“We will decide who will come to the European Union, not people traffickers”
- Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and Giorgia Meloni, Prime Minister of the Italian Far Right, have presented their plan to “stop irregular migration” on a visit to the Italian island of Lampedusa. In three days, 8,500 migrants arrived on the island to flee to Europe.
People arriving in Lampedusa from North Africa in pateras have multiplied in a short time: Already in 2023 more than 127,000 migrants have landed on the Mediterranean island, twice the number of arrivals at this time in 2022 and three times in 2021, according to Saturday data from the Italian Ministry of the Interior.
In the last three days, 8,500 people have arrived in Europe and the citizens of Lampedusa are asking for measures: “We hate seeing people suffering and we have always been willing to help them, but we cannot continue to live like this. These people deserve respect, we too.”
Von der Leyen and Melon have presented a ten-point plan to end this crisis, in response to the migration of the European Union, on their visit to Lampedusa on Sunday. The main objective is “to stop irregular migration”: “We will decide who will come to the European Union and under what conditions. Traffickers will not decide,” the President of the European Commission said. He claims that this is a “big business” of traffickers, as The Guardian has said. “In the countries of origin, it must be said that if you choose traffickers you can lose money,” explains Von der Leyen in his appearance.
Plan to increase deportations
According to Meloni, far-right, European countries must work together to curb African exits and “quickly deport” migrants who have been denied the right of asylum, one point of the plan is to increase deportations. He adds that these people are “a threat to the future of Europe”.
Melon stressed that the problem will not be solved by the transfer or redistribution of migrants from Italy to other countries, but that the “only way” to exit the crisis is to stop African “illegal” outflows. He states that migrants who move “by law” to Italy will be “welcome”.
According to the plan presented by both Commissioners in Lampedusa, they have planned to receive assistance for the transfer of these people to other countries through “voluntary solidarity mechanisms”. It should be noted that this small island of the Mediterranean has 6,000 inhabitants and thousands of people fleeing to Europe are concentrated in it, the port reception centre is managed by the Italian Red Cross and warns that there are still about 1,500 migrants waiting for their transfer to facilities with capacity for 400 people, as he pointed out in the media elDiario.es.
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