Meeting of the Committee on Civil Liberties&nbsp;on Crisis relocation mechanism, in the EP in Brussels.&nbsp;Statements by&nbsp;Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Miriam DALLI (S&amp;D, MT), Cecilia WIKSTR&Ouml;M (ALDE, SE) and Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE)

Brussels

meeting

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

migration and refugees in Europe (T)

LENAERS, Jeroen (EPP, NL)

WIKSTRÖM, Cecilia (ALDE, SE)

KELLER, Ska (Greens/EFA, DE)

DALLI, Miriam (S&D, MT)

KIRKHOPE, Timothy (ECR, UK)

Crisis relocation mechanism: extracts from the debate on report by Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR,GB)

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), Rapporteur, First of all we need a mechanism that does not exacerbate the pull factors. We need a measure that works in a compatible rather than in a contradictory way with our existing legal framework including the Dublin regulations and our external border controls. Any relocation mechanism needs to be seen as part of a wider well-functioning asylum system. We often talk about it not being a silver bullet to any challenging situation, and of course in the case of relocation this is the same; in order for a permanent relocation system to work, the whole asylum acquis needs to be working properly.

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), Rapporteur, Relocation will only work when trust is a central ingredient and at present I have to say that there is little evidence of a lot of trust going around.

SOUNDBITE (English), Timothy KIRKHOPE (ECR, UK), Rapporteur, We need to be honest with ourselves; the emergency relocation system is not working as those in this Parliament and certain member states have hoped. A much more robust framework will be needed that what we have been presented with so far. We need this mechanism so we can look at wider considerations such as re-settlement, distribution, appeals, returns, funding, integration, border control and processing of applications.

SOUNDBITE (English), Jeroen LENAERS (EPP, NL), Shadow rapporteur, I fully agree with Timothy Kirkhope when he says that this is no silver bullet and a silver bullet doesn&rsquo;t exist. Relocation can only work if all the other aspects of the holistic approach to migration are in place and this also goes for return policy, external borders security, hotspots..

SOUNDBITE (Maltese), Miriam DALLI (S&amp;D, MT), Shadow Rapporteur, It is a fact that the amount of people coming to Europe is increasing and it doesn&rsquo;t make sense to put this problem under the carpet and leave the countries mostly hit on their own.

SOUNDBITE (English), Cecilia WIKSTR&#214;M (ALDE, SE), Shadow Rapporteur, All in all we are to relocate 160 000 persons all together. With this speed it&rsquo;s going to take approximately 75 years from now, unless something happens, something dramatic! And I would like to know what are the measures that you are foreseen to relocate not only one, 15 or 30, but numbers of people.

SOUNDBITE (English), Ska KELLER (Greens/EFA, DE), Shadow Rapporteur, We should not ask refugees to first apply for asylum in the country where they currently are because that leads to extra administrative burden, extra procedures&hellip; Currently people first have to apply for asylum in Greece or Italy before they need to be relocated but the asylum procedures are going to be done anyway in the country of relocation so I think it makes sense if they don&rsquo;t need to apply for asylum in Greece or Italy, simply in order to speed things up and have less administrative steps.