Without external border protection member states will have to control their own borders, warns Bendt Bendtsen, MEP of the Danish Conservative People's Party.
- Denmark has recently been discussed in the LIBE committee. Isn’t there some double standard in the attitude towards your country in the EP?
- Many of the leftists want the EP to act as a supreme court. I totally disagree with this as we have European rules and only the Commission can review them. The Commission is the guardian of the rules, not the EP. When Denmark or Hungary is discussed in the EP is not about law, it’s politics. It’s so easy to attack a small country!
- Is this getting us any closer to the solution of the migration crisis?
- It’s one of the biggest challenges for Europe. In the coming years we will see millions, mostly from Northern Africa, coming here. My country is a welfare society, wages and social benefits are very high. We are a small country of five million inhabitants and more than 20.000 migrants arrived last year, it can’t go on like this. We have to make our rules stricter and to question the international rules. Calais is full of people who have no right for asylum but they are still there – why is this possible? There are many people, who come from Tunesia, Pakistan or Iran, they are not refugees, but migrants. They want a better life and of course I can understand that. The convention about refugees was written in another time. When people come to my country and don’t get asylum it’s often very difficult to send them home.
- Denmark has received many criticism for its practice of taking away valuables from migrants.
- We have the same rules for Danish citizens who ask for social benefits. You have to use your own money before you ask the government for more money. When we do it, it makes frontpages in Europe but the same practice exists in Switzerland and Germany and nobody cares. The left wants to punish us. But if we can’t protect our external borders then we will have to protect the national borders. On the other hand, destroying Schengen is bad for the single market.
- What if the external border of Greece can’t be protected? The Visegrad countries’ B plan is the protection of the Macedonian-Greek and Bulgarian-Greek border.
- If Greece can’t protect its border and the Europeans don’t want to pay for that then we’ll have to move the Schengen border to the North. Greece clearly can’t do that. All European countries must open their wallets and pay for the protection of the external borders.
- What other measures shall be taken in addition to external border control?
- The international society must stop the war in Syria and we also have to explain African leaders that we want to help them but they must take back the people who don't qualify for asylum.
