Two weeks after the Franco-Italian crisis surrounding the Ocean Viking, the European interior ministers meeting in Brussels approved an action plan on Friday to avoid “reproducing this type of situation.”
The meeting had been called at the request of Paris, which accepted the disembarkation of the 234 migrants from the Ocean Viking as “exceptional” on November 11, after the refusal of the far-right Italian government of Giorgia Meloni to welcome this humanitarian. ship stranded for a long time off the Italian coast.
Upon his arrival, the French minister, Gérald Darmanin, reiterated that France would not welcome asylum seekers arriving in Italy as long as Rome did not “respect the law of the sea.”
Strengthen cooperation in the Mediterranean
The emergency action plan, proposed this Monday by the European Commission and endorsed by the ministers, proposes 20 measures, in particular to strengthen cooperation with countries such as Tunisia, Libya or Egypt in order to prevent departures and increase the returns of immigrants irregular.
It also provides for better coordination and information sharing between States and NGOs rescuing migrants at sea, and intends to “promote discussions within the International Maritime Organization” (IMO) on “guidelines for vessels conducting operations rescue at sea”.
The “southern Mediterranean countries must also open their ports” to migrant rescue ships “sailing in their territorial waters”, Gérald Darmanin stressed.
“The Ocean Viking crisis was a bit of an improvisation,” said Commission Vice President Margaritis Schinas. There, “we have about twenty concrete actions, an important political agreement, everyone is committed to working to avoid reproducing this type of situation,” she commented at the end of the meeting, which she described as “positive.” But “this is not the final solution”, she acknowledged, and called on the Member States to move forward in the negotiations on a reform of migration and asylum in the EU, which have been stalled for more than two years.
solidarity mechanism
The emergency plan also aims to relaunch a European temporary solidarity mechanism approved in June, at the initiative of France, which then held the presidency of the Council of the EU. A dozen countries then voluntarily pledged, to relieve the Mediterranean states, to host some 8,000 asylum seekers arriving in these countries for a year, with France and Germany receiving 3,500 each.
But the Ocean Viking crisis led Paris to suspend its “relocations” from Italy.
“We must get out of a situation in which the same States are called upon to receive ships and carry out relocations from other Member States. France will resume its relocations when it is the case,” Gérald Darmanin tweeted at the end of the meeting.
The Italian minister, Matteo Piantedosi, for his part, stated that he had noticed a “convergence of positions” during the meeting, specifying that he had “cordially greeted” his French counterpart. The latter invited him to come to Paris before an upcoming meeting of interior ministers scheduled for December 8 in Brussels.
Irregular entries on the rise
Migration is once again on the European agenda, while irregular entries at the Union’s external borders are increasing considerably (280,000 in the first ten months of the year, +77%). The increase is particularly strong via the Balkan route (+168% during this period), and the Commission is preparing another action plan to try to stop this increase.
The numbers do not reach the level of the refugee crisis of 2015-2016. But the possibility of a new wave of arrivals this winter of Ukrainians, millions of whom are deprived of power because of Russian attacks, also fuels European concerns.
Meanwhile, the Greek Interior Minister, Notis Mitarachi, has complained that Turkey is not respecting a 2016 migration agreement that provides in particular for the return of migrants who do not have the right to asylum. He also considered that the voluntary solidarity mechanism was “not enough”, and called for a “mandatory” solution.
For her part, the Belgian minister, Nicole De Moor, also called for “solidarity for Member States like Belgium, which are doing more than their fair share but have seen their reception capacities saturated by secondary flows for months.”
Source: BFM TV
