Two GUE/NGL MEPs have intervened in a European Parliament plenary debate on the situation in the Mediterranean and the need for a holistic approach to migration in the EU.

German GUE/NGL MEP Cornelia Ernst said: “With over 20,000 people having died at the EU's external borders, asylum policy has failed.

“People whose family members have disappeared have received no support or help to find their family members and get information about their fate. This silence is inhumane.”

She continued: “The EU and its member states should be pioneering a humane asylum policy. The Dublin principles are being ignored. We must defend the right to asylum.”

Italian GUE/NGL MEP Barbara Spinelli said: “EU leaders view the right to life and the right to asylum as dead letters.

“The EU should not be causing mass drownings. We cannot leave people on hunger trike in Athens and we need to save people form shipwrecks. This house is hypocritical if it does not recognise this.”