Plenary focus - December

The 6-pack and 2-pack review might be a lost opportunity. We still have no serious assessment of the impact country-specific recommendations have had on the EU’s consistently poor economic performance. It baffles me to see that the series of failures in economic policy - of which the adjustment programmes were only the most disastrous example – has only led to the reinforcement of the policies and institutional settings that led to this disgraceful situation.

With 4000 migrants drowned in the Mediterranean to date, it is obvious that we need a new approach to the policies of asylum and migration. We urgently need a holistic approach to the various problems, in particular one that is not only focused on border security but on human rights and migrants’ dignity. For this reason we want the European Parliament to conduct an inquiry in order to assess the effects of the current policies and to elaborate alternatives.