By A. Lianou
In the beginning of the session, the primary matter of interest was the profound inability of EU to manage and control the immigration crisis and its constant expansion.
The first aspect of immigration crisis that was examined concerned the hotspots, the places where the refugees are hosted during their temporarily stay in the county from where they entered EU. More specifically, the EPP’s members declared the need to aid both financially and technically the countries that receive the most numerous refugees’ floats in order to provide these people the necessary accommodation facilities, fully respecting their basic human rights as well as simultaneously honoring the values and the articles of the European Human’s Rights Map, an almost identical proposal was made by S&D and also ALDE who made clear that the amelioration of the living conditions of refugees should be EU’s priority.
Secondly, the subject of refugee’s integration was aroused. All participants agreed that in this process the role of education is of the utmost importance as it concerns not only the refugees but the locals equally.
The refugees should be helped by teaching both children and adults the local language as communication is the key to further understanding and at the same time they can also learn the traditions and customs of the country where it is most likely to spend a great amount of time before they can proceed to the one they really desire although it is also extremely possibly that they remain inside the country from where they first entered. Another proposal suggested that the European countries should employ refugees to help in posts where they could be needed and that they can be specially and separately educated for these jobs. Additionally, refugees who were previously employed in the field of education should help in this experimental process.
As far as the education of the locals, they are also in need of an instructive process, via informational campaigns, for example, because they must get familiarized with a situation that had never occurred in such scale before. Therefore it is essential that they expel any form of xenophobia or racism and better understand the definition of the world refugee and immigrant.
All parties’ representatives mentioned the need to simplify the bureaucracy of asylum donations, re-discuss the terms of Dublin III agreement, and try to strike on the root of the problem, the Syrian war, while making coordinated efforts to control more efficiently the borders and attempting to ameliorate the agreement with Turkey.
