Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party, calls for negotiations between the EU and Tunisia on another refugee pact. Italy recently declared a state of emergency in response to the rising number of refugees.
Manfred Weber (CSU), Chairman of the European People’s Party (EPP), has called for negotiations between the EU and Tunisia on a second refugee pact in view of the further increase in the number of refugees. As the Picture reported, the EPP wants to request a debate on this topic in the European Parliament at the beginning of the week. “The EU is sleepwalking into a new migration crisis, although the rapidly increasing migration pressure is obvious,” said Weber Picture in an interview. “Over 300 percent more migrants arrived in Italy in the first three months of this year than in the previous year,” Weber continued, emphasizing that Italy should not be left alone. “Italy has already declared a state of emergency – and the other EU countries are looking the other way,” said the EPP boss.
The background to the debate is a report by the EU border protection agency Frontex to the EU Commission. Accordingly, the increase in the number of refugees could mean that the previous year’s number of migrants (330,000) will be reached this summer. According to the report, Tunisia has now replaced Libya as the main transfer country. 57 percent of the migrants arriving in Italy boarded the smuggler boats there.
For this reason, European politician Weber wants the EU to negotiate a migration pact with Tunisia. Similar to the Turkey agreement, gangs of people smugglers must be stopped together, Weber said in an interview with the Picture. According to Weber, border protection and controls as well as the rejection of illegal migrants must finally work.
In Italy, 600 migrants are rescued from a fishing boat
Just this weekend, the Italian news agency reported ansa from a rescue operation in the Mediterranean: The Italian coast guard rescued around 600 migrants from a fishing boat in distress. The operation took place southeast of Sicily in the Maltese search and rescue zone and in difficult weather conditions, reports said ansa reported. More than 100 rescued people have already been brought ashore by a ship belonging to the EU border protection agency Frontex in Catania, Sicily.
200 more are expected to arrive there on Monday morning. The other 300 people were reportedly aboard a Navy ship en route to the Sicilian city of Augusta.
The aid organization Sea-Watch claims to have discovered several boats in the Mediterranean over the weekend. One of them had 221 people on board who were also rescued by the Italian coast guard, Sea-Watch wrote on Twitter. There was no official information on this.
According to the Italian Interior Ministry, more than 32,700 migrants have already arrived in Italy by sea this year. Many dare to cross from North Africa to Europe on unseaworthy boats, which is why there are always accidents with many deaths. Because of the large number of migrants who recently reached Italy, the government in Rome declared a state of emergency a few days ago in order to provide money for accommodation, for example, to particularly affected regions in the south.