5 Med countries are pushing for more solidarity in the face of the migrant crisis

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Less than a week after a deadly shipwreck of migrants off the coast of Italy, five European Union countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea pushed back their northern neighbors on Saturday for not accepting asylum seekers under a voluntary scheme.

Ministers responsible for migration policy in Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta and Spain met in Valletta, the capital of Malta, ahead of an EU ministerial meeting in Brussels next week on migration. Countries started working together as MED 5 in 2021 to address the challenges of illegal migration.

Greek Migration and Asylum Minister Notis Mitarachi told reporters that only 1% of migrants arriving in these frontline countries along the southern EU border l last year have been taken in by other EU members under a voluntary relocation programme.

"We cannot continue to talk about the need to impose more responsibility on Frontline Member States, if there is not an equally prescriptive and mandatory solidarity mechanism towards first reception countries", Mitarachi said.

Spanish Minister of Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the current process is "too slow, too selective, with too few results and too little predictability". He pledged to come up with a more effective mechanism when Spain takes over the rotating EU presidency in the second half of 2023.

The meeting of ministers on Saturday also underlined the need to work with countries origin of many migrants. and travel through. They also called for an acceleration of the rate of return of people who do not qualify for asylum.

"For the credibility of the asylum system, it is essential that we distinguish between those who are entitled to international protection under the law, and those who are not," Mitarachi said. "And those who are not must be returned safely and with dignity to their countries of origin.

According to the UN refugee agency, some 160,100 migrants arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean Sea last year, 30% more than in 2021. Thousands of people have died trying to cross the sea to Europe in recent years.

At least 69 migrants have died after a wooden boat from Turkey crashed on a shoal off from the south Italian coast, in Calabria, early last Sunday.

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Colleen Barry contributed from Milan.

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