We talk to a leading anti-racism MEP and another who was at the UN climate talks in Qatar.

7 Days: No EU deal on asylum yet - Too little progress at Doha

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/16175948/m004-0058-en.srt

Hello and welcome to this  rather special edition of 7 Days in Europe.

We're out and about,  but still inside the European Parliament.

We had Mario Draghi, the ECB President,  telling the Economic Affairs Committee

that he sees signs of a possible upturn,  a bit of a recovery,

in the second half of next year,  so good news for a change.

MEPs failed to agree with the Commission  and Member State governments

on a policy on asylum.  We'll talk about that in a moment.

But they have now started a trialogue  amongst the institutions

on sorting out something  to help seasonal workers,

the people who come to Europe to work  in agriculture, horticulture, tourism, etc.

My guest today is British Socialist, Claude  Moraes. Welcome. Thanks for coming.

Very soon we'll talk about these issues,  but first we have our Yes-No interlude,

when I ask you a series of questions  to which I'd like you to answer yes or no.

OK, here we go. Is the EU asking people  to take too much pain

Do you share Mario Draghi's  optimistic view of next year?

The most recent summit didn't make  much progress. Are you worried about that?

Is the present state of Europe, do you fear,  encouraging nationalism?

Is populism a fear,  and is it the politicians who are to blame?

Should the EU do more about the rise  of the far right, do you think?

Is there something that can be done  about the rise of the far right?

The Arab Spring showed Europe  was disunited on asylum.

We should have taken more advantage  of the Arab Spring positively.

Are you worried that the first political victim  was agreement on the Schengen Treaty?

Claude, we're out of time  on the Yes-No interlude,

so thank you very much for taking part.  -It's a pleasure.

In a moment we'll look at  what the news has been this week,

but first can I just ask you...  Problems still remain on asylum policy.

We were hoping for agreement.  It didn't happen.

What were the main obstacles?  -I think on asylum policy, Jim...

We have an asylum package,  which is all about burden-sharing.

It was an intricate package which included  security elements like the Eurodac package,

but it was also about other elements,  procedures, and so on.

This is very difficult to interpret  for people outside this place.

But together it creates something to do with  burden-sharing between Member States

The problem has been to get all the  Member States to agree on this package.

Claude, we'll come back to talk about this  and other elements in just a moment.

But first let's look at the week's news  with Caroline Grasso.

48 hours after the EU summit,  a debriefing in the EP on Monday.

Last Friday the 27 finally agreed on  a single banking supervision system.

The European Central Bank will have  stronger powers of oversight.

The aim is to improve prevention of crises.

But the future of the eurozone isn't settled,  as MEPs once again pointed out.

The problem is that the 27 postponed the  question of the eurozone's new governance.

The European Central Bank President,  Mario Draghi,

was also in the EP on Monday to meet  MEPs from the Economic Committee.

It was a chance to discuss  the new banking supervision mechanism,

In spite of everything the last monetary  dialogue ended on an encouraging note.

We expect economic weakness  to extend into the next year

with a very gradual recovery  in the second half of the year.

A heart for peace and democracy in Europe.

A huge neon sign was put up on the facade  of the Parliament in Brussels on Monday.

It's a tribute to Václav Havel,  who died a year ago.

Havel was Czechoslovakia's  last President

and then the Czech Republic's first,  after the Velvet Revolution in 1989.

A symbol of the political changes  in the former communist countries,

his action culminated in 10 new  Member States joining the European Union.

Claude, let's go back  to this asylum issue for a moment.

The electorates generally seem  unsympathetic towards migrants.

Whose fault is that? Is it the media,  or politicians to a certain extent?

The issue of immigration and asylum  goes to the very core of people's feelings.

There's a human reaction  against 'the other',

people coming from third countries.  That's a human historic reaction.

But secondly there's an economic reaction.  We have a period of austerity.

So people know that we need migrants,  people who come here,

who take jobs nobody wants to do...  -Do they know that well enough?

People see migrants doing the jobs  that many people don't want to do.

People increasingly see migrants doing  very high-skilled jobs that we can't fill.

Yet there is a kind of denial  and this is what we call a visceral reaction,

a reaction to people  because we have a fear of the other.

And this is now being built upon  because we have austerity.

In times of austerity, there's a reaction

because people feel there's a cake  and we don't want to divide it any further.

So austerity is making this reaction  even stronger.

That's why... For example, I'm in charge  of a seasonal workers' directive,

where we had the trialogue this very week,

and you see the Council, the Member  States, reacting very badly to it.

They do that not because we don't need it.  We need protection for seasonal workers.

They're coming in the same numbers  they have always come in,

because we need seasonal work,  we need people to do that work,

and we need them to be protected  in that work.

because people, citizens,  feel more insecure in times of austerity.