Remember the last 2019 European election? Migrant Tales created quite a stir when it named the candidates who would allow asylum seekers to drown while coming to Europe.
We wrote in 2019: The Alma Median EU election compass shows that (85/234) MEP candidates of the Perussuomalaiset* and National Coalition Party (NCP) were the most eager to allow migrants to drown in the Mediterranean. Even a neutral, or “no opinion” answer, is problematic. Does it mean you look the other way when people drown?
Here is the question on the 2019 election compass: “Is it the obligation of the EU to save all those migrants who attempt to come to Europe and who are at risk of drowning in the Mediterranean?”
The same question is missing from the 2024 election compasses, but question 11 on Yle‘s election compass is very similar. It asks: “A person trying to reach Europe can be turned back at the external border, even if it would put their lives in danger.”
Of those MEP that were elected in 2019, Laura Huhtasaari and Teuvo Hakkarainen (both “strongly agreed” that the EU should let people down in the Mediterranean) and Henna Virkkunen of the National Coalition Party “disagreed” that people drowning should be helped.
All of the above candidates were running in the 2019 MEP election and didn’t mind if people drowned in the Mediterranean. All of them, except for Eija-Riitta Korhola have moderated their radical stances. Virkkunen, Tynkkynen, Peltokangas, and Ruoho-Lerner would care less for a person’s safety and life if he or she were a victim of pushback at the border. Source: Yle
Don’t believe snow jobs like our tough stance is against smugglers, not people in danger of death. Such an explanation by Henna Virkkunen in 2019 makes no sense and is a cop out.
Christian Democrat MEP candidate Eija-Riitta Korhola, who was an NCP candidate in 2019, had no opinion on whether asylum seekers should be saved from drowning. In the 2024 election compass, she is against pushing back asylum seekers.
Of the government parties, 66% (12 yes for pushbacks/6 no) of the PS MEP candidates were in favor of denying people their Human Rights by turning back asylum seekers even if it would put their lives at stake. That was followed by the NCP (9 yes, 47%/10 no), Swedish People’s Party (1 yes/18 no), and Christian Democrats (1 yes/9 no).
It should not come as a surprise that the PS and NCP were also in 2024 the most eager to pushback asylum seekers without any consideration for their safety and lives. The least enthusiastic were the Swedish People’s Party and Christian Democrat MEP candidates.
