Today’s European press reports widely on the European Commission’s proposed new strategy to handle the flow of immigrants into the EU, and especially its suggestion to create a system of quotas for each EU member state. Last week, EC President Juncker indeed called for a fairer distribution of refugees and better opportunities for legal immigration, Berlingske Tidende recalls, among others.
This proposal of quotas is due to be unveiled on Wednesday and is based on several criteria such as the population of a country, its GDP, its unemployment rate and the number of migrants that it has already hosted. La Repubblica says that, thanks to this system, the EC is expected to distribute 20,000 migrants across all EU countries, and to extend the legal ways to enter the EU.
In a commentary for Süddeutsche Zeitung, Andrea Bachstein underlines that Europe is “finally reacting” to the refugee crisis, with a ten-point plan, considering, however, that it has waited “way too long” to deal with this issue. Almost all media outlets provide comments expressing the controversial aspect of this proposal, creating divergences among the European countries. “Europe’s system for dealing with refugees is under huge pressure”, a Guardian title actually reads. While Landskrona Posten reports that it was welcomed by Sweden and Germany,
De Telegraaf says that twelve (predominantly Eastern European) countries have backed out of the proposal. Napi Gazdasag reports on Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán’s comments, considering the distribution of migrants as “a mad idea.” Publico, among others, also says that criticism has been expressed in the UK and Ireland. French MP Eric Ciotti believes the project is bound to fail since the programme is to be executed on a voluntary basis, as quoted in Le Figaro.
In an interview on BFM TV, member of the Migreurop network Violaine Carrère believes the implementation of quotas is both “unrealistic” and “in complete breach of fundamental rights”. Aamulehti says that a more sustainable solution than a quota system would be, of course, the stabilisation of the situation in the refugees’ home countries but notes that, currently, there is no chance for this to happen. Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni called sharing migrants based on a quota mechanism the “right principle”, reports La Stampa. The Italian daily adds that the EU Frontex border agency is working on an agreement with Italy to extend the scope of Operation Triton to search for and rescue migrants up to 50 miles from Italy’s coast.
The best solution would be if every EU member state could say by itself how many immigrants it is able to shelter, but that is unlikely, as there are no easy solutions to this problem, European Council President Donald Tusk recently said, quoted by the Croatian press. Meanwhile, France 2 reports that Germany, Sweden, Italy, the UK, the Netherlands and France, namely six out of twenty-eight EU member states, are currently hosting close to 80% of migrants. By complying with these quotas, countries such as Ireland, Poland and Hungary would have to make more efforts. De Telegraaf recalls that, last year 626,000 refugees had to be housed, a third of which ended up in Germany, 81,000 in Sweden, 65,000 in Italy and 30,000 in the Netherlands.
On other top migration news, most of the media – including The Daily Telegraph – report that Vice-President and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini “has urged the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution being drafted by British diplomats authorising a raft of EU measures, including military action, to defeat Libyan-based people-smuggling gangs.” Politiken.dk says that, if the resolution is approved by the Council, the EU will have a legal base for initiating military action.
According to The Guardian, quoted by the Danish website, EUHR Mogherini does not expect China or Russia to veto the resolution. In light of EUHR Mogherini’s intention to promote a military mission against human traffickers, former Amnesty International Germany Secretary General Wolfgang Grenz, speaking on RBB3, deems it unlikely that the UN Security Council will agree to such measures. He notes that Brussels’s fight against human traffickers is mainly “symbolic” and anticipates that military strikes will cause more deaths of civilians uninvolved in human trafficking.
BBC World News featured live coverage of the Vice-President and High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy’s address to the UN Security Council in New York, underlining that “we believe, in the European Union, that this is a responsibility that we all share [to save lives] … we are aware of the fact that there is not one magic solution, but a comprehensive response to a complex problem.” Along the same lines, she also said that this is an unprecedented situation which requires an unusual answer, as reported in Efimerida ton Sintakton.
El Mundo also features some of Mogherini’s statements, stressing that “we cannot wait for another tragedy to happen” before taking action, adding that the EU cannot act on its own. According Salzburger Nachrichten’s editorial, the EU’s plans to destroy the boats of people smugglers would only fuel the construction of new boats. The EU’s plans would make boats disappear, but not the intentions of the people in North Africa determined to cross the Mediterranean.
Meanwhile, capital.gr reports that Commissioner Avramopoulos met with Tunisian President Habib Essid during his tour in the area. The two sides discussed the ways to support EU cooperation with Tunisia on migration and security issues.
