Winter Session: migration crisis in Europe; international terrorism, Strasbourg, 25-29 January 2016.
Europe's migration and refugee crisis and international terrorism took centre-stage at the Winter Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
The migration crisis was addressed with reports on "The Mediterranean Sea: a front door to irregular migration" and on "Organised crime and migrants". The parliamentarians also discussed "The Protection of Women and the honest reporting of unpalatable truths".
Daniel Mitov, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Bulgaria, addressed the Assembly in his capacity as Chairperson of the Committee of Ministers, and referred to the mass sexual assaults on women in Cologne as "unfortunate events".
David Davies MP gave this response:
"I am sure that all of us have been moved by the plight of refugees as they flee the violence in the Middle East, but it is time that we also said that allowing millions of people to come here without proper checks and balances, without recognising that they often come from cultures that have different views – even they do not share them – towards women and gays, and without being willing to demand that European cultural values are adopted is going to cause a catastrophe. We have already seen the disastrous result of this sort of thing, yet we are unwilling to face up to it.
Mr Mitov just referred to unfortunate incidents in Cologne. It was just a few words in a couple of seconds, but this is what happened: hundreds of women were surrounded by thousands of men, who tried to insert their fingers into the women’s vaginas. This is going on in European cities the length and breadth of the continent, yet nobody is willing to talk about it. The press wanted to cover it up. The police officers did not want to say what had actually happened. The response is to try to avoid difficult subjects instead of putting them out there in the open and deciding what we are going to do about them.
I call on all politicians to wake up and start insisting that European cultural values be applied to everyone who wants to come to Europe. Women should be allowed to walk wherever they want, wear whatever they want and work wherever they want without interference. The gays like those who were drinking in a pub called the George and Dragon in Tower Hamlets a few years ago should be allowed to do that without being unacceptably attacked by religious extremists. I think you can all guess which particular religion that was, although they certainly were not representative of their religions. When attacks happen, such as the many attacks on Jews, people all too often do not want to get to the heart of the problem, which in many cases is Islamic extremism and people coming from cultures where Jews, gays and women are treated differently from how we expect.
We should be proud of the European values that unite us, Muslim and Christian, in countries across our great continent. We should be proud of people such as Martin Luther, who demanded that the Bible be given to the people so they could decide how to interpret it and not have it done for them. I am proud of all those Enlightenment philosophers who gave us the right – all of us, not just politicians – to question our leaders, both spiritual and political. We should be proud of the suffragettes who fought for women’s equality. These are the values that hold us together, but they are under threat like never before. Wake up, politicians, because if you are not prepared to wake up and address these problems, other people will come to the forefront."