Malmström - EU states showing 'worrying tendency' for quick-fix measures on migration

European Commissioner Cecilia Malmström has spoken of the “quite worrying tendencies” of member states to be “too event-driven and calling for quick-fix measures” when demanding action on migration.

Writing in her blog, the Commissioner responsible for immigration said migration policy needed a long-term strategy and well thought through measures and mustn’t be driven by populist movements.

Recent events in the Mediterranean have seen the influx of asylum seekers and other Tunisian migrants lead countries like France to close their borders to migratory movement; Italy blocking access to a Maltese army vessel carrying close to 200 asylum seekers; and Malta and Italy demanding that the EC put into effect an emergency solidarity measure to help deal with the migratory influx.

Malmström has previously noted that the emergency measures were born out of the mass displacement of Kosovars, and said the same could not apply for the numbers of asylum seekers that so far have fled the Libyan civil conflict.

“It’s important to remember that out of the approx. 25,000 migrants coming to the EU the last couple of months only a few thousands are refugees, seeking asylum in the EU,” Malmstrom said.

“The others are economical migrants from Tunisia looking for work and a better life in Europe. These people are likely to be sent back to Tunisia. The few thousand refugees that have been coming the last months should also be seen in the right perspective – last year France alone received 48,000 asylum seekers and Sweden 32,000 – the total number of refugees coming to the EU last year was 236,000.”

Next week, Malmstrom will be presenting a strategy paper calling for the urgent need for a common asylum and migration policy, and “the need for solidarity with the European countries most exposed to migration flows (Italy and Malta at this point), but also with neighbouring countries, such as Tunisia and Egypt, where the lion part (sic) of the refugees from Libya have fled to.”

France has called for an easier mechanism to temporarily suspend Schengen agreements allowing EU freedom of movement as Italy protests immigrant-train blocking.

France’s move follows in the wake clashes between the two EU countries as Italy protested the influx of migrants from Tunisia and Libya into Italy, which then attempt to enter France.

Italy’s decision to grant Tunisians 20,000 temporary residence permits, allowing free travel in the passport-free Schengen zone, has angered France, and last week, French officials temporarily stopped trains with migrants crossing the border from Italy into France.

In an off-the-record but widely-reported briefing, a senior French official said: “The governance of Schengen is failing. It seems there is a need to reflect on a mechanism that will allow a temporary suspension of the agreement, in case of a systemic failure of an external (EU) border.”

Suspension of the agreement is permitted under the Schengen Pact, but only in the case of a “grave threat to the public order or internal security”.