Migrant policies key threat to EU unity
Kashmiri demonstrator shot dead by police
FORGET Brexit or a transatlantic trade war. The diplomatic spat this week involving Italy, Malta and France over who should take responsibility for more than 600 people rescued at sea shows the biggest challenge Europe faces is migration.
It’s not about the hundreds of thousands of people who arrived across the Mediterranean in recent years seeking better or safer lives.
Turkey has welcomed more. Tiny Lebanon and struggling Jordan handle almost 2 million refugees between them. The crisis threatening the very existence of the EU is the enemy within – the inability of the 28 states in the world’s biggest trading bloc to manage migrant arrivals collectively.
Asylum reform is stranded on the rocks of national interests. The questions of who should take responsibility for those arriving – and whether there should be a quota system for countries to share refugees – are fiercely disputed.
Long-suffering nations like Italy and Greece, where most sea migrants enter, feel abandoned by other EU nations. In response, some have deployed troops, erected border fences or reintroduced ID checks, undermining Europe’s passport-free travel area.
Those acting alone have mostly angered their neighbours by passing the problem on. Mutual trust between nations has evaporated.
“As long as we keep refusing the idea that we have a collective problem that can only be tackled with collective solutions… we will not find a solution,” European Commission vice-president Frans Timmermans warned.
EU nations are now flirting with that collective failure, struggling to reform the bloc’s asylum rules known as the Dublin Regulation. It’s a pillar of Europe’s passport-free travel area. Failure to fix Dublin could sound the death knell for check-free travel and easy cross-border business across Europe – the crowning achievements of the bloc.
For two years, EU governments have battled without success to fix Dublin’s biggest contradiction – that migrants must seek protection in the first European country they arrive in. That rule was part of this week’s dispute over the Aquarius, a rescue ship carrying 629 people saved off the Libyan coast.
Italy, which controls Mediterranean rescue operations, halted it, claiming Malta was closer and should take responsibility.
French President Emmanuel Macron waded in, accusing Italy of cynical, irresponsible behaviour. The new populist government in Rome found this hard to swallow, given that French border police have been blocking thousands of migrants who try to leave Italy.
Spain’s new centre-left government came to the rescue, offering the boat safe harbour.
“Europe can be the example to everyone on this issue but we have to see real political will to move away from fiery rhetoric to taking tough decisions,” Roberta Metsola, a leading EU lawmaker on migration said. “The ball is in the (leaders’) court now. The world is watching.” – AP/ANA SRINAGAR: At least one man was killed and more than a dozen other people wounded yesterday as protests against Indian rule erupted in Indian-controlled Kashmir shortly after Eid prayers, police and residents said.
Shouting slogans such as, “Go India, go back” and “We want freedom”, hundreds of people began marching in the southern Anantnag area but were confronted by government forces firing tear gas, leading to clashes.
The use of force intensified as the demonstrators rained stones on police and paramilitary soldiers and the troops fired shotgun pellets, injuring at least 17 people.
One young man among the injured died at a hospital. He suffered pellet injuries to his head and throat. Other protesters were hit in their eyes by pellets, medics said.
Clashes between protesters and police were reported at several places across Kashmir, including the main city of Srinagar.
Muslim Kashmiris were celebrating the Eid-al-fitr holiday yesterday to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadaan and its daytime fasting.
Anti-india sentiment runs deep in Kashmir, a disputed Himalayan territory divided between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan but claimed by both in its entirety. In recent years, the Indian-controlled portion has seen renewed rebel attacks and repeated public protests against Indian rule.
Rebels have been fighting Indian control since 1989, demanding that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training the rebels, a charge Pakistan denies.
Most Kashmiris support the rebels’ cause, while participating in civilian street protests against Indian control. Nearly 70 000 people have been killed in the uprising and the Indian military crackdown on it.– AP/ANA