"Walls are a sign of weakness": Italian chamber president Boldrini on refugee crisis

Meeting with the press on Tuesday after her address to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg, Laura Boldrini, President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, slammed the building of barriers designed to halt refugees from crossing European land borders.

"I think walls are a sign of weakness, it means you are weak when you have to decide to build up walls or fences, you don't want to implement other instruments, other measures," the Italian chamber president declared, speaking on barriers built on certain European borders to control the flow of refugees trying to reach the continent.

"These are not democratic tools," Boldrini continued, insisting that these measures are "against our DNA" as Europeans.

The President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies went on to say that such measures were "not effective," citing the increase traffic of sea routes taken by refugees after the building of a wall on the land border between Greece and Turkey.

Boldrini also seemed to be taking deliberate aim at Hungary, whose wall along its border with Serbia has earned strong criticism from other European Union (EU) member states, as well as international NGOs, despite Budapest's assurances that it was respecting international law.

Hungary's Justice Minister Laszlo Trocsanyi had declared at the Council of Europe, just the Monday prior, after holding talks with the organization's Secretary General, Thorbjorn Jagland, that "the fence is effective."

Hungary and Italy have both been identified as "frontline" countries, which have experienced higher numbers of refugees in the ongoing migrant crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people trying to reach the European continent while fleeing conflict in their home nations.

Boldrini, however, stressed that all of Europe needed to share the burden of frontline countries.

She lamented how, in years prior, migrants taking sea routes were seen as "an Italian problem, or a Greek problem, or a Maltese problem," despite broader implications. "Now that refugees are reaching the heart of the European continent, this is finally a European problem."

Highlighting the need for a unified response, the President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies expressed her opinion that the refugee situation could lead to greater political integration for Europe: "I consider this an opportunity to relaunch a new EU."

She said a common asylum policy could be the means to relaunching the EU project.

"Europe is recognized as the land of asylum, the culture of human rights, we cannot afford chaos, we have to reach the level of the challenge," Boldrini pleaded, calling for shared standards of protection and assistance for asylum seekers.

"In theory, an asylum seeker in Greece should have the same standards as in Germany, or in Italy, but this is not the case at the moment," she deplored.

She advocated for the EU agency for asylum, EASO, receive more resources, and called for more resettlement agreements like the one approved earlier this month by the European Parliament to relocate 120,000 asylum seekers in Europe.

"We have to reinforce our unity, we have to reinforce our political integration, if we want to give answers," pronounced the President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, warning that anti-European movements could take advantage if unified solutions weren't found. Endit