• The shipwreck off the coast of Pylos highlights how disastrously the EU has acted, and how great is the need for a European agreement.

• The ideological policies of the right and extreme right are proving in the most dramatic way to be dead-ending and criminal.

• Initiatives are necessary to be taken in order to give an end to the war in Libya, for the economic support of transit countries in North Africa, for safe and legal routes for refugees and for a fair distribution of refugees among member states.

· Alexis Tsipras: What are the protocols that prohibit the rescue of an overloaded ship with more than 700 people on board, ready to sink?

The Delegation of SYRIZA-Progressive Alliance at the European Parliament expresses their sorrow for the fatal shipwreck off the coast of Pylos and the loss of life of hundreds of people, adults and children, and closely follows the development of a crime that has taken place so many times against refugees and immigrants. The shipwreck off Pylos unfortunately demonstrates in the most dramatic fashion how disastrously, the European Union has acted for so many years and how great and urgent is the need for a European agreement on immigration and asylum.

The self-evident requirement to tackle trafficking networks is proving to be insufficient on its own to put a definitive end to such tragic incidents. Initiatives need to be taken by the EU in order to end the war in Libya, and to economically strengthen transit countries such as those in North Africa.

In addition, refugees must be given the right to access asylum through safe and legal routes in the EU, with a fair distribution between member states. Therefore, there will be hope that they will not be drowned by traffickers any more, that the sea will not become the grave for desperate people and that the governments in the EU are not to become "sponsors" of this slavery trade. The host countries and above all Greece must not become Europe’s prison. In other words, the implementation of the EU framework must begin immediately for the resettlement of refugees from neighbouring countries such as Libya and Turkey to the Member States.

SYRIZA-PA Delegation at the EU Parliament will take all necessary institutional action in order to ascertain the circumstances of the fatal shipwreck, but also to promote the proposal we mentioned above, which should be a priority in the framework of an agreement.

As the president of SYRIZA-PA, Alexis Tsipras, emphasized, during his visit to Kalamata (close to Pylos) yesterday: "It is necessary to change immigration policy, to achieve a new pact on migration and asylum, a revision of Dublin II, a pact that will share the responsibility among all Member-States, not just host countries, and it will include legal migration routes, not just walls." While at the same time, he raised a crucial question: "What are the protocols, that when the authorities see an overloaded ship with more than 700 people, ready to sink, they do not force its rescue?"

Greece had to utilise its alliances as well as its diplomatic dynamics in the EU in order that we would not remain spectators in the same play over and over again. It is obvious that the ideological policies of the right and extreme right are proving in the most dramatic way to be dead-ending and criminal.