Brussels, 22/03/2011 (Agence Europe) - European Home Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmström left for Egypt on Tuesday 22 March to discuss with relevant authorities how to manage migratory flows in the region, especially towards the EU, Malmström's spokesman, Marcin Grabiec, announced on Tuesday at midday.
The meeting was organised in cooperation with the Hungarian Presidency of the EU Council and the Hungarian foreign minister, who had planned to go to Egypt and had invited the commissioner. Malmström's visit will be seen as a response to the request made by the European Council of 11 March to organise contacts between EU home ministers and their counterparts from the region in order to tackle the problem of migration, Grabiec continued. Discussion will allow stock to be taken of the situation in North Africa and cover the return of migrants to their countries of origin, Grabiec added. Cecilia Malmström is expected, moreover, to brief the press on this visit on Thursday at midday.
On Friday, the spokesman went on to say, the question of migrants' return to their homeland will be discussed at a technical meeting of representatives of home ministers, as this is a difficult problem faced by nationals of sub-Saharan Africa blocked in Libya and unable to return home. They will also discuss the possibility for member states to possibly take in these refugees. This administrative meeting had been planned for some time and is therefore not of an “exceptional” kind, Grabiec pointed out. No decision is expected to come out of the meeting, another source states, but the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the HCR (UN refugee agency), which are expected to take part, are likely to ask member states what their availability is for taking in such persons, the same source added.
In the meantime, the topic will be on the agenda of the EU27 summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday, and will be discussed again during the Council of home affairs ministers on 11 and 12 April. On 11 March, during the European summit, the Council had in its conclusions evoked the idea of a special meeting of the Council of home affairs ministers to discuss the problem of migration. This suggestion was not taken up by the Hungarian Presidency, who chose to stick to the framework of the JHA Council already scheduled for 11 and 12 April. (S.P./transl.jl)