Refugees, Mattarella: EU common policy developments

Share

June 20, 2019 "No country alone is able to respond" to the refugee emergency.

For this reason "the overcoming of the emergency logic and the definition of farsighted and sustainable responses based on the principles of responsibility and solidarity, must be agreed and shared by the international community and, above all, at the European level, as sanctioned by the treaties".

This was stated by the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella for whom the EU "must be the protagonist to develop a common policy".

"Italy, at the forefront of fulfilling its duties of solidarity, assistance and hospitality with perseverance and determination, sees the high moral and legal commitment of protection towards those fleeing persecution, sanctioned by the Geneva Convention of 1951, among the fundamental principles of our Constitution ". Thus, in a statement, the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella on Refugee Day.

Refugees - writes the Head of State - remind us every day, with force, of stories of suffering, discrimination, separation from families, lands and roots. Each people, in its history, has been a victim of tragedies of this nature. The serious difficulties that afflict peoples of regions that are also very close to us deserve careful reflection on the causes of these tragedies and on the responses they require "." Italy - says Mattarella - is at the forefront in fulfilling its duties of solidarity, assistance and hospitality, sees the high moral and legal commitment of protection towards those fleeing persecution, sanctioned by the Geneva Convention of 1951, among the fundamental principles of our Constitution. The women and men of the state represent,for those fleeing from those conditions, the first friendly face, the hand extended for a human and supportive contact. It is worth mentioning the meritorious experience of humanitarian transfers of particularly vulnerable refugees which, thanks to the various channels of collaboration between the authorities and civil society - to which I am fully grateful - allow hundreds of beneficiaries to be rescued and brought to Italy ".