France warns Italy as EU hosts migration crisis talks

France on Friday accused Italy of failing to respect the law of the sea as European interior ministers held crisis talks on how to handle the arrival of would-be refugees.

The European Union hosted talks in Brussels after a row erupted between Paris and Rome over a migrant rescue ship and eastern member states sounded the alarm about new arrivals via the Balkan land route.

Numbers of asylum seekers haven’t yet hit the levels of 2015 and 2016, but the dispute has already undermined a stop-gap pact to redistribute the arrivals more evenly around the 27-nation bloc.

Brussels has been struggling for years to agree and implement a new policy for sharing responsibility for migrants and asylum seekers but the ugly row has brought the issue to the fore.

Earlier this month, Italy’s new government under far-right leader Georgia Meloni refused to allow a Norwegian-flagged NGO ship to dock with 234 migrants rescued from the Mediterranean.

The Ocean Viking eventually continued on to France, where authorities reacted with fury to Rome’s stance, suspending an earlier deal to take in 3,500 asylum seekers stranded in Italy.

The row undermined the EU’s stop-gap interim solution and led to Paris calling Friday’s extraordinary meeting of interior ministers from the 27 member states.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said there was no reason for France to accept migrants relocated from Italy if Rome “does not take the boats, does not accept the law of the sea”.

The previous plan was drawn up after Mediterranean countries closer to North African shores, like Italy and Greece, complained that they were shouldering too much responsibility for migrants.

A dozen EU members agreed to take in 8,000 asylum seekers — with France and Germany accepting 3,500 each — but so far just 117 relocations have actually happened.

– ‘Nothing new’ –

But after Italy refused responsibility for the Ocean Viking, France declared that it no longer wants to both allow ships to arrive from Italian waters and to take in thousands more migrants.

On Monday, in a bid to revive the mechanism, the European Commission unveiled another action plan to better regulate arrivals on the central Mediterranean sea route.

“The action plan that was shared with member states is perfectly fine but contains nothing new, so it isn’t going to solve the migration issue,” a European diplomat said.

Stephanie Pope, an expert on migration for aid agency Oxfam, dubbed Brussels’ plan “just another reshuffle of old ideas that do not work”.

“It is a waste of time,” she said.

The plan would see a closer coordination between EU national authorities and humanitarian NGOs on rescues of migrants whose makeshift, overcrowded boats are in difficulty.

And it would see Brussels work more closely with Tunisia, Libya and Egypt to try to stop undocumented migrants boarding smuggler vessels in the first place.

France would like a new framework within which NGO boats could operate — neither a total ban nor a carte blanche to import would-be refugees.

Italy, Greece, Malta and Cyprus often accuse the humanitarian charities of operating without respect for national authorities and of effectively encouraging immigration.

Other member states, including Germany, argue that there can be no limits on humanitarian operations — all seafarers are obliged by the law of the sea to save travellers in danger.

Ahead of the talks, the United Nation High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, warned, “With almost 2,000 people having already died or gone missing so far this year alone, urgent action is needed.”

He welcomed the European Commission’s draft plan for state-led rescues and predictable ports of disembarkation, adding: “While states point fingers and trade blame, lives are lost.”

– Border force –

While France and Italy argue about high-profile cases of dramatic sea rescues in the central Mediterranean, other EU capitals are more concerned about land routes through the Balkans.

Almost 130,000 undocumented migrants are estimated to have come to the bloc since the start of the year, an increase of 160 percent, according to the EU border force Frontex.

Diplomats said France and Italy would try to dominate Friday’s talks with complaints about sea arrivals, while Greece and Cyprus would point fingers at Turkey for allegedly facilitating illegal entries.

Central and eastern countries would focus on the Balkans route and, as one diplomat said, “Hungary and Poland don’t want anything to do with anything in the field of migration.”