Wikström: No money left to fund EU response to refugee crisis
Press release from the Alde-group:
As the humanitarian and migration crisis worsens each day, the European Council and the European Commission multiply financial pledges to third countries to persuade them to ‘park’ applicants for asylum and immigration on their territory. After Turkey and the Balkans, the Union will now increase support to Africa next week. At a joint meeting in Strasbourg held today during of the plenary session of the European Parliament, the parliamentary committees on Budgets (BUDG) and on Civil Liberties (LIBE) have sounded the alarm regarding the possibility of any new commitments on the European budget.
Cecilia WIKSTRÖM (Folkpartiet liberalerna, Sweden), ALDE Coordinator in LIBE, concluded: “We speak of the refugee crisis as if it were a threat to us! But it is foremost a threat to those who have left everything under the Assad bombs, it’s a threat to those children who saw their parents murdered by Daesh, it’s a threat to the thousands of people who seek to flee, putting their lives at risk. If there is a crisis in Europe, it’s the crisis of Member States failing to act.”
Jean Arthuis (UDI, France), Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Budgets, said: “The 2016 budget clearly does not have the necessary funds to respond to the root causes of the migratory challenges facing Europe. Jean-Claude Juncker reminded us here this morning that: “Exceptional situations require an exceptional budget”. These are nice words, but we are now awaiting action“.
“Assuming political leaders go ahead with the creation of a common coastguard and border guards, where will the necessary funds come from? Regarding the refugee camps on the borders of Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Mrs Merkel and Jean Claude Juncker agreed that a budget of EUR 3 billion is required. But where are the corresponding appropriations? ” I ask myself.
Gérard Deprez (MR / MCC Belgium), ALDE coordinator in BUDG and member of LIBE, added: “The Commission needs to provide specific information based on the assessment of migration flows in the medium term up to 2020, but also on the evaluation of the financial resources to be mobilized - at least until the end of the financial perspectives - in the context of an holistic approach on which the Parliament is working.
It is also necessary to examine as precisely as possible, in the context of the mid-term review of the multiannual financial framework, an assessment of the needs for the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund and the Homeland Security Fund up to 2020. We call on the Commission to draft a proposal for an appropriate increase and, where appropriate, an adjusted allocation of appropriations between the different schemes and means of implementation of both funds, during the subsequent revision of the financial perspective. “
