Migrant quotas are minimum, bigger EU effort needed-Gentiloni

(ANSA) - Brussels, December 14 - Premier Paolo Gentiloni said Thursday that the mandatory system for sharing the burden of asylum-seekers was the minimum Italy expected from the EU after meeting European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the leaders of the Visegrad group of countries that are against it. In the run-up to the EU summit that starts Thursday, European Council President Donald Tusk sent a letter in which he called the quotas "ineffective" and "divisive", sparking protests from many member states and an institutional clash with the Commission.
    "Walls and closures are wrong, according to us, and the obligatory quotas are the absolute minimum for the European Union," Gentiloni said. "These countries have an opinion that is very distant (from ours).
    "But it is significant that this difference, which we will take about this evening at dinner, has not impeded a political initiative that I consider important and I am grateful". Gentiloni added that Italy would demand that the whole EU do more to combat the Mediterranean migrant crisis at the European summit. "If we want to consolidate the watershed in the fight against traffickers and change the human rights situation in Libya in a significant way, we need a stronger financial, logistical and political commitment from the whole European family," he said.
    "Italy will ask for this tonight".