“EU Leaders should negotiate an effective common migration 
policy that includes a reform of the Dublin criteria,”  representatives of the Youth of the EPP stated yesterday during a fact finding mission in Ventimiglia (Italy). “We are witnessing with disappointment the results of the incapacity of our Member States to counterbalance the stream of illegal migrants with a common strategy,” they say.

Ventimiglia has been a perennial waiting room since 2011 for migrants hoping to cross the Italian-French border. One month ago, the situation exploded even more when newly elected French President Macron decided to block hundreds of migrants on the Italian side of the border from entering France.

“Our governments, in particular centre-left French and Italian coalitions, promoted policies that were unable to predict the negative effects of waves of illegal migrants on our regions. We also saw these governments reacting to emergency situations with drastic measures but without a common, cohesive and long-sighted response,” the young centre right leaders denounced during their visit that some of the participant defined ‘shocking‘.

“We strongly wanted this visit to show our closeness to the citizens who don’t deserve to live in this situation,” says Lara Comi, Member of the European Parliament (Italy, Forza Italia, EPP) who was also member of the delegation. “This can’t be a permanent situation. We should think how to change this reality: migrants shouldn’t go around the city all day long becoming a real problem for themselves and for the citizen of the city of Ventimiglia,” she also added.

The mission, organised by Margherita Saltini e Alessandra Feduzi of Forza Italia Giovani, was strongly promoted by Marcello Gamberale Paoletti, Vice-President Youth of EPP who stated: “The Youth of EPP wanted to come here to see personally the situation. We also brought a document criticizing the incapacity of the European leaders to tackle migrant crisis in a cohesive way. That’s why we strongly call for a proper reform of the Dublin agreement!”

The founding principle of Dublin III Regulation is that each asylum request has to be examined by one member State and this competency is generally attributed to the State of the first arrival of the individual in the European Union area.

The delegation was also composed by Andrianos Giannou, President of Youth of EPP, Pierre-Henri Dumont, French Member of Parliament and Forza Italia MEPs Lara Comi and Alberto Cirio. Furthermore, Maru Pardal, Secretary General of Youth of EPP, Carlo de Romanis, Vice Chairman IYDU and Virgilio Falco, President of the Student association of EPP (EDS) took part to the activities.