No quick fix to refugee crisis — UN

Ten migrant centres in Greece, Italy could be beefed up and new ones could be added in Malta

Planned new centres around the Mediterranean to handle migrants will be no silver bullet solution to the European Union’s immigration challenge, says a UN agency of the idea it will be asked to implement.

Irregular migration across the sea has been dramatically reduced, and only about 45,000 people have made it to Europe that way this year. But the hot-button issue is driving the EU’s political agenda. Last week, EU states agreed to tighten their external borders and spend more in the Middle East and North Africa to bring down the number of arrivals.

Unable to agree

Chancellor Angela Merkel, trying to save her coalition, on Monday agreed to set up migrant camps on the German border, highlighting how the EU is unable to agree on joint migration policies and governments increasingly go it alone.

One thing EU leaders have agreed is to look at setting up “disembarkation platforms” to handle those rescued from the dangerous crossing.

“The Mediterranean is a shared space, north-south. We have a joint responsibility to govern what happens in that space, including avoiding that people drown,” Eugenio Ambrosi, the head of the International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) EU mission told Reuters.

The IOM and its sister UN agency for refugees, the UNHCR, would assist in running the new sites.

Ambrosi said 10 existing migrant centres in Greece and Italy could first be beefed up and new ones could then be added in Malta. But opening others on the southern rim of the Mediterranean — as some EU states want — would take time.