EU foreign ministers have failed to reach a consensus on the operational plan for Operation Sophia, an EU initiative aimed at curbing migrant smuggling in the Mediterranean, during a meeting on the issue, Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi said Friday.
ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 31st August, 2018) EU foreign ministers have failed to reach a consensus on the operational plan for Operation Sophia, an EU initiative aimed at curbing migrant smuggling in the Mediterranean, during a meeting on the issue, Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi said Friday.
"Today, there is no solution, but there is the determination to reach a solution. This is what is new [in discussions on the Sophia issue]," Milanesi said after the end of the meeting in Vienna.
The top Italian diplomat called the Sophia mission issue a very delicate one, noting that it attracted the attention of various EU countries. Milanesi added that Italy was not the only country which adamantly expressed its point of view on the matter; it was joined by others during the talks.
The EU defense ministers also held an informal meeting on Thursday to discuss Operation Sophia and other Mediterranean missions. After the talks, EU foreign affairs chief Frederica Mogherini said that the ministers were determined to continue the mission.
Also during Thursday's talks, Italy suggested that ports used for having migrants rescued at sea disembark should be rotated among other EU member states to ease the burden on the county, which has already accepted thousands of people since the migration crisis erupted in 2015.
Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini subsequently said that Italy would reconsider whether it was willing to continue supporting Operation Sophia if its rules were not changed.
The meetings were held in the wake of the Italian government refusing, on several occasions, to allow migrants rescued at sea to disembark on Italian soil in a bid to curb the number of people coming into the country.
The EUNAVFOR MED operation, commonly referred to as Operation Sophia, consists of a series of measures that aim at identifying, capturing and disposing vessels used or suspected of being used by migrant smugglers or traffickers. The operation is contributing to wider EU efforts to disrupt the business model of human smuggling and trafficking networks in the Southern Central Mediterranean, and prevent the further loss of life at sea. Tens of thousands of people have been rescued in the Mediterranean by the mission.
