2023-09-29 00:16:59
by Francesca Basso
The agreement on the crisis regulation is closer. The text modified to make it acceptable in Berlin. But Tajani: «The news of seven ships flying the German flag is worrying»
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
BRUSSELS – Compromises by definition displease everyone a little, however there are cases in which they displease some more than others. And that’s what happened yesterday at the Home Affairs Council. Germany has removed reservations on the last piece of the Pact for Migration and Asylum which has been stalled since July: the crisis management regulation, which sets the rules in the event that an EU country finds itself under pressure for a higher than normal increase in landings or arrivals or due to situations produced by the exploitation of migrants by third countries (as happened with Belarus).
The July text was modified to make it acceptable in Berlin, in particular the green component of the government coalition believed it did not sufficiently protect the right to asylum and minors.
But the solution proposed by the Spanish presidency, which introduced two changes, does not convince Italy, which took time because «the text needs to be studied in depth». In particular, it was added to the text that «humanitarian aid operations, according to the standards Europeans, should not be considered as the exploitation of migrants when there is no objective of destabilizing the Union or a Member State.” On NGOs there has been a tug of war between Germany and Italy for some time, there is a different evaluation of the role of NGOs in the Mediterranean and Rome has criticized Berlin’s provision of funds to NGOs for their rescue and rescue activities. research as well as ground assistance for migrants landed in Italy.
A difference of opinions that was reiterated yesterday by Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani, on a visit to Berlin where he met his counterpart and leader of the Greens Annalena Baerbock, to whom he exposed the government’s doubts: «The news of seven NGO ships , some flying the German flag, others not, going towards Lampedusa confirms our concern and our analysis”. But Tajani went even further and speaking to journalists he defined as “strange” and “worrying” the fact that “on the day a proposal is made, all these ships arrive. Is it a coincidence? What’s behind it? Is there an electoral interest? — Of another kind? – continued the minister – It’s something that doesn’t work. Maybe someone wants to prevent there being an agreement? There is truly a lot of amazement.” For Tajani “we cannot finance NGO ships that pick up migrants and then take them to Italy” and “if we really want to follow this path then the migrants who are collected by an NGO ship take the migrants to the country whose flag they fly. This is the only possible solution.”
Diplomacy is working to find a way out on the text of the regulation. At the end of the Internal Affairs Council, the Spanish Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, said that «it is a matter of very little, of days. There are only some details left to define. Nuances that require the necessary time.” And EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson insisted that yesterday “the decision was not formally on the agenda”. Tajani at a press conference with Baerbock in Berlin also explained that Italy did not say “no” to the proposal presented by the Spanish presidency: Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi “took some time for a more in-depth examination from a legal point of view ». What is certain is that for the government led by Giorgia Meloni, NGOs are not a nuance, even if there is the awareness, as emerged from the words of Defense Minister Guido Crosetto in recent days, that the rescues carried out by NGOs «just represent the 5%”.
Negotiations will resume at ambassadorial level in the next few days and the intention of the Spanish presidency is to reach an agreement before the informal European Council to be held in Granada on 6 October, when EU leaders will deal with the external dimension of migration . It is not excluded that the situation will be resolved only after a face-to-face meeting between Prime Minister Meloni and German Chancellor Scholz.
Time is running out. The European Parliament has blocked negotiations on two other key regulations of the Migration Pact (Eurodac, the fingerprint database, and screening procedures) until the Council is ready to also deal with the regulation on crisis management to arrive at an agreement on the entire package before the end of the legislature. Meanwhile, today in Malta the leaders of the nine EU countries bordering the Mediterranean are meeting to talk about migration. There will be France, which is supporting Italy these days, but obviously not Germany.
September 28, 2023 (modified September 28, 2023 | 11:01 pm)
© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
#Pact #migrants #Italy #takes #time #dispute #Germans #NGO #relief #efforts #time.news