Brussels, 22/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - The tragedy of hundreds of migrants being shipwrecked in the Mediterranean led the European Commission and the African Union to discuss, on Tuesday 21 April, how to meet this common challenge of migration (see EUROPE 11299). As part of the regular EU-Africa political dialogue on migration, the two parties expressed their resolve to step up their cooperation in order to tackle the root problem of traffickers who make criminal business from desperate people in search of a better future.
“We started the meeting with migration, which is of tragic importance”, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told press, saying he was sure that this discussion “will inspire” the conclusions of the extraordinary European Council on Thursday. Juncker added: “The top priority is to save human lives. We need to strengthen our means to save lives. This is the absolute priority. Beyond that, we will need to think about how to help migration candidates in their countries of origin. We spoke about the case of Libya. An internal agreement is needed in Libya. We need a trustworthy and stable discussion partner. We are developing contacts with the countries that border the Mediterranean. This is not a problem for Italy and Malta, but for Europe and for the countries that make up the richness of the Mediterranean.”
President of the African Union Commission Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said that the cooperation will focus on three aspects - how to deal with legal migration “because there are people who seek asylum authentically and should be able to obtain it”; how to tackle the traffickers of human beings; how to tackle, on the ground in the countries of origin, “what pushes the migrants to extreme solutions”. On the last issue, Dlamini-Zuma said she was sure that access to education and skills, industrialisation in Africa and the modernisation of agriculture would enable more jobs to be created and employment to be given to young people. “Poverty, under-development and unemployment are crucial factors that push these people to flee”, she said. (Aminata Niang)