For the past three years, the number of people suffering from hunger and malnutrition worldwide has been rising dramatically again. Currently, 828 million people are affected, 10% of the world's population. Although there is enough food available worldwide, numerous factors mean that the right to food cannot currently be granted in many countries. These include the Russian …
Fit for 55
Today, we in the European Parliament have taken a major step forward for European climate policy. Even though I would have liked more, this is a good day for the climate. The EU has set itself the goal of reducing net greenhouse gases by 55 percent by 2030, and to achieve this, the Parliament has approved decarbonization through a CO2 offset tax, …
Europabrunch
On April 22, I – Erik Marquardt (MEP) – with the support of the LAG Europa in Berlin organize a Europabrunch. There we will inform about the current developments in European asylum policy. In addition, we will take a look at the European climate policy on the occasion of Earth Day. The event starts at 10 am and is scheduled to last three hours, so that enough …
Humanitarian aid to Ukraine from the perspective of local NGOs
Together with my colleague Barry Andrews (Renew) and the NGO ActionAid, I hosted an exchange on Tuesday on the challenges and opportunities for EU humanitarian aid in Ukraine based on the experiences of local NGOs. Present were the organizations DEIS Romania, ROMNI Moldova and NGO Girls Ukraine as well as Allesandro Valdambrini from …
Vote on the Common European Asylum System
Today, we members of the Interior Committee voted on the parliamentary positions on four dossiers of the Migration and Asylum Pact presented by the Commission in September 2020. All four were adopted in committee. Specifically, the European Parliament’s position on the screening regulation, the amended asylum procedure regulation, the regulation on asylum and migration management and the crisis regulation. The negotiations …
Greece: Inhumane conditions in deportation prison
Eleven refugees in the Paranesti deportation prison in northern Greece went on hunger strike to draw attention to the catastrophic and inhumane conditions in the camp. The systematic and arbitrary detention of people on the run in Greece has been documented in two investigations by the Border Violence Monitoring Network and Mobile Info Team. In the reports, …
Mass deaths are increasingly becoming a political failure of the EU
On Wednesday, members of the European Parliament will debate the recent cases of people who drowned while fleeing across the Mediterranean Sea. In recent weeks, it has become apparent that rescues are deliberately delayed and that many people could be saved. For example, on Sunday there was a shipwreck in which the Italian authorities more …
Interview with WDR 5 on the shipwreck off Calabria
In an interview with WDR 5, I made it clear that we should focus on sea rescue and a solidarity-based distribution of refugees in Europe instead of always demanding higher penalties for smugglers.
New Frontex chief Hans Leijtens must focus on human rights
The new Executive Director of the EU's border management agency Frontex, Hans Leitjens, will take up his post on 1 March. He was appointed in December for a five-year term. Here you can also find a chronology of the allegations against Frontex. In my press release of 28.02 I sent the following statement to journalists: "After the resignation of Fabrice Leggeri, Frontex …
More than 60 dead: "People could have been saved.“
After the accident of a boat off the coast of Calabria with more than 200 people on board, the search for survivors continues. More than 60 bodies have already been recovered. The boat has left in Turkey, bypassed Greece, because refugees are illegally rejected and mistreated there, and headed for Italy, hundreds of kilometers away. Long before …