For a more humane Europe
Position Paper on the 2024 European elections
Europe decides: deadly deterrence or human rights
At the beginning of June 2024, the citizens of the European Union (EU) will elect the European Parliament in Strasbourg. The election will be decisive in determining whether refugees will continue to be denied their rights in the EU. As societal shifts to the right also starts to affect centrist parties, the rejection of human and refugee rights has become normalised in recent years.
Read our position paper to the European elections here.
11,047 people have drowned crossing the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe since the last European Parliament elections in 2019.1 Meanwhile, the EU is cementing its closed-door policy towards refugees through the reform of the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and cooperation agreements with third countries such as Libya and Tunisia aiming to deter refugees from fleeing. Both refugees and humanitarian aid workers are increasingly being criminalised in the EU and its member states. As a consequence, European migration policy causes thousands of avoidable deaths every year.
In order to put an end to the deaths in the Mediterranean, the EU must now make a clear commitment to humanity and human rights – including at the EU’s external borders. SOS Humanity calls on the candidates in the European elections and the newly elected Parliament to
advocate for an urgently needed change of direction towards a human rights-based migration policy. The basis for such a policy must be the establishment of safe and legal refugee routes as well as the expansion of search and rescue capacities – so no one has to drown while seeking protection.
