A European Union crisis cell on
migrants is needed, Premier Giuseppe Conte said in a letter to
European Union authorities this week.
Conte called for an EU "crisis cell" on migrants to be set up
in the letter sent to European Commission President Jean-Claude
Juncker and European Council President Donald Tusk on Tuesday,
according to a copy obtained by ANSA.
"It is essential," he wrote, "that an EU mechanism of swift
and shared management on the various aspects of search and
rescue be adopted immediately via "a sort of crisis cell" tasked
with "coordinating the action" of member States on finding
landing ports and countries willing to take the rescued
persons".
"It is my suggestion that such a mechanism be coordinated by
the European Commission (by the Home DG, for example".
Conte called the new cell a "committee" in a long interview
on the front page of the Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper on
Thursday.
"On Tuesday I wrote the second letter to Juncker and Tusk to
ask that what happened Sunday", that is the divvying up of
migrants, "should become the norm, no longer entrusted to phone
calls among partners, but to a cabinet or crisis committee under
the aegis of the European Commission, which will then be a
mediator among the various governments", Conte said.
At the weekend Interior Minister Matteo Salvini blocked
Italian ports to a wooden boat with 450 migrants aboard,
prompting six EU countries to eventually say they would take
some of them and allowing the Italian government to say "finally
migrants have landed in Europe and not Italy" and Salvini to say
"we're not Europe's migrant camp any more.
Italy's EU partners on Thursday voiced "strong concern" about
Italy's stance on revising the Sophia mission's rules on migrant
landings.
They said they were concerned by Rome's decision, announced
at the COPS on Wednesday, to no longer accept the "automatic"
landing of migrants in its ports of those saved by the Eunavfor
Med's Sophia op.
The worries were expressed in the conclusions of the COPS
meeting in Brussels.
The partners, however, said they were ready to go into the
question in greater detail at a meeting Friday.
The COPS, whose English acronym is PSC, is the EU's Political
and Security Committee.
It is a permanent body within the European Union dealing with
Common Foreign and Security Policy issues, including Common
Security and Defence Policy.
A spokesperson for the European Commission said Thursday "we
will assess the consequences of the Italian request" on changing
the Sophia groundrules on where to offload migrants.
"Italy has not yet formalised the request, so we'll see at
tomorrow's meeting," the spokesperson said.
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