The president of the European Commission described this Tuesday as “horrible” the sinking in the Mediterranean Sea, a week ago, of a boat that was supposed to transport more than 700 migrants and insisted that it is necessary to finalize the new pact for migrations.
“What happened is horrible and, for the moment, the most urgent thing is that we act with concrete and pragmatic measures,” Ursula von der Leyen said, speaking to journalists in Brussels.
The President of the European Commission added that the pragmatism of the European Union (EU) must be verified, for example, in the “macro-financial assistance” to Tunisia and the collaboration with the Tunisian authorities -a country that is located on the main migratory routes- and trafficking in human beings to Europe.
However, the 27 have to “establish some rules” and for that there is the new Pact for Migration and Asylum, which “goes forward”.
“We need equal rules so that anyone who arrives at a European border is treated in the same way, with solidarity, by all Member States, which deal with refugees and people with the right to request asylum”, concluded the president of the Commission.
Last week, a ship carrying more than 700 migrants sank in the Mediterranean, in Greek waters, according to the European Coast and Border Guard Agency (Frontex). At least 100 have been rescued, but hundreds are missing and the chances that authorities will find more survivors are dwindling by the day.
Frontex said, however, that it had contacted the Greek and Italian authorities regarding the presence of the ship in Mediterranean waters, but there was no intervention from the coast guard of those two EU countries.
Greece has been at the center of the migration crisis in Europe since 2015, with hundreds of thousands of people from the Middle East residing in refugee camps, most of them in deplorable sanitary conditions and at the mercy of sexual abuse, discrimination and, in some cases, , human trafficking networks.
Source: TSF
