Brussels, 21/08/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 21 August, the European Commission again called on the member states to start action and to cooperate more strongly in order to respond to the migration challenge affecting the EU - a challenge which has intensified over the summer.
While new statistics recently published by the European Frontex agency show that over 100,000 people arrived on the shores of the EU during the month of July alone, the Commission stated that it had tabled proposals and that it was time for these to be “adopted”, said Commission spokesperson Annika Breidthardt.
At the end of May, the Commission indeed put forward a series of proposals, particularly on the resettlement of 20,000 refugees from refugee camps outside the EU, and on the relocation of 40,000 people who had already arrived in the EU. This latest proposal nevertheless still comes up against blockages from some member states, with the EU home affairs ministers again failing on 20 July to share these 40,000 migrants out between them (see EUROPE 11363).
On Thursday, the Commission also hailed the initiatives announced by several home affairs ministers, including the initiative put forward by the French and British ministers to tackle the situation in Calais. They nevertheless reiterated that priority should be given to long-term solutions. In a joint press release, European commissioners Frans Timmermans and Dimitris Avramopoulos repeated that, as it had said in May, the Commission would propose a permanent resettlement mechanism for the migrants by the end of 2015.
Agreement between France and UK, and ministerial meeting in Paris in mid-October. Timmermans and Avramopoulos were responding to the meeting in France on Thursday between the British and French home affairs ministers Theresa May and Bernard Cazeneuve, during which the ministers spoke about a series of operational measures to respond to the migration crisis in Calais. The two commissioners are to visit Calais on 31 August along with Cazeneuve and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls. Under the terms of the agreement between France and the UK, surveillance at the Eurotunnel will be strengthened with a new “joint control and command centre” being set up, which will include “personnel from French and British domestic forces called upon to work together daily”, said Cazeneuve. London also confirmed that it would release €10 million to strengthen surveillance in Calais, where nearly 3,000 migrants have been counted, some of whom are trying to reach the UK.
A little later in the day, Cazeneuve also announced in Berlin, alongside his counterpart Thomas de Maizière, that a ministerial meeting would be held in Paris in mid-October to prepare the November European summit in Valletta on cooperation with African countries.
On Monday 24 August, German and French leaders Angela Merkel and François Hollande are also due to meet in Berlin and to discuss the migration crisis.
Merkel raises the tone. At the start of the week, it was Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel who raised the tone and called on the Europeans to respond, with new shipwrecks occurring in August and with Germany receiving increasing numbers of asylum seekers. Merkel called for a real European policy to be implemented that is fair between the member states. In de Maizière's view, Germany counted nearly 800,000 asylum seekers just for 2015.
On Thursday, de Maizière also said that it was “unacceptable that the European institutions continue to work at their current slow speed”, and he thought that “too little time” was spent “on implementing decisions that have already been taken”. Cazeneuve and de Maizière agreed that Italy and Greece had an increased need for help, including financial, in order to handle the migrant arrivals.
On 10 August, the Commission approved the release of €2.4 billion for managing migration flows, approving 23 national pluri-annual programmes under the Asylum Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and the Internal Security Fund (FSI). The funding could be paid immediately, the Commission said.
According to Frontex, migrant arrivals increased threefold in July 2015 compared with July 2014, reaching a record of 107,500 people and creating unprecedented pressure in Greece, Italy and Hungary. In July, most of the arrivals were through the Aegean Sea, especially on the Greek islands of Lesbos, Kos, Chios and Samos. Nearly 50,000 people arrived. Most of the migrants who have arrived are Syrians or Afghans, Frontex stated.
In Italy, 20,000 people arrived, mainly from Libya and coming from Eritrea or Nigeria, Frontex said. In the Western Balkans, the Hungarian authorities reported 34,800 detections in July. (Solenn Paulic)