The association of Left MEP’s in the European Parliament, that includes among its members Sinn Fein MEP Chris McManus, and Independents Clare Daly, Mick Wallace and Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, have described the EU Asylum and Migration Pact as an agreement that is “Killing the Right to Asylum.”
The group also claims that the Pact is effectively “the final nail in the coffin of the right to asylum in the EU.”
The Left MEP’s claim that while the new Migration Pact “falsely promises an historic change in EU migration policies,” in reality, it reinforces current failed policies and practices by focusing on deterrence “at the expense of the individual right to asylum.”
They also refute claims that the Pact will lead to a solidarity-based and mandatory distribution of those seeking protection in the EU.
“This reform is not a reform: it is old wine in new bottles. There is no such thing as an automatic distribution mechanism; rather, the Pact will maintain the failed Dublin system. First-entry member states will continue to hold responsibilities for people-on-the-move arriving at their borders.”
One of the Groups more controversial proposals however is to effectively end the funding of the EU’s Border Management Agency, Frontex. They say that Frontex’s billion-dollar budget that is planned for the next few years “would be better invested in a European sea rescue mission.”
With respect to the concept of the safe country lists, the Left Group argue that because every asylum seeker has the right to a detailed and individual examination of the asylum application, “no application should be declared inadmissible on the basis of the “safe third country” principle. Such a practice de facto abolishes the individual right to asylum,” it maintains.