On Wednesday 8 February, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said in Valletta, that migration issues must be managed through cooperation between European and African countries, and not by confrontation.
"Migration can only be managed effectively through cooperation and partnership", she stated at the opening of a high-level conference between Europeans and Africans on migration issues –a conference intended to ensure follow-up of the action plan agreed at the Valletta summit of November 2015 (see EUROPE 11429). "There are forces in the world that are pushing for a completely different strategy. A strategy based on confrontation rather than cooperation, building walls rather than creating partnerships, closures and bans instead of dialogue. This is not the European way and I do not think that it is the African way either", she added, in a thinly veiled criticism of the Trump administration.
"We must not prevent people from looking for a better life elsewhere, but we must stop the tragedies at sea and in the desert", she said, adding that the European Union would keep its door open to refugees. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)