2023-06-16 16:53:00
The emotion expressed by several leaders of the institutions and Member States of the European Union (not all), following the sinking, off the coast of Greece, of a boat overloaded with hundreds of migrants, is somewhat embarrassing. Because under the sincerity of the feelings she expresses (we dare not imagine that they are artificial), we detect something of the order of Pavlovian automatism.
A boat of migrants disappears body and goods in the Mediterranean. Do you lead or are part of a European institution? Do you preside over a European state or government? How to react: instructions for use. Use words and expressions such as “deep sadness” et “anger”. Promise to do everything “to prevent such tragedies”of “fight once morest the business of smugglers”, “increased cooperation with countries of departure and transit”. Sprinkle with a little pathos. Add a penetrating gaze, and a firm yet compassionate voice. It’s ready. To your handkerchiefs, citizens.
What is even more disturbing is that these same leaders pretend not to see that the European migration policy, now embodied by the flawed pact recently adopted by the 27, participates in the repetition of this kind of drama. Because what guides this policy, above all other considerations, is the unhealthy, unhealthy obsession with restricting access to the Old Continent as much as possible to those who come from less peaceful and prosperous horizons. Since the legal channels of immigration are rare and narrow, is only the choice to take senseless risks to reach Europe by deserts, seas and mountains; to ruin themselves paying smugglers; to lie regarding one’s situation, in the hope of going through the needle’s eye of obtaining refugee status.
An agreement on migration, that’s already it
The Union denies its humanist values when it double-locks its door to those fleeing poverty, war, dictatorship and, already, climatic disturbances. When some of its Member States hinder the work of rescuers, or practice refoulement, without fearing much more than a reprimand – which will come, perhaps, once light is shed on facts that have already been substantiated. When it keeps locked up on its steps, in unworthy conditions, people it does not want on its territory. When she signs villainous agreements with Turkey, Libya (Libya, damn it!, known to be hell for migrants passing through it) or Tunisia so that they retain candidates for exile, once morest currency ringing and stumbling. When his governments led by conservatives, socialists, liberals, ape the xenophobic extreme right, supposedly to capture his electorate, while they pave the way for him to power, as in Italy.
The deadly toll of the tragedy in the Peloponnese will no doubt run into the hundreds of lives lost. It’s not abstract, and it’s heartbreaking if you take the time to consider that it’s hundreds of times a person. With a history and hopes, now swallowed up, alongside those of tens of thousands of others.
The European Union is certainly not responsible for all the misery in the world, but its migration policy contributes to it. It’s his shame, and ours.
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