Press conference on the&nbsp;refugee crisis; Appeal from European Film Celebrities (For A Thousand Lives, Be Human), in the EP in Brussels. Statements by Claude MORAES (S&amp;D, UK), Silvia COSTA (S&amp;D, IT), Ursula WOLSCHLAGER, Producer and script writer, Hanna SCHYGULLA, Actress, Michel HAZANAVICIUS, Film Director

Brussels

MORAES, Claude (S&D, UK)

migration and refugees in Europe (T)

press conference

COSTA, Silvia (S&D, IT)

Refugee Crisis; Appeal from European Film Celebrities (For A Thousand Lives, Be Human): extracts from the press conference by Claude MORAES (S&D, UK) and Silvia COSTA (S&D, IT)

Exterior shot of the European Parliament in Brussels.

SOUNDBITE (English), Claude MORAES (S&amp;D, UK), "We are here for a reason, and the reason we are here is that the European Union is not just a union of economics and market, the European Union is a union of values".

SOUNDBITE (English), Claude MORAES (S&amp;D, UK), "The winter is coming and, as there is complacency in the media, about the refugee crisis, many people think the refugee crisis is under control, the refugee crisis is not under control".

SOUNDBITE (Italian), Silvia COSTA (S&amp;D, IT), "We also need to act on a cultural level, because we have too many preachers of hatred, racism, xenophobia and populism, that are using refugees as a weapon to build walls and barbed wire, in a Europe that dramatically knew this experience in the past".

SOUNDBITE (English), Ursula WOLSCHLAGER, Producer and script writer, "When the horrible thing happened that in Austria we had this 71 dead people in a truck by the roadside, that was the moment when Nathalie BOADAS and Laurent Fabien SERVANGE-R&Eacute;VERT and me decided to do something about it. We know so many film makers all over Europe, we know so many institutions who would help us and which have said 'we have to raise our voices about it'".

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel HAZANAVICIOUS, Film Director, <p>"The populist rhetoric of certain politicians, exploiting fear in order to conduct a xenophobic campaign, is paralyzing the vast majority of the political class. The debate is biased and politicians with a sense of the state have to oppose them by speaking up the values of Europe".</p>

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel HAZANAVICIUS, Film Director, "The European Union needs to offer the people fleeing from war, terror and persecution legal ways to ask for the protection of Europe, so they don't have to use illegal routes and put their lives in the hands of traffickers. The European nations should put an end to the Dublin Convention, that has led to a violation of the rights of refugees, as well as, to an unjust load for the border countries of the Union".

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel HAZANAVICIUS, Film Director, "The populist, demagogic speech is heard a lot more, because they make more noise, they are people that wave the flag of fear and narrow-mindedness and this is a more telegenic kind of speech, so their arguments are unfortunately heard more than ours".

SOUNDBITE (French), Hanna SCHYGULLA, Actress , "I was raised as the daughter of a refugee, in Germany. I came from the eastern provinces, there were eleven million of refugees fleeing, most of them were marching on foot. My mother was lucky enough to make it to one of the last trains and then the train stopped in the middle of a field and we lived in that train at the beginning".

SOUNDBITE (French), Michel HAZANAVICIUS, Film Director, "The true ally of this populism, its first ally is silence. I think the immense majority of people have good will, but they don't express it, so I think it's necessary to give them ideas, messages and positions that they can adhere to".

SOUNDBITE (English), Claude MORAES (S&amp;D, UK), "The artists came to us, they took the initiative, they asked us to say these things in the European Parliament. They know what we have done and what we have not done, they know the institutions and the progressives who are making a difference and those who are resisting. And one final thing: they also know that the imagery of the refugee crisis has been very important. The images are moving people but also people are getting used to those images, so somehow, before the winter, maybe there will be some complacency."