As it has done since the summer of 2018, the European Commission continued, on Monday 8 July, to urge Member States to agree on temporary disembarkation regimes for migrants, while new NGO boats have arrived in European waters in recent days and provisional solutions have had to be found due to the Italian refusal to allow them to land in Italy.
The Commission was reacting to the latest case involving the vessel Alan Kurdi, owned by the German NGO Sea-Eye, named after the little boy found drowned in Turkey in 2015. After being rescued at sea, 65 migrants were to be cared for by Malta and then distributed between different Member States, the government announced on the evening of 7 July.
The Maltese Armed Forces also rescued a group of 58 other migrants on Sunday in a boat sinking at sea, according to AFP. At least half of them will be hosted by other European countries, said Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat. Germany could take 40 people. Finland has offered to accommodate 8 people.
The work of the EU Council on this temporary landing mechanism will resume under the Finnish Presidency, while Romania has already developed provisional guidelines. Migration will also be one of the topics discussed in Helsinki on 18 and 19 July, during the informal Justice and Home Affairs meeting. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)