MEP asks Brussels to appoint commissioner for migrant crisis

(ANSA) Naples, July 3 - European Parliament member Nicola Caputo formally tabled a question asking the European Commission Thursday to appoint an ad hoc commissioner to tackle the continent's mushrooming illegal immigration crisis.
    "The images of those children, alone and exhausted on the benches in the port of Salerno do not permit us to look away," said Caputo, a member of Premier Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party.
    "I presented a question to the European Commission asking that a commissioner for immigration be named and that Frontex ... be transformed into a European frontier guard corps, so that Italy is no longer alone in facing up to the migration emergencies," the MEP said.
    "Naming a European commissioner for immigration would be positive signal by the EU. We are faced with a real humanitarian emergency that can't be dealt with by our country alone".
    "The work of our Navy busy plucking as many lives from the sea as possible is no longer enough," Caputo said.