Wed 24 November 2021:
The European Commission has unveiled new plans to punish transport companies that aid and abet the smuggling and trafficking of people.
“Let us be clear: these migrants are being vilely misled by false promises. We have to combat this,” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament.
“That is why we are proposing that a watchlist be drawn up for all means of transport based on international law on the trafficking and smuggling of migrants.”
The legislation presented on Tuesday afternoon is a step forward in the bloc’s plans to up the ante and prevent similar episodes in the future.
The draft law will apply to all kinds of transport – land, air and sea – and will empower the executive to suspend a range of rights, including the right to provide transport services, to fly over and transit across EU territory and to refuel and carry out maintenance.
Planes, lorries, trains, buses, ferries and cruises anywhere in the world could be singled out.
“Today, the Commission has proposed a new legal framework which will enable us to adopt targeted measures against transport operators…that knowingly or unknowingly engage or facilitate smuggling or trafficking people into the European Union,” EU Commissioner Margaritis Schinas told European lawmakers in Strasbourg.
Blacklisting will be done through the suspension of one or several rights across EU territory, such as the right to provide transport services, to fly and transit, to refuel, to carry out maintenance and to call into ports. Brussels will also be able to withdraw licences and authorisations and to limit transport operations anywhere in the European Union.
The Commission noted the blacklisting measures will not affect EU passengers, who will retain the right to reimbursement, re-routing and compensation in case their flights are disrupted.
The EU is now focussing its political efforts on repatriation and reallocation in cooperation with the United Nations and the Red Cross.
On Tuesday, the Commission announced €3.5 million for voluntary returns and €700,000 in humanitarian assistance, as well as an extra €200 million for border management in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, which will exclude the construction of barbed wires and walls.
The border crisis has been going on since early summer, but the situation took a dramatic turn earlier this month, when hundreds of new arrivals suddenly showed up at the Belarus-Poland frontier, mainly at the Kuźnica crossing point, with the goal of travelling to Germany.
Photo: Poland-Belarus border.
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