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President of CoE congress: Europe must halt Mediterranean disasters

Xinhua, April 22, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Council of Europe's Jean-Claude Frecon declared Tuesday that Europe had to "show resolve" in responding to the sinking of multiple migrant ships in the Mediterranean Sea in recent days.

Frecon, who is president of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, said it was necessary to set up effective mechanisms to organize surveillance and rescue measures in the high-risk maritime area.

"Europe must also join forces with the local authorities and help them to deal with the migrants arriving on their territory," he said.

Frecon's declaration comes after the news over the week-end that as many as 800 migrants died when their ship capsized south of the Italian island of Lampedusa.

"In addition to the horror that we feel when hearing of these tragedies, which are now occurring so unbearably frequently, we must act on several levels, European, national, but also local and regional, to deploy efficient strategies on both shores of the Mediterranean to avoid these disasters," the president said.

Estimates are that migrants fleeing war and crisis in Africa will attempt to cross the Mediterranean in record numbers in 2015, and the CoE and its internal organizations are responding to the crisis.

The CoE Congress debated migrant flows late last month and invited the mayors of Lampedusa and the French city of Calais to speak about their communities' struggles with high numbers of migrants.

On April 23, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will hold an urgent debate entitled, "The Human Tragedy in the Mediterranean: Immediate Action Needed," in the hopes of addressing an international response to the problem. Endit