Debate: Deaths at sea: a common EU response to save lives and action to ensure safe and legal pathways
Date: WEDNESDAY, 15 MARCH 2023
Speaker: Mairead McGuinness
Language: EN

People get into small boats and embark on dangerous journeys because there are no legal ways for them to get to Europe. Many of you have expressed the need for safe legal pathways, and that is something that we support. Let’s look at the realities of the European Union today. We reckon that in the healthcare area, 2 million professionals are needed. We also know that by 2030 there will be 7 million vacancies in long—term care alone. MEP Daly mentioned that these people are assets. They’re human beings with the capacity to contribute and those who get into boats do it, putting their lives at risk because they want something better. I also recall that this is what we call the European Year of Skills, and to tell this House that we are making progress on talent partnerships with key partner countries. We’re starting with Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Bangladesh and Pakistan, and we’re looking at Nigeria in the near future. Our Member States are fully involved and this is really essential for success. Our first round table took place with Bangladesh on 1 March, with strong interest from Italy and Germany to foster labour mobility, which should include skills development and skills certification. Today a round table meeting is taking place with Pakistan. Just last week, the first global jobs fair for refugee talent was organised in Amman. This work can provide safe avenues and lead to jobs and opportunities. For example, over 100 refugees have been interviewed by potential employers. This is the future. It is in stark contrast to the terrible tragedies at sea. People smugglers – and we have to call them out – people smugglers are to blame for these tragedies. They exploit people’s dreams. They turn them into nightmares. These people end up in shipwrecks on the high seas or in airtight vans on the highways. We think about the 18 people found dead in a lorry in Bulgaria, the people drowned near Calabria, left to die, abandoned by smugglers who save their own skins. Colleagues, these tragedies should galvanise us, should forge our determination, steel our resolve to fight the smugglers relentlessly by air, by sea and by land. We have to fight these smugglers as Team Europe and with our partners to do what we can to prevent people from getting into the smugglers’ boats, to prevent irregular departures, to work better together to save lives. Next Monday, Commissioner Johansson will meet with African Union Commissioner Samate, High Commissioner for Refugees Grandi, and Director General of the IOM António Vitorino. This is done in our trilogue task force on Libya, and the idea behind this is to prepare our high—level dialogue with Libyan authorities. We have three key objectives: protecting the most vulnerable people in detention centres, including women and children; fighting smuggling and protecting victims; stepping up on returns, evacuations through the Emergency Transit Mechanism, resettlement and reintegration of migrants. I welcome the interventions today that called for swift progress and adoption of the Pact on Migration and Asylum. I agree it is high time to do that and I am encouraged by the good progress made by this House and by the Council. I very much welcome the mandates you will agree on next week. We have a roadmap and we are on the right track. We now need to stay on track. There is a new mood in the Council, a strong will to move forward. So the momentum is there. The time is right for an agreement on this pact. And together, I think we should remember that the objectives are to save lives. The figure was mentioned – I think MEP Wallace mentioned a figure of several thousand human beings whose lives have been lost at sea and perhaps many more thousands that have not been counted. I think we can address that collectively: Parliament, Council and Commission.