BRUSSELS: European Union interior ministers faced mounting pressure to deliver on their promises for tackling the migration crisis on Monday as they met to prepare the ground for a summit with African leaders.
Dimitris Avramopolous, the EU migration commissioner, urged them to act quickly on pledges to tighten external borders, relocate refugees from overstretched Italy and Greece, and set up reception centres along the main Balkans route from Greece.
Adding to the pressure for action in Brussels were German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere and leaders of the European Parliament.
Monday’s extraordinary meeting came ahead of a special EU-Africa summit in Malta on Wednesday, focused on how to reduce the flow via Libya, the second-busiest migrant route after Turkey and the Balkans.
“It is now time for them (the member states) to accelerate the work to make these promises a reality on the ground,” Avramopoulous, who is from Greece, said in a statement.
The European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation EU, proposed a multi-pronged plan in May to tackle the worst migrant crisis in Europe since the Second World War after nearly 800 migrants drowned in the Mediterranean on their way to Italy via Libya.
The crisis worsened over the summer when hundreds of thousands more people fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan arrived in Greece and the Balkans via Turkey.
More than 3,000 people have drowned among the nearly 800,000 who have reached Europe this year.
However, EU states have bickered for months over a joint solution, particularly over plans to relocate a total of 160,000 asylum seekers from frontline countries to other parts of the bloc.
“We need to see more relocations from Greece and Italy as a matter of urgency,” said Avramopoulos.
The EU finally approved the relocation schemes last month in the face of fierce opposition from Hungary and other eastern member states that are grappling with an anti-immigrant backlash.But since then only around 120 asylum seekers have been relocated from Italy and Greece to countries like Sweden and Luxembourg.
Avramopolous said member states also need to contribute the staff and equipment needed to set up the agreed reception centres in Greece and Italy where people seeking refugee status will be separated from economic migrants who will be sent back home.
There are also plans to set up reception centres in the Balkan countries where migrants can register and obtain shelter.
De Maiziere complained of a “sluggish” start to the relocations partly because the reception centres were not fully operational and urged quick reinforcement of external borders between Greece and Turkey.
Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2015
