PARIS, France (Reuters) – The European Union’s commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said the bloc was willing to help ease the pressure for Italy, who has appealed to the EU for help in taking in African migrants.
Italy has even raised the possibility of closing its ports to humanitarian rescue ships to pressure EU partners, sources familiar with the matter said.
Italy has brought in over half a million boat migrants since 2014, and a record 181,000 came last year. This year arrivals are up about 14 percent from the same period last year to 75,000.
Rome’s EU ambassador, Maurizio Massari, met EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos and told him that “the situation we are facing is serious and Europe cannot turn its back”, an Italian government source said.
Avramopoulos said the EU is ready to provide substantial financial support and would discuss the issue in an interior ministers’ meeting in Estonia next week.