as either the biggest missed opportunity of the decade or the first step in restoring order to the migration flows arriving in Europe.”

And they conclude, stating that “in order to make significant progress, social democrats and liberals must accept that it is a new world out there, that without a European approach we will go from one migration crisis to another, slowly fueling the far right and undermining people’s support for the European Union” and that “the time for action is now”.

The entire text of the joint article by M. Weber and V. Meimarakis is as follows:

By M. Weber & V. Meimarakis: “Immigration crises are not inevitable”

“When we warned last January that Europe was sleepwalking into a new migration crisis, social democrats and liberals accused us of fanning the flames of populism. They dismissed our warnings and citizens’ concerns. Instead of looking for solutions to stop the irregular flow of migrants to Europe, they ignored it.

While mayors and councilors of all parties are sounding the alarm that they have reached their limits on what they can do to help people, the left is slowing reforming asylum and immigration laws in Europe and torpedoes efforts to work with North African countries such as Tunisia to reduce the number of irregular boat arrivals. The political responsibility for this failure to protect Europe’s borders lies squarely in the camp of social democrats and liberals.

Now Europe is once again facing a migration crisis and the political tragedy is that we saw it coming. Within a week, more than 10,000 migrants reached the shores of Lampedusa, a small island with about 6,000 inhabitants 145 kilometers off the coast of Tunisia. Within a few hours, this small island doubled its population, with all the consequences this entails for immigrants, authorities and residents. It is a situation that no city or municipality would consider acceptable anywhere in Europe.

To put it bluntly, we are in this situation because President Macron and Chancellor Scholz refused to take responsibility for this European problem. Lampedusa is not only an Italian island, it is a European island and the people who arrive there, do not want to stay on the island. They want to go to France and Germany, Sweden and the Netherlands. How is it possible that the leaders of France and Germany ignore a simple fact: people are not coming to Italy, they are coming to Europe. Instead of looking away and leaving Italy alone with the problem, Europe must offer solutions together.

The French government, however, is rushing to send reinforcements to the Italian border to keep economic migrants in Italy, but has so far refused, like the German government, to back the deal with Tunisia, which could reduce the number of irregular arrivals. We are not naive about who we are dealing with in Tunis, but we cannot stop people from risking their lives crossing the Mediterranean without building good relations with countries in northern Africa. We expect from the next meeting of the Ministers of the Interior to send a clear message of support for the memorandum with Tunisia.

Worse, the only proposal the social democrats and liberals have to regain control of irregular immigration is search and rescue missions. We are not against search and rescue, but this cannot just mean that people who are rescued are automatically taken to a European port. We need a new European naval mission in the Mediterranean, but it must be able to bring back migrants to the shores of North Africa. It is the only way to break the business model of the criminal gangs who get rich by smuggling people into Europe.

The reality is also that the vast majority of people making the crossing are economic migrants, not refugees, who have little or no chance of receiving international protection in Europe. But traffickers also know that Europe’s return policy is not working. Once someone is in, the procedures are so complicated and expensive that it is almost impossible to send someone back. Nevertheless, the left in Europe wants to make legislation even more restrictive than it already is. Instead of trying to distribute economic migrants across the EU, we should send them back quickly and consistently.

Europe has welcomed more Ukrainian refugees in recent years than we have ever welcomed in our history. We are proud of it. We support the fundamental right of asylum, which is a defining principle in our relations with the rest of the world. At the same time, the scale and complexity of migration has changed radically. The longer we wait for a more realistic and less idealistic immigration approach, the more citizens’ trust in government, local, national or European, will be undermined.

It is not inevitable. We know what we have to do. What we need is for Europe to rally around an immigration and asylum reform that is achievable. We are closer than ever to reaching an agreement. Years from now, people will see this moment as either the biggest missed opportunity of the decade or the first step in restoring order to the migration flows arriving in Europe.

In order to make any meaningful progress, social democrats and liberals must accept that it is a new world out there, that without a European approach we will lurch from one migration crisis to another, slowly fueling the far right and undermining people’s support for the European Union. The time for action is now.”