European Union Considers The Creation Of Refugee, Illegal Immigrants’ Camps In The Maghreb

Leaders of 16 EU member states met, on Sunday, to discuss a proposal to set up detention camps for refugees in North African countries.

This meeting will prepare for the decisive meeting of next Thursday at the request of the European Commission to tackle the migration problem that has strained European Union policies.

it’s draft agenda includes a proposal to set up camps for illegal immigrants in some North African countries. However, this proposal does not seem to achieve unanimity among EU member states, which have disagreements over where to place the detention centers.

While countries such as Italy insist on setting up such centers outside their territory and insist to build them on the territory of the countries that are bordering the southern bank of the Mediterranean.

France and Germany, for example, urge Italy and other countries in the EU, such as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, to receive illegal immigrants on their territory pending a decision on their files.

The project to establish detention centers for illegal immigrants in Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco and Libya is old and dates back to the 90s, and the first was initiated by the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, but the idea did not find a defender among the European countries, and it was met with strong rejection by the Maghreb countries.

In this regard, Italy threatened to boycott the meeting if the countries of the European Union did not follow a strict strategy to fight illegal immigration, and the countries that are bordering the eastern borders of the Union decided to boycott it (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovak Republic), so as not to bear the consequences of the meeting, noting that the laws criminalize leniency with illegal immigrants.

Brussels rejects the establishment of camps for illegal immigrants in North African countries, and the European Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said: “I reject the idea of ​​camps like Guantánamo, especially for immigrants, because this affects European values”.

“What is being talked about is residing migrants in safe places and studying their files before making the final decision whether they will be accepted in the European Union or deported to their countries of origin”.

Previously, Italy refused to receive a ship that was carrying more than 650 clandestine immigrants, and Spain rushed to receive the ship and rescue migrants from suffering at sea, while the Interior Minister and Vice President, Matteo Salvini, said he would treat similar ships with the same treatment.