The multi-million deals that Brussels has signed with neighbouring countries to decrease irregular migration have to be "revised," says Nicolas Schmit, the lead candidate of the European socialists for the June elections.
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00:00 In an exclusive interview with Euronews, Nicolas Schmitt has called for a revision on the EU's
00:08 deals on migration with North African countries.
00:12 Schmitt is the European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights and Spitzenkandidat for
00:17 the Socialists and Democrats group.
00:20 We are spending now huge amounts of money, giving this money to different regimes or
00:28 governments like the Tunisian government.
00:32 We know that the authorities there are really treating very badly the refugees.
00:40 We have still the problem in Libya, where there is no real, well, there is a government,
00:45 there are even two governments.
00:47 We have the question in Egypt.
00:49 So I'm quite reluctant with this kind of deals which have been struck.
00:54 Would you admit to revise them or even to cancel them?
00:56 I think we have to revise them and see what can be done.
01:01 Schmitt's position is in contrast with his current European Commission President, Ursula
01:06 von der Leyen, who pushed to sign the deals with the strong support of the Italian government.
01:12 He also criticized von der Leyen's potential collaboration with the ultra-conservative
01:16 ECR group, claiming all far-right parties should be kept out of the next majority.
01:22 I noticed that with EPP they make some very special distinction between extreme right
01:31 and extreme right, the decent extreme right and the paria extreme right.
01:36 When I look at the so-called decent extreme right, who are these people?
01:41 They are Vox, they are Franco admirers, they are Mussolini admirers, they are Peace Party
01:48 who was about to abolish the rule of law in Poland and was sanctioned by the Commission.
01:55 So where is the decent extreme right?
01:57 There is none.
01:58 There is none.
01:59 And that's why there is no way to have any arrangement.
02:06 The full interview will be broadcast in the magazine Global Conversation on Euronews next
02:11 week.
02:12 Thank you.
02:12 [BLANK_AUDIO]