Lakuntza condemns the European Union’s support of the human rights violations on the Greek-Turkish border

Mar 05, 2020

Mitxel Lakuntza, the general secretary of ELA, has condemned “the European Union’s support of the Greek government’s systematic violation of human rights of refugees.” The Greek Government is systematically using violence against people fleeing from war zones, whilst allowing attacks by extreme right wing groups against immigrants or volunteers from support organisations such as Zaporeak.

Instead of reproaching this type of action, the chairwoman of the European Commission, the German, Ursula von der Leyen, had the audacity to say “thank you to Greece for being our European shield in these times,” during her visit to Kastaniés, a border town between Turkey and Greece. She was accompanied by the Chairman of the European Parliament and of the European Council for this visit, showing the unanimous support of the entire European institutional apparatus.

In view of these facts, which have been qualified as very serious by the general secretary of ELA, Lakuntza indicated “I would like to clearly state that support to the human rights violations goes against the supposed European values. The leaders of this Union, which we already qualified as Fort Europe when the Treaty was put to the vote, have taken off their masks, they have shown the shameful side of Europe and in this way they are endorsing the entire discourse given by the extreme right, which we will continue to fight against.”

For all these reasons, ELA is calling the working classes and the population in general to actively show its rejection to these policies and to participate in the mobilisations that are taking place in the Basque Country to demand the European Union to open its borders, to improve and resolve the conditions in which the people who come to Europe fleeing from wars or from extreme poverty are obliged to live, to open up legal, safe routes to prevent those who are fleeing from conflicts and persecutions from having to risk their lives to get here and to respect human rights on the borders and to protect the people in question.