European leaders must move beyond playing mere politics and find a “decisive, humane and comprehensive” response to the ongoing refugee and migration crises. Such is the belief of Avaaz, a global civil-society organisation, which is currently organising an online petition with over 425,000 signatures calling upon European leaders to deal with the above crises and to thus “adopt a comprehensive plan that saves lives, ensures the safe and legal resettlement of refugees, and establishes a fair and binding system to receive and assist people seeking refuge in Europe”.
With EU leaders in Brussels today to discuss migration, along with both the Greek financial crisis and the upcoming UK referendum on EU membership, it is expected that the European Council will “agree to the (Editor’s Note: EU) Commission’s proposal today to relocate 40,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece over the next 2 years, governments are expected to remain deadlocked over how many each country should take — leaving thousands of refugees trapped, and more arriving every day”.
Furthermore, Avaaz claims that EU leaders “have also only agreed in principle to resettle 20,000 new refugees and have not finalised the numbers of new resettlements each country will take, despite the UN identifying 380,000 vulnerable women, men and children just from Syria in urgent need of resettlement”.
It thus appears likely that EU leaders will not agree to the migrant “quotas”, as was originally intended in the Commission’s proposal, and if so, countries will agree to take migrants on a voluntary basis and will not be forced to take on a certain number.
In a statement released today, Alice Jay (Avaaz Campaign Director), says that “the Mediterranean graveyard is Europe’s shame, and the deadlock over the fate of these desperate families is a battle for the soul of this continent. While today’s agreement is an important first step, it is not moving with the focus and urgency that the crisis requires”.
There is no shortage of crises today in Europe. Yet it is surely wrong for Europe, home to some of the world's richest countries, to tolerate people dying on our borders. Let us hope that EU leaders do what is needed and come up with a just solution to the crisis rocking both the Mediterranean and Europe.
Originally published on Afronline
Click Here to read Avaaz’s statement