Photo: European Commission
June 20th was World Refugee Day. Plenty of celebrations all over the world. Cool things happened all over the world, even in Romania – where, surprisingly to some, there are quite a bunch of refugees, some living here for many years now (15000 refugees have received protection from the Romanian government since 199), and having become more attached to Romania than Romanians themselves. EVZ presented some of their stories, in a very nice Sunday article. Last week however was also the week when the European Parliament passed an highly debatable new laws on illegal migrants.
In April 2008, European institutions agreed on new procedures of addressing “illegally staying third-country nationals”. If a person deemed “illegal” (how ironic is it for a person, not an act, to be considered illegal) refuses to respect a “voluntary departure order” for more than 4 weeks, than he/she can be issues a removal order, and, “when there are serious grounds to believe that the illegal immigrants would hide” (how precise!), EU states would have to keep people under “temporary custody” for up to 18 months. Yes, one can get imprisoned for one and a half years in a EU member-states without committing any crime! Just a day before the celebration of the World Refugee Day, the European Parliament agreed to issuing this new set of laws.
The European Union has disappointed me. It’s the same Union engaged in a continuous cry for workforce that decides to treaty its migrants with great brutality. The United Nations, Amnesty International and all other human rights defenders are deploring this recent conservative shift in EU migration policies.
PS: A very beautiful article on Italy’s feelings towards migrants in NY Times today.
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