Intervening at the high level conference on "Refugees: our progressive answers", organised by the Party of European Socialists (PES), the First Vice-President of the CoR PES Group and Member of the North Rhine-Westphalia Regional Parliament (Germany) highlighted the crucial involvement of regions, towns and municipalities in the reception and integration of refugees.
At the same time, Markus Töns pointed to the major structural challenges posed by the sheer numbers of refugees, who flee wars and devastation to seek a better future in the European Union. "Migration has changed dramatically, both in nature and volume, and the needs of refugees are different from those of intra-EU economic migrants", he explained, referring to the need to address multiple traumas suffered by refugees, a considerable number of whom are unaccompanied minors.
"The refugee issue is a structural challenge for all of us on the ground, but also for the EU, which does not have the right tools to be able to really tackle this problem", he pointed out, urging for a joint and solidary solution, based on our common European values and common European political will to address this challenge. Markus Töns warned about the impact upon already strained local populations of extreme right or populist political discourses, which undermine the spirit of solidarity, referring also to the central place that migration and the refugee crisis had in the Brexit debates.
He went on to point to the direct and central role of the local and regional levels and the work carried out by the Committee of the Regions in this field, reminding that the CoR has two PES Rapporteurs on important EU Commission initiatives in this area: Enzo Bianco, Mayor of Catania in Italy (where hundreds of refugees are rescued weekly from the Mediterranean, but also many lose their lives in their attempt to reach Europe), on the urgently need reform of the Dublin system, and Peter Bossman, Mayor of Piran in Slovenia, on the partnership agreements with third countries under the EU migration agenda. "The countries on the EU's external borders cannot be left alone to solve the refugee issue", he said, adding that partnerships with the countries of origin are an important building block for a real EU policy on asylum and immigration.
Markus Töns also represented the day before the CoR PES Group at the informal PES Leaders' meeting, which endorsed two political declarations: "Ten points to tackle the refugee challenges" and the "PES Roadmap following the UK referendum - A New Agenda for Europe 2016-2019".
