EU seeks to punish travel operators involved in human trafficking

STRASBOURG (Reuters) – The European Commission aims to blacklist and punish transport companies involved in human trafficking, it said in a statement on Tuesday, after almost 7,700 migrants arrived in the bloc via Belarus this year.

“Today, the Commission has proposed a new legal framework which will enable us to adopt targeted measures against transport operators…that knowingly or unknowingly engage or facilitate smuggling or trafficking people into the European Union,” EU Commissioner Margaritis Schinas told European lawmakers in Strasbourg.

The proposal would provide the legal tool allowing the EU to suspend or limit the operations of companies organising transport by land, air and sea or even ban them from the EU.

(Reporting by Sabine Siebold, editing by Marine Strauss)