Joint statement by Kamini-Chronopoulos: Shipwrecks underscore European policy impasse

On the occasion of the three consecutive shipwrecks of the last days in the Aegean that resulted in dozens of dead and missing immigrants, the MP of the Movement for Change, George Kaminis and the responsible department head Vassilis Chronopoulos, with a joint statement express their sorrow in front of such.

“Obviously, the biggest share of responsibility lies with the criminal trafficking networks and Turkey, which is still unable to control them effectively,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement. more than 11,826 refugees and migrants arrived in Italy directly from Turkey in 2021. A number almost three times that of 2020 (4,191). “The traffickers have launched a new dangerous route. A route that, apparently, is not guarded and in which death is delayed,” said KINAL officials.

At the same time, they emphasize that in recent days “we are living, in the harshest way, the impasse of the European Union’s policy on the immigration and refugee issue fueled by the intransigence of the Visegrad super-conservative governments.” They added that the time-honored positions of the European Socialists and KINAL were confirmed, focusing on “unless the Dublin Regulation is definitively past, unless a mandatory European proportional distribution mechanism for refugees and migrants is established, if there are no legal and “to Europe, people who want to get to Europe will continue to choose increasingly dangerous routes, and we will limit ourselves to collecting shipwrecks and mourning victims.”

Mr Kaminis and Mr Chronopoulos also criticized the government, saying it had abandoned efforts to improve the new European Pact on Immigration and Asylum and “seems to be giving in to Europe’s” tough “aspirations.

“As Pope Francis so eloquently said during his recent visit to Lesvos, let us not allow the Aegean to be transformed into a ‘deserted sea of ​​death,'” they conclude.