The European Parliamentary Group of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) has denounced the responsibility of the European Union and Spain’s social-democratic government for the latest deadly events in Ceuta, where 99 refugees and migrants were reported dead and dozens more missing, accusing the EU of turning repression, pushbacks and the denial of asylum into pillars of its migration policy.
KKE MEP Kostas Papadakis raised the issue in a question submitted to the European Commission, highlighting the responsibility of both the Sánchez government and the EU institutions for yet another tragedy involving people uprooted by imperialist interventions, poverty and exploitation.
KKE MEP Kostas Papadakis raised the issue in a question submitted to the European Commission, highlighting the responsibility of both the Sánchez government and the EU institutions for yet another tragedy involving people uprooted by imperialist interventions, poverty and exploitation.
According to the KKE Europarliament Group, the response of EU governments is particularly revealing. Instead of condemning Madrid, EU interior ministers once again praised the Spanish authorities for their handling of the crisis — just as they had done following the deadly events in Melilla.
Thousands of refugees and migrants attempting to enter the Spanish enclave faced harsh repression. The KKE Europarliament Group points out that military forces, water cannons and floating barriers were deployed, while mass pushbacks were carried out without basic reception procedures, individual examination of asylum claims or adequate measures for the protection of unaccompanied minors.
For the KKE’s representatives in the European Parliament, the events demolish claims that a supposedly “progressive” government can implement the EU’s reactionary migration policy in a humane way. The bloodshed in Ceuta, they stress, is not an aberration from the EU’s Migration and Asylum Pact, but an expression of the very policy it embodies: fortified borders and repression for some, alongside the selective admission of migrant workers whenever cheap labor is required by capital.
The KKE Europarliament Group also points to the wider geopolitical context, warning that refugees and migrants are once again being used as pawns amid sharpening rivalries between the EU and NATO and other imperialist centers, as well as contradictions within the Euro-Atlantic camp itself.
Behind the apparent contradictions, it argues, lies a common class policy. The same governments that close borders with military force simultaneously seek hundreds of thousands of migrant workers for sectors demanding cheap and highly exploitable labor. Both Spain’s social-democratic government and Italy’s far-right government, despite their political differences and interstate disputes, have pursued schemes to grant residence permits to around half a million migrants in order to meet the labor needs of big business.
The KKE Europarliament Group also strongly condemned proposals by Greece’s New Democracy government to legally treat large movements of refugees and migrants as a “hybrid attack.” Such a framework, it warned, could effectively allow asylum procedures to be suspended under the pretext of an “emergency,” institutionalizing practices already witnessed in Ceuta, at the Greek-Turkish border in Evros in 2020, and on the borders of Poland and the Baltic states in 2021.
In his question to the European Commission, Papadakis asked how it responds to the Spanish government’s deadly repression and immediate mass pushbacks of refugees and migrants without prior examination of asylum claims and other basic reception procedures, in violation of the Geneva Convention on refugees.
The KKE MEP also demanded an answer regarding the Greek government’s proposal that the right to asylum could effectively be abolished in cases of mass refugee and migrant movements designated as a “hybrid attack.”
Finally, Papadakis called on the Commission to clarify the measures it has announced for a further expansion of the powers of Frontex and Europol at the EU’s borders, pointing out that the Schengen framework already involves extensive surveillance and additional border controls that undermine the rights of peoples, refugees and migrants alike.
Thousands of refugees and migrants attempting to enter the Spanish enclave faced harsh repression. The KKE Europarliament Group points out that military forces, water cannons and floating barriers were deployed, while mass pushbacks were carried out without basic reception procedures, individual examination of asylum claims or adequate measures for the protection of unaccompanied minors.
For the KKE’s representatives in the European Parliament, the events demolish claims that a supposedly “progressive” government can implement the EU’s reactionary migration policy in a humane way. The bloodshed in Ceuta, they stress, is not an aberration from the EU’s Migration and Asylum Pact, but an expression of the very policy it embodies: fortified borders and repression for some, alongside the selective admission of migrant workers whenever cheap labor is required by capital.
The KKE Europarliament Group also points to the wider geopolitical context, warning that refugees and migrants are once again being used as pawns amid sharpening rivalries between the EU and NATO and other imperialist centers, as well as contradictions within the Euro-Atlantic camp itself.
Behind the apparent contradictions, it argues, lies a common class policy. The same governments that close borders with military force simultaneously seek hundreds of thousands of migrant workers for sectors demanding cheap and highly exploitable labor. Both Spain’s social-democratic government and Italy’s far-right government, despite their political differences and interstate disputes, have pursued schemes to grant residence permits to around half a million migrants in order to meet the labor needs of big business.
The KKE Europarliament Group also strongly condemned proposals by Greece’s New Democracy government to legally treat large movements of refugees and migrants as a “hybrid attack.” Such a framework, it warned, could effectively allow asylum procedures to be suspended under the pretext of an “emergency,” institutionalizing practices already witnessed in Ceuta, at the Greek-Turkish border in Evros in 2020, and on the borders of Poland and the Baltic states in 2021.
In his question to the European Commission, Papadakis asked how it responds to the Spanish government’s deadly repression and immediate mass pushbacks of refugees and migrants without prior examination of asylum claims and other basic reception procedures, in violation of the Geneva Convention on refugees.
The KKE MEP also demanded an answer regarding the Greek government’s proposal that the right to asylum could effectively be abolished in cases of mass refugee and migrant movements designated as a “hybrid attack.”
Finally, Papadakis called on the Commission to clarify the measures it has announced for a further expansion of the powers of Frontex and Europol at the EU’s borders, pointing out that the Schengen framework already involves extensive surveillance and additional border controls that undermine the rights of peoples, refugees and migrants alike.
