“Ocean Viking”: European interior ministers approve an emergency plan to “not reproduce” such a scenario

Two weeks after the Franco-Italian crisis around the Viking Oceanthe European Ministers of the Interior meeting in Brussels approved on Friday 25 November an action plan in order to avoid “not reproduce this kind of situation”.

The meeting had been convened at the request of Paris, which agreed to “exceptional title” on 11 November the disembarkation of 234 migrants from the Viking Oceanafter the refusal of the far-right Italian government of Giorgia Meloni to welcome this humanitarian ship which had been stranded for a long time off the Italian coast.

On his arrival, the French Minister Gérald Darmanin had repeated that France would not welcome asylum seekers arriving in Italy as long as Rome did not respect “not the law of the sea”.

Prevent departures

The emergency action plan, proposed Monday by the European Commission and endorsed by the ministers, proposes 20 measures, in particular to strengthen cooperation with countries such as Tunisia, Libya or Egypt in order to prevent departures and increase returns of irregular migrants.

It also provides for better coordination and an exchange of information between States and NGOs rescuing migrants at sea, and intends “to promote discussions within the International Maritime Organization” (IMO) on “guidelines for vessels carrying out rescue operations at sea”.

The “Southern Mediterranean countries must also open their ports” to migrant rescue vessels “which cross in their territorial waters”, underlined Gérald Darmanin.

“Do not reproduce this kind of situation”

“The Ocean Viking crisis was a bit of improvisation”, commented Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas. The, “we have twenty specific actions, an important political agreement, everyone is committed to working not to reproduce this kind of situation”, he commented after the meeting, which he described as “positive”. But “this is not the definitive solution”he acknowledged, calling on member states to advance negotiations on a reform of migration and asylum in the EU, which have stalled for more than two years.

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The emergency plan also intends to relaunch a temporary European solidarity mechanism approved in June, at the initiative of France, which then held the presidency of the Council of the EU.

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