Brussels, 11/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - As Muammar Gaddafi once again threatens to no longer support efforts to combat terrorism and illegal immigration, EU member states meeting in extraordinary Council have decided to prepare for possible migratory flows from North Africa and have convened an extraordinary meeting of EU home affairs ministers to look at the matter. This meeting will take place within the next fortnight, even though a ministerial meeting had already been formally arranged for 12 April.
Member states once more pledged to consolidate the EU's border monitoring instruments, by strengthening Frontex, which is due to receive additional human and technical means. They called for the swift adoption of the Agency regulation, which is already under discussion in the European Parliament and the Council, and for Europol to be strengthened. The Commission was called on to free up new resources to deal with the influx of migrants and to provide assistance to those countries directly affected by the migratory flows, in particular Malta and Italy.
As things stand, the EU has not known the “biblical exodus” predicted in mid-February by the Italian home affairs minister, Roberto Maroni. It did, however, come to the assistance of Italy and the island of Lampedusa on 20 February through the Frontex agency's Hermes mission, after the island had taken in nearly 8,000 Tunisians further to the fall of Ben Ali's regime. On 24 February, during the Home Affairs Council, Italy had also called for the EU to show solidarity, in particular by setting up a specific solidarity fund or by sharing the burden in terms of asylum and immigration, possibly through reform of the Dublin Regulation. Italy's plea for help did not, however, receive the hoped-for echo.
On Friday 11 March, the 27 EU member states did not, therefore, commit themselves to sharing the burden within the EU although they did propose technical and financial support to the countries of the region in order to improve border controls and management, as well as measures to allow migrants to return to their countries of origin. To this end, the EU27 undertook, with the Commission, to present a plan by the June summit for developing capabilities for managing migration and refugee flows. The plan is intended for the countries of the region, and especially for Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy explained during a press conference that European home affairs ministers should contact their counterparts on the other side of the Mediterranean to see how to organise the control of migratory flows on both sides of the Mediterranean. He specified that, as far as migratory policies are concerned, it will be necessary to take into account the fact that, as these countries become democracies, the status of political refugee will change. Sarkozy said France has already hosted a large part of Ben Ali's political opponents as they had the status of political refugee. Today, he went on, Tunisia is a democracy.
European Commission President José Manuel Barroso, for his part, spoke of the need for a “true spirit of solidarity and burden sharing”. “I am happy to see that the European Council endorsed this approach of solidarity among member states because some of them will probably be more affected” than others, he said. He pointed out that the Commission was willing to make additional funding available, including for air and maritime assets.
Another aspect highlighted by the EU member sates on Friday was the promotion of a new approach for migration and mobility. Without evoking the possibility of dialogue on visas, as the European Commission has done, the Council suggested there should be “mobility partnerships” with partners that are sufficiently advanced at the level of their democratic reforms, and which cooperate in combating the trafficking of human beings and fighting illegal immigration. The Commission again called for exchanges to be fostered between young Europeans and young persons living on the southern Mediterranean rim. (S.P./L.C./transl.jl)