The Head of the Labour Delegation at the European Parliament said that Europe needs a global long term plan on how to deal with the flow of asylum seekers. This plan would set a framework for what needs to be done in the coming years.

Dr Alfred Sant was reacting to the resolution ‘Migration and Refugees in Europe’ which was debated in the European Parlament in Strasbourg following the Commission’s package of proposals.Such a plan, said Dr. Sant, wouldestimate the numbers of genuine asylum seekers that would be arriving in Europe from Syria and other troubled areas in the next three years.

This plan should also suggest common accelerated procedures to distinguish them from economic migrants;propose clearer methods to ensure their proper reception on arrival; suggest EU-level schemes arranging accommodation and daily maintenance; propose programmes for their insertion in local communities; propose plans for their integration in labour markets without putting European workers and unemployed at a disadvantage;estimate the positive contributions which migrants could eventually make to Europe's economy; estimate the costs of the plan over a five year horizon and suggest ways and means for its financing.

Dr Sant, who is backing the resolution ‘For clear humanitarian reasons’, said that concentratingon the systematic relocation of arriving migrants through obligatory quotas among member states is a short term response to a crisis that will persist and could ultimately backfire.