Italy asks new quota system for migrants binding for all

Italy on Tuesday reiterated its call for European Union (EU) to agree on a common distribution plan to share asylum seekers more evenly among European partners, local media reported.

Meanwhile, Italian police evacuated hundreds of migrants who had flocked at the border with France, whose frontiers had been closed for them in the last five days.

"We asked and obtained the new quota system for migrants to be binding for all (EU states)," Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano declared after talks with EU counterparts in Luxembourg, according to Ansa news agency.

"We need to discuss further about the figures (of the possible distribution)," Alfano added.

The EU meeting on the migration crisis was called as tens of thousands of people kept crossing the Mediterranean to reach Europe for safety from war, or for better life conditions.

"We are working to avoid the political bankruptcy of Europe," Alfano also said.

The EU Commission in May advanced the proposal of a new quota system for distributing 40,000 asylum seekers more fairly among EU states, after some 800 migrants had died in a shipwreck in the Mediterranean.

Several EU countries have so far appeared reluctant to fully endorse the new system, with the UK, Ireland, and Denmark being exempt from the plan under EU rules.

Italian authorities were also pressing for a change in the so-called Dublin Regulation, which states all new migrants arriving in the EU must be processed by the country where they land first.

In the case of those entering illegally from the Mediterranean, this means Italy, Greece, or Malta.

Italian authorities affirmed many migrants prefer to avoid being registered in Italy, since they aim to reach other EU countries where they have families or they hope to find better job opportunities while their asylum requests are processed.

France and other EU countries, however, blamed Italy for allegedly failing to respect EU rules on asylum seekers, and for allowing not only would-be refugees but also economic migrants to reach the borders.

"We have to build solidarity with our Italian friends, but they have to build responsibility," French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve declared in Luxembourg.

"Responsibility must include organizing the return of irregular migrants to their original countries," he explained.

• As the EU meeting was taking place, Italian police forcibly moved some 300 African migrants in the city of Ventimiglia at the border with France, where they had been camping for days in the hope to continue their journey.

Most of them were reportedly from Eritrea, Libya, and Sudan.

France had reinforced its border controls since last week, refusing to let the migrants in, and the move sparked a bit row with Italy.

• Austria and Switzerland also stepped up surveillance at the borders with Italy in the past weeks.

The Italian Red Cross assisted the police in the evacuation, as many migrants put up a struggle to avoid being moved away. Some of them took refuge on the rocks off Ventimiglia shore.

Some 57,000 migrants have reached Italy's coasts since January 2015, Interior Ministry data showed. The country received 170,100 migrants from the sea and accepted 20,630 asylum claims in 2014.
 Xinhua - china.org.cn
17/6/15
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