MEP Therese Comodini Cachia today welcomed the intra-Schengen police operation Mos Maiorum.

Mos Maiorum is an EU-wide police operation which started on October 13 and will run until October 26. The joint operation is coordinated by the Italian Ministry of Interior in cooperation with Frontex. Its aim is to apprehend irregular migrants in the Schengen area and gather relevant information including how they were detected, their personal details, as well as the routes and means of transport used.

Since the beginning of the operation, controls in the participating countries have been intensified, particularly in airports and train stations, but also in selected areas and neighbourhoods.

[attach id=376715 size="medium" align="left"]Therese Comodini Cachia[/attach]

Speaking during a plenary sitting in Strasbourg, she said that countries like Malta required a proper EU operational support system that went hand in hand with financial support, highlighting specifically the need of an effective judicial cooperation as much as police cooperation.

Dr Comodini Cachia said that migration had often been used by politicians to score goals with a section of their electorate back home and called for more responsibility in words and actions.

She underlined the benefits of ‘Mos Maiorum’ of identifying the main transit flows of illegal migrants through main land, sea and air thoroughfares in member states, adding that this would strengthen cooperation in the fight against organised crime.

She called for improved links between the EU internal and external policies on issues related to migration and expressed concern about the fact that this operation would only last a few days.

Dr Commodini Cachia reiterated the importance of treating immigrants humanely with full protection of their fundamental rights even in deportation and repatriation.