EU

As the two-year anniversary of the EU-Turkey deal nears on March 18, 2018, thousands of asylum seekers are trapped on the Aegean islands in deplorable conditions and without access to adequate protection and basic services, nine humans rights and humanitarian organisations including Oxfam said today.The Greek government should act immediately to end the containment policy that traps asylum seekers in these conditions on the islands and move them to safety on the mainland.

 

Following the Paradise Papers revelations, the European Parliament decided today to establish a new special committee on tax fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, tax avoidance and aggressive tax planning. 

Many people are still trapped in captivity and suffering abuses in Libya a year after Italy struck an EU-backed deal with the government to stop irregular migrants. Migrants who have managed to escape Libya following the deal have told Oxfam and its partner Borderline Sicilia of on-going kidnapping, murder, rape and forced labor.

EU finance ministers have decided today to remove eight countries from the EU’s blacklist for tax havens, rushing to take countries off the blacklist without it being clear what they have actually committed to improve.

Europe can continue burning food to fuel cars and trucks in the EU, the European Parliament voted today. In the vote on the reform of the Renewable Energy Directive for 2030, MEPs supported rules that would allow member states to force-feed car drivers with biofuels made from food-crops at current levels until 2030.

More than 13,500 refugees and other migrants remain trapped on the Greek islands in deplorable conditions as winter begins, a coalition of 13 NGOs including Oxfam said today. Oxfam calls on the Greek government and its EU partners to transfer immediately at least 5,500 asylum seekers from the squalid island camps to the Greek mainland.

European energy ministers meeting in Brussels today agreed European drivers should be obliged to burn massive quantities of food crops in their fuel tanks until 2030. Anti-poverty organisation Oxfam and green group Transport & Environment (T&E) deplored this policy that would only benefit the biofuels industry and contribute to hunger and environmental damage.

The European Commission has today opened a state aid probe into the tax affairs of furniture giant Ikea with the Netherlands. This new case shows Europe still has to put its own house in order when it comes to ending tax havens within the EU.

As EU heads of state and government meet today in Brussels to discuss Europe’s response to migration, Oxfam says the EU must address the human rights abuses suffered by refugees and migrants within and at Europe’s borders, instead of obsessively focusing on stopping people arriving.

The chronic shortage of accommodation for children is worsening as the Greek Government prepares to take full control of the refugee response.