EU urges bickering states to set aside migration differences
BRUSSELS – Senior European Union officials on Wednesday called on member countries to put aside their deep differences over migration and press ahead with a long-delayed overhaul of the 27-nation bloc’s asylum system as tensions simmer between France and Italy.
In recent weeks, several hundred people hoping to enter Europe have been stranded at sea on aid ships as countries bicker over whether and where they should be allowed to disembark. EU interior ministers are holding emergency talks on Friday in a bid to find a permanent solution.
A diplomatic row erupted earlier this month when Italy forced France to accept a humanitarian rescue ship, the Ocean Viking, with 234 migrants on board. The right-wing government in Rome had refused to grant him access to a port for weeks.
France retaliated by suspending its participation in an EU solidarity pact to accept 3,000 people who arrived in Italy this year and sent agents to reinforce its southern border crossings and prevent migrants from entering.
Two years ago, the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission, released the latest of several plans to reform the asylum system, a program it said would solve the problems.
Failing to move forward with this detailed reform plan, Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas told EU lawmakers at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, it’s “like having a parachute but choosing to jump out of the plane without him”.
According to the EU coastguard agency Frontex, around 275,000 attempts to enter Europe without permission were made by people in the first 10 months of this year, a six-year high. Most arrive overland through the Balkans, but many cross the Mediterranean in unseaworthy boats.
About 79,140 entry attempts were made through the central Mediterranean Sea. Most were from Bangladesh, Tunisia and Egypt and are unlikely to be allowed to stay as they are not fleeing conflict or persecution.
The number of arrivals dwarfs those recorded in countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon and should be manageable in a relatively wealthy bloc home to 450 million citizens, but the thousands of arrivals by boat have triggered one of the EU’s biggest political crises.
For years member countries have argued over who should bear responsibility for those who arrive and whether partner countries should be obliged to help. Unable to agree, they and the commission have sought to outsource the problem by striking deals with countries in North Africa like troubled Libya that people transit through or leave for Europe.
EU countries and the Commission have also rejected any attempt to set up a concerted search and rescue mission to deal with the problem, arguing that such a scheme would only entice more people to come. They even took legal action against aid groups trying to save lives.
“Without any evidence, some governments accuse these NGOs of complicity with human traffickers. On the contrary, it is the Union and its Member States that finance a predatory and murderous system,” said the co-president of the Greens political group in the European Parliament, Philippe Lamberts.
“By giving the keys to our migration and asylum policy to countries like Libya, we are complicit in violence, torture, rape and ransoms. Libya is a failed state. And these so-called coastguards are uniformed armed gangs paid for by the European Union,” he said.
But as part of a committee “action plan” prepared for Friday’s emergency talks, ministers will consider ways to strengthen the ability of Libya, Tunisia and Egypt “to develop together targeted actions to prevent irregular departures” and tighten their borders.
The EU’s top migration official, Ylva Johansson, said the challenges for Europe are immense.
“Time is running out. We have to start the real negotiations now,” she said. “Migration is not a threat. Migration is something we need. But we have to manage migration, and we “we must welcome people (through) legal channels. But we must prevent irregular arrivals and the risk of death.”
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