The European Commission and the European Parliament have adopted a new directive concerning the treatment illegal migrants (return directive) . Anyone caught without valid papers within the EU shall be deported and can, for this reason, be kept in detention for up to 18 months. This rule applies for under-age too.

Many migrants who come to Europe are fleeing violations against human rights in their countries of origin. The come also because the trade policies of the EU are undermining their economic foundations. This is particularly relevant for people from Africa. Many are leaving their countries because the climatic change is impacting negatively on their living and working conditions. The industrialised countries and the EU in particular are largely responsible for this.

They come to the European Union where the rights of Migrants are given no importance and are being further restricted by the new return directive.

That migrants, with their mostly lower wage work, are an important element in creating the affluent society of the European Union is something that is neglected and forgotten.

It is forgotten that the affluence of Europe is built upon the natural resources and other riches, as well as the low wage workers who have been brought to Europe. Beyond that Europeans were involved in the highly profitable slave trade and are responsible for the forced labour of uncounted masses of humans.

It is removed from our collective memories that millions of poor, persecuted and hopeless Europeans have been accepted in the previous centuries on to other continents where they been in part graciously welcomed.

It is also forgotten, that even in the twentieth century many people who fled the Nazis and the destruction caused by war were welcomed into the countries of Africa and Latin America. It is therefore unbearable that people who, for many of the same reasons as the Europeans some short time ago, are now fleeing their home counties are treated in the European Union as criminals.

The participants of the European Summer University of Attac in Saarbruecken in August 2008 , demand from their governments that the recommendations of the directive are not cast into national laws. They support the opinion of Africa and both parts of the American continent that this directive is a something the European Union should be ashamed of.

in german: http://tobiaspflueger.twoday.net/stories/5109802/