The popular uprisings and conflicts in the North of Africa and in the Middle East are generating, besides a new political reality in the region, the forced displacement of thousands of people, as a result of the repression, armed conflicts and the deterioration of the economic situation.

Tunisia has hosted since the beginning of the crisis of Libya more than 200,000 people - a result of the war and the unfair military intervention that is generating even more suffering between the population; the situation of those people who were there as refugees because of Italian and Libyan Government agreements, and supported by the EU, is particularly serious.

The EU received 257.800 asylum seekers in 2010 and only granted protection to 55.095 of them, it is a cruel sarcasm to talk on an immigration crisis in the EU due to the arrival of 30,000 people to its shores.

The proposal to amend the Treaty of Schengen formulated by the Presidents of France and Italy is the logical consequence of a political drift of EU immigration policy and rights; 

The threat of the expansion of the extreme right has, once again, used the worst forms; rather than combating racist and xenophobic positions, Governments make this appropriation on the agendas, which will be a powerful spur to fascist groups rather than weakening them, with one or another greater presence in the whole EU. 

The PEL rejects the proposals made by Presidents Sarkozy and Berlusconi, and calls for the EU to assume its commitment with refugees and displaced people, combating the causes of forced dislodgment, which is the same as an unfair economic model that impoverishes the majority of the population, the imperialist wars only generate suffering to the civilian population and support dictatorships in exchange for their economic cooperation or with immigration purposes.

Maite Mola, on behalf of the Party of the European Left