Decision on EU migrant pact postponed as deal sought

(ANSA) - ROME, JUN 8 - The EU Internal Affairs Council decided to postpone until the end of the day on Wednesday a decision on a proposed new deal on migration and asylum aiming to ensure greater solidarity towards member states receiving the greatest number of sea arrivals amid failure to reach an agreement on relocations, qualified sources told ANSA. The interior ministers agreed to proceed with consideration of other items on the agenda while EU ambassadors conducted sideline negotiations in pursuit of a deal.
    "We have to reach the agreement today," German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told her EU counterparts at the meeting in Luxembourg to finalize a new compromise proposal put forward by the Swedish European Council presidency to allocate national reception quotas for migrants and asylum seekers arriving in the European Union to each member state and oblige those that refuse to accept them to pay 22,000 euros per person not received.
    "We succeeded when Putin attacked Ukraine, it was not easy when the eastern countries were flooded with refugees. But please let's not put new requests on the table, please let's find a compromise," Faeser added.
    French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin also insisted on the need for agreement on the relocation mechanism.
    "France pays a high price in secondary movements (of migrants and asylum seekers), but we will play our part not only in funding but also in relocations," said Darmanin insisting that relocations needed to happen.
    "Right now there is not enough solidarity towards the southern states. The compromise that has been found is not perfect but it can work," he added.
    Earlier Italian Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told his counterparts that Italy is not opposed to the deal but that corrections are still needed, adding that the redistribution of only 1,500 migrants and asylum seekers under existing agreements among member states shows that the principle of solidarity has failed.
    Italy has seen a dramatic increase in the number of migrants and refugees arriving by sea on its southern shores since the start of the year and insists that the issue must be tackled at European level.
    Piantedosi told colleagues that in Italy the memory of the February 26 Cutro migrant boat shipwreck where 94 people mostly from Afghanistan died on the Calabrian coast "is still alive", and the hotspot on the Sicilian island of Lampedusa has turned into "a migrant management centre with heavy local implications." Therefore, Piantedosi said, "strong overseas action by the Union" is needed to tackle the migration problem.
    (ANSA).