“As of today, Italy and Malta are no longer alone” – Italian Interior Minister after burden sharing agreement
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Malta, Italy, France and Germany have agreed on how to jointly handle migrants who arrive in the Mediterranean until a more permanent EU-wide system is introduced.
The four EU member states agreed on a temporary system during a migration meeting between Home Affairs ministers held in Malta on Monday, which was mediated by the Finnish EU Council presidency.
Countries will then have the chance to agree, disagree or propose amendments to the position paper agreed upon on Monday. – Times of Malta reports.
French Interior Minister Christophe Castaner, Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese, European Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos, Maltese Minister of the Interior Michael Farrugia, Finnish Interior Minister Maria Ohisalo and German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer attend the official press conference at the Ministerial Meeting on Migration at Fort St Angelo, Vittoriosa, Malta, 23 September 2019. Interior ministers of Germany, France, Finland, Italy and Malta discussed a joint model on location of migrants and refugees rescued at sea. EPA-EFE/DOMENIC AQUILINA
“We have come up with regulations for a temporary emergency mechanism … that will help Italy and Malta,” German minister Seehofer said, DW reports.
Plans agreed by the four member states will be presented to the rest of the EU’s member states during a meeting of Home Affairs ministers scheduled for October 8.
Seehofer said the exact quotas for each country would have to be discussed at a meeting of EU interior ministers on October 8. He has previously said Germany would take in 25% of migrants rescued off Italian territory.
ANSA reports that the Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese was jubilant on Monday after an agreement was reached on sharing the burden of asylum seekers who arrive via sea from North Africa at a meeting with her counterparts from Malta, France and Germany in Valletta.
The agreement, which will next have to be put to the other EU member States, regards the redistribution of all asylum seekers, not just people who have been recognized as refugees, among other things.
“As of today, Italy and Malta are no longer alone,” Lamorgese said.
“There is an awareness that these two countries are Europe’s port. “This text goes in the right direction. “There is concrete content and we have untangled some complicated political knots. We hope as many EU countries as possible agree with it. What happened today in Malta is very important. It’s a first, concrete step towards real common European action. Migration policy should be done together with other States. We have always said that people who arrive in Malta or Italy arrive in Europe”.
