“What is happening in the Mediterranean is abominable, the behavior of the Greek authorities is atrocious,” said Jean-Luc Mélenchon on BFM TV. The leader of La France insoumise spoke after the sinking of a boat with hundreds of migrants off the coast of Greece, which killed at least 78 people.
For Jean-Luc Mélenchon, it is necessary to review the Dublin agreements, which leave the care of asylum seekers to the countries of first arrival in the European Union. “With the Dublin agreements, you stay where you arrive: this is unacceptable,” he said. The leader of the Insoumis believes that “what the European Union decided” in a recent agreement between member states, which has yet to be negotiated with Parliament, “is a shame”.
He advocates “authoritatively distributing” migrants across European countries. What if some countries don’t? “The question is not whether they want to or not, but whether it is necessary or not. Otherwise, what’s the point of being the European Union? he replies.
The agreement reached on Thursday between EU interior ministers provides in particular that member states are each required to receive a certain number of asylum seekers who have arrived in an EU country subject to migratory pressure ( according to their population and GDP per capita) or, failing that, to make a financial contribution of 20,000 euros per asylum seeker not relocated.
For Jean-Luc Mélenchon, “it is not a sanction. If you donate $20,000, you’re out. It means that those who have the money to pay for the fact that they don’t want immigrants, will pay, he laments. He also judged as an “abomination”, the fact “that we decided to deport to safe third countries”.
“We are going to set up camps in countries that are on the other side of the Mediterranean,” he said. “And it starts with those who can’t say no, like Tunisia, which is taken by the throat by the IMF [International Monetary Fund, editor’s note]” because of its economic situation, he lamented.