AFP has reported that France’s Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, announced on 31 July in Rome that France and Italy will be creating a joint brigade to deal with the networks of smugglers who move migrants across their common border.
Italy, where he met his Italian counterpart, Luciana Lamorgese, was the newly appointed French minister’s first foreign trip. Both ministers said they wanted to forge a common position in light of the new Pact on Asylum and Migration that is expected in mid-September and within the context of the meeting of EU interior ministers in October. The French Minister will visit Spain and Germany in August.
These four countries produced a common position in the spring where, amongst other things, they argued for the compulsory relocation of asylum seekers (see EUROPE 12469/16).
At the end of her meeting with Darmanin, Lamorgese said: “We will need bold reforms that are able to give concrete expression to the principles of solidarity and fair burden-sharing between all Member States”.
The two ministers also called for the resumption and extension of the Malta Agreement (the informal arrangement for sharing migrants rescued at sea between Member States), an agreement in which ten or so Member States participate voluntarily and which was put on hold during the pandemic. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)