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European Commission preparing burden sharing proposal for asylum-seekers fleeing Libya
The European Commission is reportedly preparing a wide-ranging burden-sharing programme through which thousands of asylum-seekers fleeing war-torn Libya would be distributed among all member states.
Italian news agency ANSA has reported that the programme, currently under preparation by European Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom , is expected to propose to all EU member states to accept a strategy by which asylum-seekers who are fleeing Libya and are currently in camps in Tunisia and Egypt to be airlifted and equally distributed around Europe, in a bid to ease the pressures on countries like Malta, Italy and Greece.
The programme does not include economic migrants as the beneficiaries of the programme but only genuine asylum-seekers who will be processed at their camps in Tunisia and Egypt.
“In this way, the European Commission hopes to have found a just solution to the problem, and most of all would be eliminating the dangerous crossings by sea,” a senior EU official told ANSA.
The proposal is expected to be presented to the European Commission that will meet on May 4, and if approved will go straight for approval by the EU Council and the European Parliament.
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It’s not enough for the European Commission and the Swede Cecilia Malmstrom to propose. The member states must agree. There are more than 400 000 illegal immigrants from Libya who have crossed over to Egypt and Tunisia. Who wants them? Who will take them? Maybe Sweden.
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This would be a very good step forward. But what about the others, are they children of a lesser god? 20
