Migrants should be processed in camps outside the EU in case of a “mass influx” of refugees, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said on the sidelines of an EU ministerial meeting in Malta on Thursday.
The meeting was held a week before EU leaders are set to attend a summit in the Maltese capital Valletta where finding a united approach to managing Europe’s migration crisis will be on top of the agenda.
“Europe must ensure that refugees are not brought to Europe at all, but brought back to safe places,” de Maiziere said.
From these safe places outside Europe, “the most vulnerable and only the needy’’ would be brought to the EU, he said.
De Maiziere, who has been campaigning for refugee camps in northern Africa, did not elaborate on where such camps could be set up.
He said Libya, the conflict-torn country that most migrants travel through before taking the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean, was “particularly complicated.”
Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU Commissioner for migration, said after the ministerial meeting that EU countries were getting “very very close” to agreeing on the details of a comprehensive solution to Europe’s migrant crisis.
“For the very first time … I have a positive impression that we are not far from a common solution,” Avromopoulos said. (dpa/NAN)
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