Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the initiative that has been proposed seeks to set out the measures that may be taken by the authorities to provide assistance for the purposes of the removal, with or without escorts, of third-country nationals. This proposal is one of numerous initiatives seeking to combat unorthodox immigration. If the European Union has to have a common immigration and asylum policy and has to provide itself with the means to manage migratory flows, this policy should respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms that are universally recognised and acknowledged by the Member States. This is why we cannot support an approach which seeks to make the deportation of third-country nationals who do not have the right papers a populist tool at the service of a repressive policy on the reality of immigration. Too many expulsions by air have ended in the death of human beings because of the way in which they have been treated. Everyone remembers Semira Adamou, who suffocated in a plane in Belgium while being deported. Last month, again, in France, two other immigrants who did not have the necessary papers died at the hands of the same violence. Recently, on 3 March, France and Germany expelled a group of 54 Senegalese and Ivorians who had not been admitted to these countries, had had their asylum applications dismissed and had been kept in a waiting zone. This sounds to me very much like forced and – at the very least – mass repatriation. Were Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 19 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, that was ratified at the Nice Summit, respected? Furthermore, in the Ivorians' case they were sent back to a country where there is currently unrest and civil war. Were the procedures for applying for asylum that are guaranteed by the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees also respected? Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the principle of non-refoulement, that is recognised in asylum law, was fully respected. The security-based approach that is being proposed to us today is entirely in keeping with the Union's practices, which, we have to admit, have not enabled the problem of illegal immigration to be resolved. We urgently need to recognise that the myth of zero immigration and its corollary, the all-repressive approach, are a failure. So far the Member States' repressive immigration policies have not caused a decline in illegal immigration. Quite the opposite: they have reinforced it by breeding more immigrants without the proper papers and they have sent hundreds of thousands of people underground, people who are now in the grip of networks of exploitative criminals, traffickers in human beings and advocates of modern slavery. This failure demands a thorough revision of the immigration and asylum policy. This is a major and complex issue with a great deal at stake in the long term and our democracies have an important responsibility to assume for it. In rejecting a Community policy so as to meet the national demands of the Member States, in putting the rights of migrants and their families at risk, thus handing them over to the violence of deportation, and in refusing to recognise the wealth that these citizens, whether legal or not, bring to the project of European integration, this proposal is based on a philosophy that runs counter to our conviction that Europe should be a place of openness and solidarity, and that is why the Group of the rejects it. We call on the Council to establish a genuine Community asylum and immigration policy that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms. We recommend a European campaign to legalise the situation of all those who do not have papers, who have ties in the host country and who reside there on a long-term basis. We recommend putting an end to the injustice of people being punished twice and sometimes even three times because of the readmission agreements. We urgently need to remedy the contradictory situation of people who can neither be deported nor given legal papers, by finally recognising the right to live in a family. After the minimalist proposal for a directive on family reunification that we examined just now in this House, we can only imagine the kind of discrimination that the European Union intends to reserve for the most marginalised and weak in the future. We are against these practices and assure you that we will remain vigilant and active in our efforts to ensure that all those who reside in Europe can be full citizens and enjoy equal rights. Whatever their nationality or their administrative situation, these people should be treated with the dignity that all human beings deserve.

Political group: Verts-ALE