• Migrants, Frontex: in 2019 -92% in the EU compared to 2015
  • Migrants, EU: enough ad hoc solutions now solidarity
  • Migrants, EU reported to the Criminal Court for the dead in the Mediterranean
  • Migrants, the European Parliament launches EU coast guard with 10,000 men

Share

January 18, 2020 "Europe cannot afford to fail a second time on migrants". The vice president of the EU Commission, the Greek Margaritis Schinas, said in an interview with Repubblica, anticipating the philosophy of the European Pact on migrants that he will present in the coming weeks.

Schinas, who will be in Rome on Tuesday to meet with the Minister of the Interior Luciana Lamorgese, explains that it will proceed "with an overall approach that will not only cover the reform of the right to asylum and relocation, fundamental for the governments of Italy, Greece, Malta and Spain In addition to solidarity - he underlines - we will also immediately regulate the elements of responsibility indispensable to the countries of the North and East by strengthening the external borders, launching a real return policy and creating legal corridors for highly qualified migrants ".

To keep the countries of the Visegrad group on board, the external borders will be strengthened thanks to the new mandate of Frontex. "Before Frontex did not have permanent structures and staff - observes Schinas - now instead it is recruiting its own staff that by 2027 will count 10,000 agents, part of the new European Border and Coast Guard. The governments themselves are not fully aware of it, but already next summer we will have 700 permanent agents at our borders, highly visible to citizens thanks to the uniform and European badge ".

The vice president pointed out that Malta's relocation agreement "is working very well. There have been 85 relocations in the first 8 months of 2019. Since September, or since the Agreement was in operation, 400 migrants have been redeployed landed in Italy ". Finally the repatriations: "We aim to make a series of agreements with the countries of origin and transit in Africa and Asia to finally convince them to take back their citizens".