EU members must share the migrant
burden, Premier Paolo Gentiloni said at an EU-Africa contact
group meeting Monday.
Migration from Africa to Europe "will not disappear by magic
from one day to the next, and those who promise miracles risk
confusing public opinion," he said, calling for "long-term work"
and a common commitment.
"The EU must take on the burden of the commitment, both in
welcoming those who have rights and repatriating those who do no
have rights; it's not just geography that decides who should
commit on common ground," he said.
Gentiloni called for a collective effort to combat the
asylum-seeker crisis, which is seeing record numbers crossing
the Mediterranean to Italy.
"Europe and North Africa contact-group meeting," Gentiloni
said via Twitter, "only a common commitment can make it possible
to regulate migrant flows in the Mediterranean".
Gentiloni told the EU-Africa contact group meeting on curbing
central Mediterranean migrant flows that "Italy has greatly
appreciated Europe's commitment to supporting Libya, an open
path that must become a wider road".
He said "in 60 years (since the Treaty of Rome), there have
been many results, many expectations but also a few risks if we
are not able to respond to some of the demands of our
co-citizens.
"Among these the demand to regulate migrant flows in the
central Mediterranean is one of the strongest demands".
Gentiloni told the contact group that "we must cooperate to
stabilise Libya.
"We have the political and diplomatic foundations in the
accords we have reached and I think that we know just as well,
and (Libyan Premier Fayez) al-Serraj is the first to know, how
much this diplomatic agreement needs to be strengthened in terms
of consensus for the accord in the country", Gentiloni told the
group.
"Stabilisation is needed as well as combating further risks
of division which have manifested themselves in the last few
days" in Libya, where factions are fighting the internationally
recognised national-unity government in Tripoli.
Fighting human traffickers on the central Mediterranean
migrant route from Libya to Italy is a humanitarian fight,
Gentiloni told the group.
"We must combat the idea that this initiative has negative
aspects on the humanitarian level, it is the exact opposite,"
Gentiloni said.
"Cooperation between Libya and EU countries is needed to
prevent and restrict the action of traffickers who are the
negation of any humanitarian principle," he said.
Interior Minister Marco Minniti, for his part, told the group
that Italy will deliver a first batch of motorboats to Libya to
patrol its coasts by the end of April or within the first two
weeks of May.
"The first of the 10 motorboats envisaged by the recent
accord will be handed over," he said, adding that "90 sailors of
the Libyan Coast Guard have trained aboard the (Italian
flagship) San Giorgio and are now in the last stages of their
training".
"When they are ready we will hand over the first boats,"
Minniti said.
Minnit also said that migrant camps to be set up in Libya
will be set up alongside humanitarian organisations and will
therefore "fully" respect all human rights.
According to the most recent figures, migrant arrivals from
Libya to Italy this year were 31.88% up over 2016 and 80.96% up
on 2015, at a record of over 18,000.
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