Open letter to the new European Parliament: 'Let's build a Europe of rights'.

We are a network of associations committed to welcoming people, promoting the rights enshrined in international laws and conventions, rescuing them on land and at sea, and supporting those who come to the European Union in search of a place where the rule of law applies and where they can build their lives in safety.

Today, however, the European Union increasingly appears to be a troubled continent, where the persecution of people fleeing persecution, war, generalised violence, climate disasters causing famine, desertification and extreme poverty is the order of the day.

The proof of this is the Pact on Migration and Asylum, a reform approved in the last legislature, albeit by a narrow majority, which seriously jeopardises the exercise of the fundamental rights of migrant citizens. In recent months, through a long process of consultation and denunciation from below, carried out with the Roadmap for the Right to Asylum and Freedom of Movement, we have tried to prevent its approval and its inevitable consequences, but we have not succeeded.

A criminal plan

The European Commission has drawn up a timetable for the implementation of this reform, the next step of which is for Member States to draw up their national implementation plans by 12 December 2024. The guidelines of this reform stipulate that all irregular migrants will be registered and screened for their identity, security risk, vulnerability and health aspects.

This procedure will also apply to all persons applying for international protection at a border crossing point. At a later stage, a mandatory border procedure will apply to all those whose application for international protection is deemed to be unfounded, or who pose a security risk, or who have lied to the authorities.

These so-called screening rules and accelerated border procedures are in fact the antechamber of the new return regulation, which foresees that any asylum seeker who is refused asylum will also have his or her return or readmission accelerated to third countries with which most Member States have agreements and which in most cases do not even respect the fundamental rights of their own citizens. This plan will be guaranteed by Frontex, the Union's police force, which has already been exposed in several journalistic investigations for its violent and authoritarian methods. Not only that. The Frontex agency will be entrusted with a key role in the implementation of this regulation, assisting member states at all stages of the return process.

Relaunching mobilisation

That is why today, as the European Union faces one of the most difficult moments in its history, with the most right-wing Parliament in its history, we have decided to relaunch the actions of civil society mobilisation. On 4 July, at the end of an online meeting attended by almost 200 people from all over Italy, we drafted a ten-point open letter to the new European Parliament and the political forces, which we invite you to sign.

What are we asking for? A profound change in the wrong policies, both in terms of content and direction, which continue to cause, indeed increase, thousands of deaths in the Mediterranean, in the Atlantic and along the Balkan route. Let us stop the Europe of walls and massacres, let us build the Europe of rights, let us listen to civil society. Let us renew the mobilisation to make this happen.

Download and sign the appeal here