The Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) of the European Parliament is set to ask for further clarifications on the application of the EU Facilitation Directive - which provides for sanctions against anyone assisting people with irregular entry or irregular residence in the EU - to ensure that acts of humanitarian assistance to migrants and asylum-seekers are not criminalised. Statement by Claude MORAES (S&D, UK), Rapporteur

Brussels

statement

vote

Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs

MORAES, Claude (S&D, UK)

migration and refugees in Europe (T)

Asylum policy (T2)

humanitarian aid (T)

Guidelines for Member States to prevent that humanitarian assistance is criminalised: extracts from the vote and statement by Claude MORAES (S&D, UK), Rapporteur

Atmosphere shots before the voting session starts. Chair of LIBE Committee and Rapporteur Claude MORAES (S&amp;D, UK)

SOUNDBITE (English), Claude MORAES (S&amp;D, UK), Rapporteur and Chair , The resolution should wind up a debate following a LIBE oral question on the subject of guidelines for member states to prevent humanitarian assistance being criminalised. It is one vote and we proceed to the vote, the vote is open.

The vote is closed, carried: 38 votes in favour, 16 against and 2 abstentions.

SOUNDBITE (English), Claude MORAES (S&amp;D, UK), Rapporteur, This resolution on the facilitation issue is designed to bring certainty to an area which is very emotional and very difficult legally and that is the issue where NGOs and other humanitarian organisations are trying to rescue people at the sea and in another situations. An in a quarter of EU countries they don&rsquo;t have any legislation at all, which would prevent an obvious humanitarian rescue by humanitarian or NGO organisation for example; this provides real inconsistency in the EU.

SOUNDBITE (English), Claude MORAES (S&amp;D, UK), Rapporteur, So we want to have a resolution which asks to the European Commission to bring forward guidelines very quickly to ensure certainty in this area, because we now have a situation where we have a real political football being played with organizations who are playing humanitarian role and who are rescuing people in need, and we need legal certainty around this and we need protection for people who are doing the right thing and we want to ensure that those are guidelines because there is real inconsistency and prosecutions are happening, which are failing, for individuals and organizations&hellip; Certainty in European Union is crucial and this resolution calls for that it is a real legal gap but it is also a gap in terms of humanitarian and values.