On Wednesday 9 January, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat confirmed his country's readiness to dock the two ships of two German NGOs - Sea-Watch 3 and Professor Albrecht Penck - on which 49 migrants were still on board the previous day, who have since been able to disembark after having remained on board for more than two weeks.
This gesture, confirmed a little later in the day by the European Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, could be made by the Maltese authorities after 8 Member States confirmed in writing their agreement to relocate part of these migrants to their territory.
As EUROPE had indicated on 8 January (see EUROPE 12167), France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Romania and the Netherlands confirmed to Malta that they could relocate some of the people from these two boats, but also some of the 249 people that the Maltese Navy had also saved last week and that the small island had already landed on its territory.
As regards the targeted persons, the Prime Minister of Malta explained that of the 249 people already present, 131 will be relocated to other Member States, as will the 49 people landed on Wednesday. 44 people from Bangladesh will be repatriated to their country, he also announced. Commissioner Avramopoulos also announced on Wednesday at midday that Frontex could send staff to support Member States to help them send back home all rescued persons who, after examining their profile, will not be eligible for protection in those Member States.
According to the available data, of the total number of persons concerned, France would commit to taking 60, as would Germany; Romania would take 5, the Netherlands 6, Luxembourg 6, Ireland 6, Portugal 20. According to the Italian press, Italy would take about fifteen.
Commissioner Avramopoulos has of course welcomed this news, as he, like other Commission officials, has recently been in close contact with the Member States to reach a solution. Joseph Muscat thanked on his Twitter account the help provided by Martin Selmayr, the Secretary General of the Commission.
Nevertheless, the Commissioner stressed that these events had not been “Europe's best time” when it took almost three weeks to find a solution to land everyone. A delay that the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament lamented in a Twitter message.
The Commission wants a temporary system for the automatic distribution of migrants
In addition to these announcements, the Commissioner also recalled that Member States must successfully complete the reform of the European asylum system, launched in May 2016.
Faced with an expected failure on the revision of the Dublin Regulation before the May European elections, the Commissioner reiterated - as the Commission's Director General for Home Affairs had done on Monday, before the MEPs of the Civil Liberties Committee (see EUROPE 12167) - that the European institution was ready to work on temporary, but sustainable, measures to address the problem of the landing of migrants, until a new European asylum system was put in place.
This is the work that the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU should also carry out, which could have work to do on these mechanisms, which would make it possible both to give more visibility to the landing operations of migrants and to prepare more or less consensual criteria for progress on the still controversial aspects of the reform of the so-called 'Dublin' regulation on asylum.
Voluntary action should be one of the keys to these temporary arrangements and the Commission should play a central coordinating role, as it has done since this summer every time a ship arrives and either Member State refuses to allow it to dock in its ports.
This central coordinating role is in any case "what the Member States are currently asking us for", a Commission source said on Wednesday, suggesting that the subject could be discussed at the informal meeting of Interior Ministers in Bucharest on 7 February. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)