A meeting was held in Paris between European Commissioner Dimitri Avramopoulos, French Interior Minister Gérard Collomb, and his Italian counterpart Marco Minniti and German counterpart Thomas de Maizière to address and confront the migrant crisis, with migrants arriving on the Italian coasts from Africa, mainly Libya.
The “Central Mediterranean migratory route” has once again become the main gateway to Europe since arrivals on the Greek coasts via the Aegean Sea dropped significantly from spring 2016.
The situation is beyond tense, and Italy is demanding a European policy to face a crisis it can no longer manage alone.
The relocation agreements for migrants to other European countries have not taken off due to opposition from Eastern countries that refuse them and France’s reluctance, claiming to distinguish between “asylum-seeking refugees” and those for “economic reasons.”
Such a distinction is practically impossible to implement in an emergency situation.
Can you imagine a member of Frontex or a reception center asking a migrant to kindly specify under what category they arrived? Whatever the answer, what then? Do we send them back to sea?
Honestly, it’s laughable!
The result is chaos where everyone looks out for themselves. Consequently, situations like Calais or Ventimiglia/Valley of Roya arise with all the ensuing overflows.
Reading the figures (see in the box) shows that the situation is on the edge…
A joint response must imperatively come from Europe. A six-point action plan will be reviewed this Thursday by the EU-28, at an informal meeting organized in Tallinn (Estonia). Discussions could continue the following day during the G20 summit in Hamburg.
