Refugees are prevented by police from entering the Keleti railway station in Budapest, Hungary on September 1, 2015 [Xinhua]
European Union leaders agreed on Friday to boost training and provide logistical and financial support to the Libyan coast guard to police its shores along the Mediterranean to prevent people smugglers from transporting refugees to Greece and Italy.
The agreement comes as they meet in Malta in a bid to reach consensus on means to stem the tide of refugees and illegal migrants crossing choppy, often dangerous waters.
In a final communique titled the Malta Declaration, the leaders said that:
“The European Union is strengthening the mainstreaming of migration within its Official Development Assistance for Africa, which amounts to 31 billion euros during this financial period. Some of the actions can be funded within projects already underway, notably projects funded by the EU Trust Fund for Africa as appropriate, which mobilizes 1.8 billion euros from the EU budget and 152 million euros from Member States’ contributions.”
Last week, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that the number of refugees seeking to cross the Mediterranean and reach southern European shores has significantly dropped.
It said that while 47,000 refugees made the dangerous and often deadly trek across choppy waters in the first 25 days of January 2016, that number fell to just 3,335 migrants since the start of the year 2017.
Meanwhile, EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini told delegates in Malta that Europe does not believe in walls or bans but in cooperation and mutual understanding to deal with the refugee crisis.
“For sure, Europeans differ when it comes to a certain approach, for instance to migration, and I think today we will show our way is cooperation and partnership,” she said.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies