28/10/2015 President
“We cannot continue to let the front-line countries struggle alone with migrant arrivals simply because of their geographical position,” PACE President Anne Brasseur stressed in a speech to the Nordic Council in Reykjavik, calling for more solidarity within Europe, including North-South solidarity.
“It is about time that the Dublin system dissolved,” she said. Presenting an eight-point blueprint for a global and strategic approach to migration, she urged all members of the Nordic Council to take action at national and local levels.
As regards human rights, she recalled that on 18 December 2015 – International Migrants Day – a number of national delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will organise visits to detention facilities for irregular migrants in order to check that their fundamental rights are being respected and that reception conditions are up to standard.
Finally, she appealed to the members of the Nordic Council to actively support the idea of making 22 July a European Day for Victims of Hate Crime, an initiative launched by PACE together with the Speaker of the Norwegian Parliament Olemic Thommessen.