Caritas Europe: The Council can still prove at the Valetta summit that humanity and solidarity are fundamental European values

Statement 19 October 2015

Caritas Europa regrets that the European Council’s decisions of 15 and 16 October 2015 are not responding to Europeans’ plea to address the current migration situation with humanity and solidarity.

The Council’s proposal to reinforce cooperation with non-EU countries in order to strengthen the external borders of the EU is clearly removing people and their needs from the central focus of policies. These kinds of practices sacrifice the well-being of millions of people who are escaping man-made conflicts and climate-made poverty condemning them to a life in limbo in reception facilities in non-EU countries, which are poorer and worse equipped to offer adequate help than the EU.

Caritas Europa thinks that shifting the responsibility for refugees and migrants from the EU to poorer non-EU countries reinforces the image of Europe as being “elderly and haggard, feeling less and less a protagonist in the world” as Pope Francis told European leaders in November 2014.

Read the full statement here