Today in Strasbourg, the European Parliament discussed the conclusions of the European Council meeting of 29-30 June 2023, including the New Pact on Migration and Asylum.

ECR Co-Chairman Nicola Procaccini, who spoke on behalf of the Group, warned against governing immigration passively, in order to prevent disasters. Mr Procaccini noted that the new pact on migration is only first step in the EU’s long journey to tackling illegal migration.

Mr Procaccini’s speech reads in full:

“Thank you President,

We welcome the conclusions of the European Council. Not all of them, but several adequate responses have been provided on the level that has seen the most lack of the European Union, that of foreign policy. I am also referring to immigration, the most divisive issue and for this reason relegated to the communications of the Prime Minister. On the other hand, if governed with firmness and lucidity, the phenomenon of immigration can have positive developments in our cities. If suffered passively, however, it can be disastrous.

Entire civilizations have collapsed in the face of the great migratory flows. Faced with the lack of integration, the child of multiculturalism passed off by the left as progress, the suburbs of large European cities such as Paris or Brussels are on fire, but the flames now reach even the heart of the cities themselves. Faced with the inability to govern migratory flows, the Dutch government fell a few days ago, one of the few centre-left executives left in Europe.

History is a succession of facts, not of opinions. It is useless to define conservative European governments as xenophobic, with the help of the international mass media. Poland and Hungary defend their right to exist, already threatened from outside their borders, without renouncing to welcome millions of war refugees into their homes. And Giorgia Meloni is right to explain that the solution is not the relocation among European states of the few migrants who are entitled to asylum and who land in Italy or Greece.

The right solution is to stop the departures from Africa of the vast majority of migrants who will have to be repatriated as they do not have the right to asylum. This saves lives at sea, not the political activity of immigration NGOs. This really disrupts the human trafficking business. Smugglers are the new big criminals of our time.

The new pact on migration is only a first initial step in the long journey that must lead the European Union to tackle this phenomenon as never before. Having done the first step, now we have to do the others too. If not in this legislature, let’s do it in the next.”

END’s