Tuesday, June 16, 2015

France and Italy clash over migrants. Paris’ refusal to allow Africans to cross border highlights refugee crisis

Italy and France engaged in a war of words Monday as a stand-off over hundreds of Africans offered a graphic illustration of Europe's migration  crisis.

Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano described images of migrants perched on rocks at the border town of Ventimiglia after being refused entry to France as a "punch in the face for Europe."

His French counterpart Bernard Cazeneuve hit back by insisting that France was fully within its rights to send illegal immigrants or asylum seekers back to Italy.

That prompted Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to weigh into the escalating row. "Europeans have a duty to address the problem of migrants together," he said.

 "That is the plan A for us. The muscular approach of certain ministers of foreign countries is going in the opposite direction."

The exchanges set the scene for further clashes when EU ministers meet Tuesday in Luxembourg for talks on the crisis.

Around 250 migrants - most of them English-speaking Africans - have been camped in Ventimiglia for four days, protesting that they should be allowed to enter France on their way to their desired destinations in northern Europe.

Among a group of around 100 camping at the town train's station was Walid, a Sudanese who traveled from Libya with his wife Sara and three young children.

As he talked to AFP, three-year-old Basmala played with a toy car given to her by an Italian passer-by while her two older brothers concentrated on a crossword.

The family attempted to cross the border three days earlier but were intercepted at the first stop in France, the Riviera resort of Menton, and taken back to the border, from where they walked for four hours to get back to Ventimiglia.

Walid decided to leave Libya after 25 years because of the chaos engulfing a country where he had his own electrical goods shop.

Walid sold everything he had to pay 1,000 euros ($1,130) per person for the boat trip to Italy: an investment he hoped would allow him to get to Germany and ensure an education for his children.

France's Cazeneuve said Italy was obliged to deal with people like Walid and his family, citing the Dublin accords under which new arrivals in the European Union are supposed to be processed by the country in which they first land.

But he denied that Paris had effectively closed its border in breach of the spirit of the Schengen accords which provide for passport-free travel around much of continental Europe.

 Source:AFP
globaltimes.cn
16/6/15
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1 comment:

  1. Central European states against migrant quotas: Slovak PM...

    The central European countries of Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland are jointly opposed to a European Union proposal to impose quotas on individual EU member states for the resettling of illegal migrants from Africa and the Middle East, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said on Friday.

    "We think that what the European Commission is proposing is contrary to the conclusions of the European Council, which spoke about the free movement principle," Fico told a joint news conference after a meeting of the four countries' leaders along with French President Francois Hollande.....reuters.com

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