The French Minister of the Interior, Gérald Darmanincalled a new extraordinary meeting this morning on the issue of immigration, in particular on the situation in Lampedusa. The French media reported it. Already yesterday afternoon the French minister had called an emergency meeting “on the Italian migratory situation, following the events that occurred in Lampedusa”. The relevant services were summoned to the ministry police, gendarmerie, immigration and intelligence, as well as the prefects of Bouches-du-Rhone, Hautes-Alpes and Alpes-Maritimes.
Faced with the mass arrival of migrants in Lampedusa, too Germany has decided to resume the voluntary admission of migrants from Italy which had been suspended. This was announced by the German Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, speaking of “obligation of solidarity”. According to the newspaper Die Welte, Faeser told the ARD on Friday that the voluntary admission procedure had been suspended “because Italy has not shown any willingness to take people back through the Dublin procedure”, but added that “it is now obviously clear that we will fulfill our obligation of solidarity.” The solidarity mechanism was agreed between some EU countries, including Germany, in June last year. Germany had initially promised to welcome 3,500 asylum seekers from particularly troubled countries on Europe’s southern borders. So far, 1,700 people seeking protection have been transferred through the so-called voluntary European solidarity mechanism to complete their asylum procedure in Germany. Of these, around 1,000 come from Italy and 670 from Cyprus.