Thousands of men and women are currently stranded in Calais, Italy and Greece, and across Europe after a treacherous journey from their home countries. These refugees often come from war-torn countries with poor human-rights records. In their home countries they may have suffered or be at risk of torture and rape, and fear for their lives and those of their children.
They are desperate to reach safety and they are risking their lives. Many have already died. More than 1,800 perished at sea in the first five months of 2015*.
Other countries in the EU take on much larger numbers of migrants and refugees even when considering capacity to do so**. The European Commission recently proposed that
the UK should take on 2,309 vulnerable individuals out of a total estimated 40,000 currently seeking international protection in Europe. However, the UK Government indicated that the UK would not take part in this proposal.
Immigrants are not a burden, but can bring many valuable qualities to our country. Immigrants have been proven to pay more to the UK in taxes than they take in benefits.
Please sign this petition urging the Government to immediately agree to accept at least 2,309 refugees and migrants over a two year period (i.e. to opt-in to the relocation proposal within the European Commission Communication,
A European Agenda on Migration). *** We need to show the Government that the British public are happy to welcome people in need, wherever they are from.
This petition also calls for the opt-in decision to be debated in Parliament to allow our MPs to challenge the Government's decision not to opt-in.****
Further info:
The deadline for notifying the Council Presidency of the UK's opt-in decision expires on 27 August. However, the Government has not discussed its decision in Parliament, and Parliament only returns from recess on 7 September. It's important that the Government doesn't just go ahead and say 'no' to the proposal without an opportunity for the decision to be democratically debated in Parliament.
The Commission proposes that 24,000 eligible applicants for international protection should be relocated from Italy, and 16,000 from Greece. The 2,309 figure was generated based on the following four criteria of variable weighting- used to determine the allocation per EU country:
- the size of the population (given a 40% weighting to reflect the absorption capacity of each Member State);
- total GDP (also given a 40% weighting to reflect the wealth of each Member State and its capacity to absorb and integrate refugees);
- the average number of spontaneous asylum applications and number of resettled refugees per 1 million inhabitants over the period 2010-14 (given a 10% weighting to reflect the effort made by each Member State); and
- the unemployment rate (also given a 10% weighting to reflect the capacity to integrate refugees).
*according to figures published by the International Organisation for Migration.
**Germany and Sweden accounted for 30 and 13 per cent of asylum claims in the 44 states of the EU in 2014. During the period 2010-14, Sweden received the highest number of asylum-seekers (24.4 applicants per 1,000 inhabitants), followed by Malta (17.5 per 1,000), Luxembourg (12.6 per 1,000), Austria (10.4 per 1,000), Cyprus (8.4 per 1,000) and Belgium (8.3 per 1,000). By comparison, Germany and the UK received 5.3 and 2.2 asylum applications per 1,000 inhabitants, respectively.
***
See section 6.16 of the report.
****
The UK Parliament's Commons Select Committee on European Scrutiny recently published a report on the European Commission's publication: European Agenda on Migration. The Commons Select Committee stated, "We recommend that the Government's opt-in decision should be debated on the floor of the House [of Parliament] as soon as the House returns from the summer recess in September."