Speaking at the opening of the European Parliament’s Plenary Session in Strasbourg, the President of the European Parliament urged all players to match the European Parliament’s ambition on migration.
The last weeks have also seen more lives lost at sea. More dreams forever broken. More mothers and fathers who will never hear from their children. More children, women and men who died in desperate circumstances, again.
We have a duty, we have a responsibility, to address this issue. We are the generation of politicians who cannot ignore this reality. Our Parliament has managed to find a way forward on migration that is just and humane with those in need of protection, that is fair and firm with those who are not eligible and that is strong with those traffickers preying off the most vulnerable and profiting from human desperation. We now need all players to match that ambition and live up to the promise of our Union.
One final appeal. We must resist being or becoming desensitised to the tragedy. We cannot allow more people to become nameless statistics. And we must no longer accept that the Mediterranean Sea remains a cemetery of broken lives and broken hope.