Italian Premier Matteo Renzi
said Thursday the European Union must formulate a comprehensive
response to every aspect of the refugee and migrant crisis.
"It's very important to give the message that the EU faces
all the issues together: the hotspots, the repatriations, the
relocations, and Italy is ready to do its part," he said.
"Europe's ID card says we were born to bring walls down not
build them," Renzi said.
"If some countries are in the EU today, this is due to the
fact that a wall came down".
The EU has told Italy and Greece to set up hotspots for
more effective registration of new arrivals and processing of
their asylum requests.
"The hotspots are a part of the solution, not the solution
itself," Renzi said.
"The identification is conducted with European criteria
and personnel and I agree with that. But there are also the
issues of repatriations and of the redistribution (of asylum
seekers)".
Europe is struggling to cope with a massive influx of
migrants fleeing war, conflict and persecution in the Middle
East and Africa, with disagreements over how to manage the
arrivals stoking tension between EU member states.
The European Parliament on Thursday approved the European
Commission's proposal for 120,000 refugees who are presently in
Greece, Hungary and Italy to be redistributed within the Union
on the basis of mandatory quotas.
Also on Thursday, Croatian Interior Minister Ranko Ostojic
said his country has reached capacity after 7,300 asylum seekers
entered the country earlier in the day from Serbia, after
neighboring Hungary sealed its border with a barbed wire fence.
Premier Zoran Milanovic earlier stated that "Croatia is a
transit country for the refugees and it will not behave like
other states, closing its borders despite the fact that our
resources are limited".
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