PM Rajoy: Spain To Work With EU To Help Refugees ‘In Ordered And Global Manner’
Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy advocated this week a common asylum and immigration policy, cooperation with the countries of origin and continued efforts against the mafias engaged in people trafficking. Furthermore, Rajoy said that resolving the situation in Syria and Libya must be a priority for the international community.
Rajoy insisted that the Government of Spain will maintain a “constructive” position regarding the “humanitarian problem” that is ocurring with the arrival of refugees in the European Union.
After attending the breakfast and subsequent dialogue and discussion session with the Partido Popular candidate to the Regional Government of Catalonia at the New Economy Forum earlier this week, the Spanish Prime Minister President said that Spain “will collaborate to help those people persecuted for political reasons or because of civil war in their country, which is precisely the case in Syria at the moment”. The President of the Government added that this position represents the “majority sentiment among the people of Spain” and is a “moral duty, as citizens of an advanced, modern and civilized democracy such as ours”.
For that “complex and difficult” process to be undertaken in an orderly fashion, Rajoy said, the Government of Spain has set up an Inter-ministerial Commission and will work with the regional governments, local authorities and non-governmental organizations.
Comprehensive and long-term policy
As regards the proposal from the European Commission on the refugees to be accepted by each country, Rajoy said that “Spain will show solidarity, we will not argue over numbers; however, what I do want is for there to be a global policy and that we get to the grass roots of the problem”.
In this regard, Rajoy called for Syria and Libya to be made priorities for the international community and for the EU to cooperate with the countries of origin.
“As long as people cannot enjoy decent living standards in their own country, they will leave their country,” Rajoy said.