Spanish MEP who negotiated migration deal on EU deportation centers: “Nonsense. “Von der Leyen takes advantage of Balkan countries”

The EU has tried for decades to provide itself with mechanisms to counter this immigration emergencyThe 2015 refugee crisis highlighted the need to implement European policies and, after years of debate, the EU Migration and Asylum Treaty was approved. Two years after its implementation, some Member States – which actually manage migration policy – ​​have been reluctant to implement it. Some for being “ambitious”, some for being quite the opposite.

The extreme right has been able to reap electoral benefits from highly ideologically charged issues, such as migration, especially at a time when Refugee reception systems have collapsed Due to high number of applicants. According to its negotiators, the agreement is meant to be a “European response” to what is happening in the Canary Islands.

In a new signal to the far right, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyenhas invited Member States to find out what it has said “Innovative Ideas”. Among them, it proposes exporting deportation centers for migrants seeking asylum beyond European borders, as Italy has already implemented in Albania. Brussels estimates that, if it is implemented, it will not happen immediately, as the law does not yet allow it, as the Commissioner for the Interior has said, Ylva Johansson.

The German woman’s words did not appeal to the main partners of the grand coalition: the European socialists. “This is completely worrying and crazy. “This is nothing more than another concession to the extreme right on Von der Leyen’s part,” he defined in a telephone conversation. Infobay Spain, Juan Fernando Lopez-Aguilar, Socialist MEP and One of the negotiators of the migration treaty on behalf of the European Parliament.

who until this year was former chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs in the European Parliament, emphasizes that “Enacting an immigration treaty is the only solution”“This phenomenon is not contrary to the Treaty,” whose main axis is the solidarity of the Member States, he criticizes. “The migration emergency can be answered if there is a humanitarian response and we do it together. This has been achieved with the systematic management of migrant flows, not with their denial,” says the Socialist MP, who subscribes to the words of Spanish President Pedro Sánchez.

Brussels has not made clear what the fate of these centers will be, although the Balkan countries, all of them EU candidate countries, are already on von der Leyen’s radar. “The Balkan countries, that is, Albania, Ukraine, Croatia and even SerbiaOf those countries most pro-Russian, all are on the waiting list. And they still have a lot of homework to do. They take advantage of the weakness of these countries’ institutions to transfer responsibility without the guarantees of humanitarian law. “This is the wrong policy,” he says.

Those who do not want to be part of the solidarity mechanism are Poland and Hungary, two countries that have threatened Do not enforce immigration treaty considering it “unambitious”. The new open front between Warsaw and Brussels is related to the directive of Prime Minister Donald Tusk to integrate into the European People’s Party – to temporarily suspend Migrants’ right to asylum Those who cross the border with Belarus, because according to the Polish leader, Russia uses migration as a weapon of destabilization.

When asked about this, López-Aguilar explains that “it’s all from the same scenario.” “As an MP and socialist, I fight that scenario. It’s all full of contradictions(Poland) tries to undermine a historical fact (in the context of the migration treaty), and it is also contrary to international humanitarian law. It also goes against the Lisbon Treaty, the constitutional basis of the EU,” he says. López-Aguilar admits that he had to make concessions in the negotiations and that in his opinion “it is far below what they intended. But they want to reduce it even further.”

Asked about other issues, particularly corruption cases affecting PSOE members, José Luis Rodríguez was Minister of Justice during the government of Zapatero, asking emphatically: “I trust Sánchez’s answer. Is. This is a strong answer. Corruption cases are a cause of sadness, they cause me consternation and above all anger. The only thing that fits is the instant firewall and Exclude people from training,

The Koldo case has become one of the weapons that the PP uses weaken the central executiveGiven the impossibility of bringing a censure motion against Sanchez. In this regard, he comments that “PP is a party plagued by corruption, whose members are convicted and in jail. “We are talking about Rato, Bárcenas, Zaplana… the PP is not there to give a lesson on corruption,” he says.

In short, housing is one of the issues raised by European socialists in the EU, which will address the issue from the Community institutions for the first time. “We have managed to put the housing debate on the von der Leyen debate,” says López-Aguilar, who recalls that thanks to his training, there is now a commission dedicated to it.

“We like Response to housing at European levelAnd above all, the issue of vulture funds must be addressed. We ask to mobilize resources for the construction of a public park,” claims the MP, who emphasizes that the housing problem creates tension and unrest not only in Spain, but throughout the European Union.