14 February 2019

6th Speaker’s Summit of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean focuses on migration and refugees

On 13 and 14 February, the speaker’s summit of the Parliamentary Assembly took place in Strasbourg. The thematic focus of this year’s Summit was the challenges of migrants and refugees in the Mediterranean. Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament, and Dimitris Avramopoulos, EU Commissioner for Migration, also attended the Summit as the European Parliament was leading the rotatory presidency of the PA-UfM. They underlined the importance to address current migration challenges with a joint Euro-Mediterranean approach. The PA-UfM was commended as a regional platform for dialogue between parliamentarians of all UfM countries and as a positive platform to come up with new strategies. The resulting resolution of the Summit does not include any reference to the Global Compact for Migration, adopted at the end of 2018. This follows the line of recent dissonances within EU member states, which was particularly visible during the last EU-LAS Ministerial meeting on Foreign Affairs on February 4, in which Hungary’s veto did not allow for a common European position on migration. The presidency of the PA-UfM, which rotates every 6 months, is now filled by the National Assembly of Turkey after the European Parliament finalized its mandate.

circle graphic