Interior ministers in the European Union agreed on Thursday to establish a new decision-making body as part of measures to strengthen the 27-nation bloc’s borders and to gradually implement badly needed improvements to the EU’s broken refugee system.
Since well over 1 million individuals, many of the refugees escaping war in Syria, began entering the European Union in 2015, the EU has been immersed in a profound political crisis. Greek islands have been inundated with migrants arriving on rafts and dinghies from Turkey. Other nations were delayed or unwilling to assist.
The old asylum system, which was based on the idea that migrants should be dealt with in the country where they initially arrived, failed. New reform plans have failed to address the core issue of who should bear responsibility and what kind of assistance should be provided by other countries.
France, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, is attempting to reenergize the massive reform plan by tackling sections of it at a time.
EU interior ministers agreed to explore measures in stages beginning next month during discussions in Lille, northern France. “The goal was to change the way because the ‘all or nothing’ strategy until now was generally leading to nothing,” said French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, who acknowledged disagreements.
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