Politician, professor and jurist, Juan Fernando López Aguilar served as Spanish Minister of Justice between 2004 and 2007.. Since 2009 he has been an MEP and currently chairs the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs of the European Parliament, where he fights “with both hands” – he confesses in this interview with EL MUNDO – for a dignified European policy for migrants and asylum seekers. and based on the solidarity of the 27.
Ask. Some progress has been made this year in the EU negotiations on the Pact on Migration and Asylum. What are the main obstacles?
Answer. In the Commission that I chair, we have processed the initiative of five regulations in which the new Migration and Asylum Pact has been translated. We have worked hard in a Parliament in which no one has a majority based on their own seats and where everything has to be negotiated with laws of variable geometry 24 hours a day, so that Parliament – three years after very tough negotiations – could reach approve them at first reading, which therefore means the first legislative mandate of the European Parliament. The five regulations are interrelated, they form a system and we will not allow them to be dismantled.. We have enforced what has been my priority since I have been in the European Parliament: that the mandate of Article 80 of the Treaty of Lisbon be fulfilled, by which the migration system must be based on shared responsibility and binding solidarity.
The most difficult, by far, has been exactly the solidarity pillar of which I am in charge, because in addition to the president of the legislative commission, I am the rapporteur of the crisis regulation, which articulates a European-wide solidarity response through programs mandatory rehousing for all Member States after rescue and rescue operations. I am thinking of those vulnerable borders of the States on the front line, which are those that overlook the African ledge in the Mediterranean: Spain, Malta, Italy, Cyprus and Greece. With a delicate situation in Spain because it is the only country in the European Union that has land borders with the African continent, none other than Ceuta, Melilla. And also, it has the Canary Islands on the Atlantic route to Europe, which is by far the deadliest. I say all this now, with more conviction if possible, seeing how the situation is in El Hierro, dramatic, in which everyone wonders – like in Lampedusa, where they have been several times as in the Greek islands -: Where is Europe? There is intra-Spanish solidarity, we call it derivation and it is orchestrated by the Government of Spain. According to reports in El Hierro, the Ministry of the Interior sends them to the central islands in 48 hours and, in just a week, to the Peninsula.. That's what we want at European level once and for all.. That is the fight and it is the most difficult.
Q. What are, in addition to solidarity, the values that the Pact should protect?
R. The European Parliament is a plural institution that continues to breathe a pro-European majority and we have said it clearly when approving the five regulations in our first reading, now pending negotiation in the Council: Migration is a fact, it is not a threat. No migratory surge is a crisis if we are able to manage it together. And, in fact, managing it in a common way is the only way to be effective. Of course, it requires being consistent with our values and with our legislation, which includes International maritime and humanitarian law – flagrantly violated all too often by Member States in difficult situations.. Giorgia Meloni's Italy violates International and Humanitarian Law every time it denies disembarkation in the first safe port to people rescued at sea with the fallacious argument that the NGOs that have rescued them are accomplices of the mafias.. It is a flagrant violation every time the Greek coast guard rejects them in hot returns contrary to International Law, the Geneva Convention and European Law itself.. Therefore, what we want is finally a European-wide response that is consistent with what we proclaim: the mandate of shared solidarity responsibility. And that is the only way to be effective, because any other way is doomed to failure.
Q. How can a distribution mechanism be imposed on countries that are against solidarity?
R. The answer to the question of how to overcome the declared enemies of all solidarity is: minoritizing them. How we minoritize the extreme right in the European Parliament and advance the laws without counting on it. The Council, in the legislative procedure, decides by qualified majority and it is possible that a qualified majority will minority those who refuse all solidarity. And the legislation that we put into force, however, binds them. That is the European rule of the game. The Treaty of Lisbon binds them and the European law on migration and asylum binds them, even if they do not vote for it.. Because the club is about being part of the debate, but also about assuming your obligations. Failure to comply with European Law is not inane, it has consequences: infringement procedures, million-dollar fines, convictions from the Court of Justice and, ultimately, the rule of law conditionality regulation, which we have also put into force in the European Parliament. , so that if you repeatedly fail to comply with your obligations you do not have access to European funds. What has happened to Hungary and Poland. Both have been champions of lack of solidarity for years.
Q. With what we are seeing in El Hierro and Lampedusa in recent weeks, is it time to rescue European search and rescue operations, as 'Mare Nostrum' or 'Sophia' were in their day?
R. That is a constant mandate from the European Parliament, which time and again has called for a European mechanism, a European rescue and rescue framework that creates positive synergies between the now fragmented and disconnected, if not contradictory, efforts of the coast guards. of the member states. I have spoken in the European Parliament several times about a shocking tragedy: that of Pylos [on June 14].. A fragile boat with more than 700 people on board goes to the bottom of the sea with hundreds of children and barely 70 people survive. Because? Because the Greek Coast Guard verifies that the destination is Italy and, even though the vessel cannot reach it due to its obvious fragility and the conditions of the sea, it allows it to pass because currently the entire responsibility lies with the State of first entry.. And what the Coast Guard calculates is “that it is Italy's problem, but it is not mine.” We have to end this, it is sinister. There must be a regulated European framework for the coordination of rescue operations. We want there to be a European mechanism with cooperative and positive Frontex involvement; not as we have seen so far, involved in infamous hot returns.
Q. In Europe, some political parties and leaders use immigration as a weapon. Why do you think this issue polarizes societies so much?
A. I am very clear: it is the most divisive issue in Europe. It is geographically. The mental state of the Baltic Interior Ministers has nothing to do with the Mediterranean Interior Ministers, who for a time formed a so-called MED5 of strategic will towards solidarity, of strategic commitment to solidarity, despite their different colors politicians. It's ideologically divisive.. There is an enormous distance between the reactionary nationalist approach, let alone the extreme right, and the progressive approach, described as “do-gooder” or “call effect” by the enemies of solidarity.. Everything is a “call effect” for the enemies of solidarity: rescuing them at sea, treating them with dignity when they arrive; It is a “call effect” to guarantee them a shower and three meals a day, let alone integrate minors. For reactionaries, this is the superlative “call effect” because it means that the minor is the hook for who will later come to the family.. And it's electorally divisive.. Because unfortunately in recent years, foolish rulers have multiplied, first spreading fear of migrants and then electorally exploiting that niche of fear that they themselves have spread.. Therefore, we do have to wage a tireless battle to change our perspective and that involves changing the narrative.. I always insist: migration is not a crisis or a threat. Migration is a fact, it has always existed.