PES President Sergei Stanishev said: “The Dublin regulation never worked, because the burden fell unfairly onto just a few countries. We now need a different tool, as we have been asking for for many years, which facilitates a truly European asylum system, where all countries share responsibility towards asylum seekers according to their means. We also need to make sure that an obligatory system for the relocation of refugees is enforceable. And, undoubtedly, we need to have more solidarity with the countries on our external borders, because they are taking the whole burden alone. This is unsustainable. If we don’t help them, we will never be able to lift the internal border controls and have a fully functioning Schengen area again”.
Stanishev also expressed concern about the fast tracking of the visa liberalisation for Turkish citizens:
“We are waiting for Turkey to meets its part of the deal, especially in terms of civil rights and individual freedoms in order to grant visa liberalizations. We shouldn’t harm our credibility and disappoint the many Turkish citizens who want democratic changes. We can’t be bullied into a mandatory green light by the end of June 2016, regardless of Turkey’s progress”.
