The Maltese government will host a meeting in Malta on 23 September between the Finnish EU Presidency, France, Germany and Italy to attempt to finalise an agreement on temporary disembarkation arrangements for migrants rescued at sea, in order to provide a structured framework for landing operations in European ports while reform of the Dublin Regulation takes shape.
On 13 September, the European Commission confirmed the date of this meeting, which had been announced on 18 July at the informal meeting of Interior Ministers in Helsinki and confirmed on 22 July in Paris.
The aim of the meeting will be to bring as many countries as possible together around a system that will aim to automatically relocate rescued migrants to countries that volunteer to accept them. According to a source, the outcome of the meeting may then be presented to the Home Affairs Council in October.
The fate of the Dublin Regulation, which is an integral part of the asylum package, is in the hands of the new Commissioner responsible for such matters, Margaritis Schinas (Greece), who will need to decide on the way forward and will need to find new areas of compromise with this reform, which has been deadlocked since 2016.
The approach of the new Italian government is expected to change, though Giuseppe Conte reiterated that his country wanted to relaunch this reform and re-establish the mandatory nature of migrant relocations. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic with Camille Cerise Gessant)