(UK Green MEPs recorded a video statement in support of the motion. Watch it on YouTube here.)

5 July 2018

MEPs voted in favour of a Green initiative on Thursday calling on EU governments to stop criminalising humanitarian assistance for desperate refugees. The vote comes in the wake of increasing instances of criminalising those who provide aid and support to migrants and refugees. In Malta this week the government has detained a humanitarian vessel that rescues boat migrants off the coast of Libya, where two shipwrecks have claimed the lives of as many as 200 people in recent days [1].

The UK’s three Green MEPs welcomed the vote in the European Parliament. Jean Lambert, Green MEP for London and the Party’s Migration Spokesperson said:

“Malta is just the latest example of EU governments putting their own domestic political agendas above saving lives. That’s why I am delighted that the European Parliament has sent out a strong message calling on the European Commission and EU Member States to stop criminalising those who provide humanitarian assistance to people in desperate and life-threatening situations. We can, and must, do better.”

One crew member on the Sea Watcher 3 rescue boat ‘held against its will’ in Malta is a Brighton resident. Keith Taylor, the Green Party MEP for the South East, added:

“This is an important victory that sends a strong message: these people have put their lives on the line to save others, they are heroes, not criminals.”

“It’s also a vote that should prick the conscience of the British government, whose response to the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean has been poor, at best.”

“We take very few refugees, especially compared to many countries that are far less well-resourced. The least the UK can do is show some moral leadership by ending its opposition to search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean and backing this important resolution to end the criminalisation of humanitarian assistance.”

Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West, said:

“We must not forget the worrying political agenda underpinning this cruelty. There are actually far fewer refugees trying to get to Europe than in previous years, but unscrupulous far-right politicians are exploiting the prominence of this issue for their own benefit. They are using refugees and migrants as pawns in fermenting hatred and stoking up racism. We must do all we can to resist the creeping nationalism that is taking place across Europe.”

Notes:

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-malta-ngo/malta-detains-second-charity-ship-as-death-toll-at-sea-rises-idUSKBN1JS19S

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEV5PgzwBOM&feature=youtu.be

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Commenting on an announcement by Prime Minister Theresa May today of increased humanitarian aid funding for refugees and migrants, Jean Lambert, Green MEP for London and Green Party migration spokesperson said:

“Theresa May was under pressure at the UN in New York to step-up the UK’s action given the unprecedented displacement of people around the globe and she has found a way to respond. But having said that the UK remains a world player after the vote to leave the EU, her commitments on supporting asylum seekers still centre on keeping them out of the UK for poorer countries to handle. It’s not enough.

“May is wrong to think that aid spending alone is enough to stop desperate people moving in search of safety.

“Money must be spent on the dignified treatment of asylum seekers and refugees, not projects such as a monstrous wall at Calais.

“We also need more funding for local councils here to be able to welcome refugees and help them integrate and rebuild their lives.

“This announcement must not divert attention from this Government’s failure to deliver on its promise to bring unaccompanied children from camps and its inexcusably slow processing of asylum claims.”

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Expressing their ‘profound dismay’ at ‘the most devastating humanitarian crisis in decades’, MEPs blamed both government and armed rebel forces for the bloodshed, which, according to the UN, has seen an estimated 130,000 people killed and an estimated 9 million people affected and in need of humanitarian assistance.

They called for the EU and the ICC to ply a greater role in bringing those responsible for the violence to justice, and for EU members to increase humanitarian aid to the region and resettle more of the estimated three million refugees who have fled Syria, mainly for neighbouring Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon. Some 6,500,000 people are thought to have fled their homes and are internally displaced with Syria.

London’s Green MEP Jean Lambert said: “We need an end to the violence – and an immediate ceasefire – now, and that means greater roles for the EU and the International Criminal Court.

“We need those who have been responsible for violence or human rights abuses to be held accountable for their crimes as part of a political and democratic solution, as envisaged by the UN-brokered peace conference in Geneva last month.

“All countries that can afford it need to continue providing humanitarian assistance to affected Syrians – including in the neighbouring countries most refugees call home today: Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

“And the Syrian government must release all political detainees, as well as civil society activists, humanitarian aid workers, healthcare providers and journalists in custody, before talks resume.”

Ms Lambert, the Green Party’s Immigration Spokesperson, added: “I am glad the European Parliament has adopted this position, supported by Green MEPs. “It shows that the EU can be about more than trade rules, and be a genuine force for peace in the world.”

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