Migrants issue still dividing EU nations
BRUSSELS — European Union countries remained deeply divided Tuesday over how to overhaul EU rules for managing the influx of refugees and migrants, as United Nations agencies reported that an estimated 112 people died over the weekend when a smuggler’s boat sank as it tried to reach Europe.
The estimated toll made the shipwreck off Tunisia the deadliest this year in the dangerous route from North Africa across the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.
EU migration ministers, meeting in Luxembourg, were pessimistic that new proposals to update the bloc’s asylum system would be accepted by many of the bloc’s 28 nations.
Well over 1 million people, mostly Syrians fleeing war there, entered Europe in 2015, overwhelming Greece and Italy and surprising Germany, which took in hundreds of thousands of refugees. Their arrival strained relations among EU neighbors and fueled anti-migrant sentiment, especially in central and eastern Europe.
EU leaders have insisted that the deadlock over how to handle migrants and refugees must be broken this month.
In his first policy address, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte declared Europe’s immigration policy a “failure” and demanded that it be renegotiated. Italy has been the primary entry point for thousands of migrants to Europe via the Mediterranean this year.
Conte insisted that the rest of the EU take on a greater burden of accepting refugees, as well as negotiating with migrants’ home countries to return those who don’t qualify for asylum.
Germany’s deputy interior minister, Stephan Mayer, said “there are still considerable deficits” in the proposals to overhaul EU immigration laws, while Dutch Migration Minister Mark Harbers said there are “a lot of member states that still have points of discussion.”
“First we have to fix the front door, fix the back door,” Belgian Migration Minister Theo Francken told reporters. “Then we can find a compromise on who’s doing what.”
Denmark’s prime minister, however, predicted that a new European asylum system could be in place as soon as next year and said asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected could be sent to a country “that is not on the migrant’s wish list.”
Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen gave no further details Tuesday besides that fact that several European countries have discussed the plan.
Most of the disagreements focus on who should look after the migrants when they arrive and for how long. Under current EU rules, people must register for asylum in the European country they first arrive in. This has meant that Greece and Italy have carried most of the burden. But some nations — Hungary and Poland notably — have refused to honor any migrant quotas shared among European nations.