Both France and Spain have rejected the calls of Italy to open their ports to refugees. The EU migrant crisis is still hs no solution because of the difference between its members’ points of view, Guardian reported.
Italy’s interior minister said Rome will pull out of the European Union’s search and rescue mission in the Mediterranean unless other EU countries agree to allow rescued migrants to land at their ports rather than just Italian ones. France and Spain said they are not ready to do that.
Matteo Salvini added his country was “assessing” whether to continue with the anti-human trafficking Sophia Mission after a meeting of EU defence ministers in Vienna, Austria. Sophia currently lands all rescued migrants in Italian ports but Italy’s coalition government has demanded more support from other EU countries after bearing the brunt of the 2015 migration crisis. After a day of talks, no agreement was reached on changing the port of landing rules in Operation Sophia. Madrid and Paris will not open their ports for the disembarkation of migrants rescued in the Mediterranean.
The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, Federica Mogherini, confirmed to reporters that Italy had tabled the proposal, but said the meeting was not the place for decisions on the issue to be made. In her speech, she noted that Italy had agreed that the Mediterranean search and rescue mission must continue beyond its current term, which ends in December.
“Today … it was for me and some ministers around the table, not least the Italian one, to check if there was a political will to guarantee the continuation of the operation and it is definitely the case,”
Mogherini said.
“To the question of, ‘Do we want and firmly want to continue Operation Sophia’, the answer was definitely: ‘Yes,’”
she added.
This week, following their meeting, Matteo Salvini and Viktor Orbán claimed they were “walking down the same path” after discussing the formation of a common anti-migration front to oppose the policies of the French president, Emmanuel Macron.
“We want to change Europe’s commission. We want to protect our borders. We are going to fight pro-migrant policies supported by Macron and [George] Soros,”
Salvini said.
