BRUSSELS: Interior Ministers from the European countries gathered for crisis talks here on Friday as an unpleasant row between Rome and Paris continues over how to handle would-be refugees forced EU migration reforms back onto their agenda.
Fresh arrival numbers haven’t yet hit the level it was in 2015 and 2016, however European capitals are concerned about new pressure on sea routes from North Africa and through the western Balkans.
Now as the winter temperatures go down in eastern Europe and Ukrainian cities have problems after Russian bombardment, the European Union is likely to choked for many more war refugees to come.
Fresh policy over migrants, asylum seekers
Meanwhile, the alliance has been struggling for many years to agree on and implement a fresh policy for collective responsibility for migrants and asylum seekers, but that was checked by a new dispute.
Earlier this month, Italy’s government under Georgia Meloni refused to allow a Norwegian-flagged NGO ship to dock with some 234 migrants being saved from the Mediterranean.
The Ocean Viking eventually continued on to France, where authorities in Paris reacted with anger to Rome’s stance, suspending another earlier deal to take in 3,500 asylum seekers being stranded in Italy.
The commotion dented the EU’s stop-gap interim solution to the problem. Subsequently, Paris called Friday’s unusual meeting of interior ministers from the 27 member states of the EU.
Italy, Greece complain over too much responsibility
Mediterranean countries like Italy and Greece are complaining that they were shouldering too much responsibility for migrants according to the previous plan.
Meanwhile over a dozen of EU members agreed to take on some 8,000 asylum seekers, with France and Germany to take 3,500 each, however, just 117 relocations have taken place so far.
