Brussels, 18/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - European Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos will appear before the press in Brussels on Thursday 19 February to speak about the migration situation in the Mediterranean and the impact of the turmoil in Libya, his staff indicated the day before.
The Commission wants to debate “immediate measures” that can be taken, after more than 3,000 migrants have been rescued in the last few days. The Commission will only hold a preliminary debate on its future migration strategy on 4 March. Recently, several countries, like France and Germany, have called on the Commission to make greater use of the Frontex agency and its budgetary reserves to better manage the arrival of migrants and detect crewless “ghost ships”. The Commission did not want to say on Wednesday whether, on Thursday, it would propose beefing up the Triton operation that is led by Frontex and has been in operational since November 2014. For the Greek commissioner, this will be an opportunity to get back down to work, after Alexis Tsipras officially ended speculation, on 17 February, over whether he would be named as the candidate for the presidency of the Hellenic Republic, as had long been rumoured. (Solenn Paulic)