STRASBOURG (Sputnik) — The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) may hold a debate on EU-bound migrants later this week, PACE President Anne Brasseur said Monday.
"I said that migration would be one of our priorities," Brasseur said at a press conference prior to the spring session. "Now we'd really need to have real solutions," she stressed.
The five days of discussions in Strasbourg, France, are expected to be dominated by human rights issues. The meeting comes a day after a boat carrying between 700 and 950 migrants from Libya capsized and sank in the Mediterranean. Only 28 people have been rescued.
Brasseur deplored this deadly tragedy saying a request had been made to hold a debate on the situation of migrants in Europe this week. "That is to protect our democratic values," she added.
The Mediterranean is one of the main routes for migrants fleeing conflicts in North Africa and the Middle East. The United Nations estimates that at least 3,500 people died crossing the sea in 2014. The recent capsize could drive up the death toll for 2015 to about 1,600.
