Plenary focus - October I

Local and regional authorities play a crucial role in welcoming, supporting and integrating refugees and migrants. Yet, they have almost no access to funding. We need to create such funding opportunities if we want to stop making refugees and migrants vulnerable to ruthless exploitation, as well as economic and social subjugation by criminal organisations.

A year and a half on from the atrocities against gay people in Chechnya, we still haven’t seen any independent investigation into the hundred-plus testimonies of detention and torture. The EU must put more pressure on Chechen and Russian authorities. LGBTI rights are basic human rights and they should be respected everywhere - no two ways about it. It’s high time the EU put some concrete action behind the LGBTI guidelines in its foreign relations.