Politics
The second item on which the three Interior Ministers of Germany, France and Italy, gathered in Paris yesterday, found agreement is rehoming. Minister Minniti repeated that the plan for rehoming migrants from Italy to Greece must start again and take place regularly. It had been planned that 160 thousand refugees should be transferred into the EU by late September 2017: 14 thousand left Greece and slightly more than six thousand left Italy. Rome and Athens claim that it is essential that the burden on the first ports of call should be relieved by calling in the other 26 member states to share the burden (there are some that comply, such as Germany, the Scandinavian countries, partly the Netherlands, even Norway, but there are some that have built walls, such as the Eastern countries). Thirdly: Italy points out that the Libyan coastguard needs to be strengthened in order to check migrants “at the source” and fight human trafficking: the government thinks that resources and 300 million euros, as well as an underlying political agreement with Libya, are urgently required. Minniti was happy as he left Paris. Now, the debate will move to Strasbourg, for the EU Parliament’s plenary session along with the EU Commission and EU Council. Then, on Thursday and Friday, they will all meet in Tallinn.
