Common demands on meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg

In the present document, the undersigned NGOs active in the Mediterranean region share the following reflections and recommendations. The demands are addressed to the EU Ministers for Justice and Home Affairs who are meeting in Luxembourg on 7 and 8 October 2019. The question of a fair and humane relocation mechanism remains unresolved. In addition, the establishment of a relocation mechanism appears to be of secondary importance to the continuing serious human rights violations against migrants in the Mediterranean region. These violations are above all caused by cooperation between EU Member States and third countries such as Libya. Libya is a country afflicted by civil war, where the so-called authorities are in strict connection with traffickers of human beings and where torture and inhuman and degrading treatment are regularly perpetrated against foreigners, as several reports from various institutions have denounced in detail in recent years. We reaffirm that the establishment of legal entry channels from third countries, and humanitarian corridors from countries at war, constitutes the only real way to fight and dismantle smuggler networks in the Central Mediterranean.

You can read the entire positopn paper with all 11 demands here.