Europe is struggling to cope with the influx of migrants and the existing system for housing them is close to collapse, according to a group of Euro MPs.
EU Member States failed to plan for an ongoing crisis and were left unprepared when arrivals shot up after the pandemic, they say.
Seven MEPs from different parties and headed by Lena Düpont, a German Christian Democrat, visited reception facilities in Belgium, France and the Netherlands and talked to volunteer groups as part of a fact-finding mission that also touched on cross-Channel people-smuggling to the UK.
“We exchanged views on the problems with reception capacities in Europe, which have come to the brink of failure…”, they concluded. As well as inadequate contingency planning after the 2015 crisis (triggered by refugees fleeing the war in Syria) authorities were caught unawares when arrivals, which had dropped during the Covid pandemic, shot up again.
Illegal border crossings took a sharp upward turn last year and arrivals are now running at levels not seen since the Syria wave.
The mass of Ukrainian refugees has added further stress on state resources.
The group acknowledged the hard work of volunteer groups though pointed to “specific policies and actions [that] can have a negative impact on the rights of migrants and asylum seekers”, without naming them.
The report and the subject of migration as a whole is highly sensitive in Brussels, where human rights advocates (mostly NGOs) are engaged in a furious battle with politicians, many of whom now see a clampdown on arrivals and their return to their countries of departure as the solution to the problem. This policy direction was confirmed at a summit of EU leaders earlier this month.
The Italian Parliament has approved new legislation designed to restrict the activities of NGO-operated vessels that are accused (unfairly, they say) of aiding people-smugglers seeking to cross the Mediterranean. The law foresees penalties of up to €50,000 if masters of these vessels do not abide by the rules.
