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Webinar on ‘The Migration and Asylum Pact: Challenging the European Commission’s narrative’”
Interpretation: EN, FR, ES, EL, DE
Left MEPs will be hosting a webinar to launch a set of proposals that will put dignity and human rights at the heart of EU’s migration policy – unlike the Commission’s new deportation-obsessed ‘Migration Pact’.
Our counterproposals “The Migration and Asylum Pact: Challenging the European Commission’s narrative from a Left perspective” will set out in forthright terms that the EU is shirking its international obligations to uphold human rights, and disregarding international law on migration.
Since 2013, thousands of people have died or endured violence, misery and tragedy in inhumane conditions due to the EU’s failed migration policy.
Join our webinar on ‘The Migration and Asylum Pact: Challenging the European Commission’s narrative’ when we will have contributions from MSF and other NGOs from across Europe.
On 23rd September 2020, the EU Commission presented the Asylum and Migration Pact as a “fresh start” for migration and asylum policies in the European Union. Misleadingly, the proposals were presented through the image of a “house with three floors”. It falsely promises a new start in European migration policies, but in reality, the Pact reinforces current failed policies by focusing on deterrence, containment of people fleeing in third countries, strengthening of the external borders of the EU, detention of people, and acceleration of procedures at the borders at the expenses of the right to a fair and individual procedure. It also maintains the principle of responsibility of the Member State of first entry.
This first panel of the webinar aims at giving the floor to experts, whether lawyers, academics or NGOs, who have been working on the ground for years, witnessing first-hand the impact of EU’s policies on people’s rights. The second panel aims at reflecting on the way forward.
It will also be an opportunity to release at this occasion two new publications of The Left Group in the European Parliament:
- Our publication “The Migration and Asylum Pact: Challenging the European Commission’s narrative from a Left perspective”
- Our research on detention, a key feature of the Migration Pact entitled “Locked up and excluded”: Informal and illegal detention in Spain, Greece, Italy and Germany”.
Programme
Introduction
Cornelia Ernst, MEP, Germany, The Left coordinator in the LIBE committee and shadow on the Asylum and Migration Management Regulation
Roundtable 1: What do current policies teach us about pact implementation?
Speakers:
- David Conlan Smyth, Senior Counsel, CCBE/European Lawyers in Lesvos
- Inma Vazquez, Representative to the European Union, MSF
- Minos Mouzourakis, Legal and advocacy officer, Refugees Support Aegean
- Milena Zajovic, advocacy officer, Border Violence Monitoring and President, Are You Syrious
- Sara Prestianni, Migration & Asylum Program Officer, Euromed rights
- Céline Cantat, author of the Left Research “Locked up and excluded”: Informal and illegal detention in Spain, Greece, Italy and Germany”, Migreurop
Roundtable 2: The way forward
Moderation: Kostas Arvanitis, MEP, Greece, Left shadow on the Crisis Regulation
Speakers:
-Catherine Woolard, Secretary General, ECRE
-Alina Lyapina, coordinator, Seebruecke
-Marie Naass, advocacy officer, Seawatch
-Sira Rego, MEP, Spain, Left shadow on the Border Regulation
– Malin Björk, MEP, Sweden, Rapporteur on Resettlement
-Miguel Urban Crespo, MEP, Spain, Left shadow on EUAA and Asylum and Migration Fund
-Pernando Barrena, MEP, Basque country, Left shadow on the Screening Regulation