The Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of Parliaments of the European Union (COSAC) meets on a regular basis to address matters related to the European Agenda on Migration. In this context the chairpersons of the national committees met on 5 and 6 May to discuss the effectiveness and functioning of the hotspot approach contained in the European Agenda on Migration adopted in 2015, and visited the hotspot in Pozzallo.
The hotspot approach, the main aim of which is to help improve migration management, should be assured by properly identifying, registering and fingerprinting all incoming migrants on arrival. This procedure is a necessary precondition for the proper channelling of migrants into the national asylum process, an emergency relocation scheme or the return system.
According to the Italian authorities the rate of registration and fingerprinting of incoming migrants has been improved to an average of 97 per cent thanks to the expansion of the hotspot approach to further disembarkation ports in 2016. Representatives from the local authorities charged with implementing the hotspot approach, as well as those from the European agencies and various international organisations and NGOs therefore agreed that the hotspot approach had played a key part in significantly improving migration management in Italy.
However, the hotspot approach is being let down by bottlenecks in follow-up procedures. Under relocation programmes for vulnerable groups adopted by the EU Member States, of a total of 106,000, only 16,735 vulnerable persons (of which 5,244 from Italy) have been relocated to other EU Member States (as of 19 April 2017). The main reason for this low implementation rate lies in the fact that EU Member States are hindering the implementation of the EU relocation programme by not providing a sufficient number of spaces. According to a special report by the European Court of Auditors published on 25 April, the implementation rate for return decisions is under 20 per cent, also far below original expectations. The reason for this is a lack of cooperation on the part of countries of origin regarding readmission.
According to the Italian authorities, the increasing number of unaccompanied minors presents an additional challenge (over 20,000 in Italy up to the end of September 2016). Due to a shortage of dedicated facilities to accommodate and register unaccompanied minors, they spend too long at the hotspots, which are not suited to their specific needs or to accommodating other vulnerable groups in the medium or long term. The authorities are generally observing that ever more migrants are arriving. Since the start of the year, 26,941 arrivals have been recorded in Italy, 2,854 of which were at the hotspot in Pozzallo. Since 1 January of this year, 45 per cent more migrants have arrived on Italy’s shores than in the corresponding period of the previous year.
Against the backdrop of these challenges the chairpersons of the national committees for European affairs spoke with representatives from local authorities about possible measures to expand existing hotspot capacities. Measures discussed included improving reception capacity in the vicinity of hotspots, swifter processing of asylum applications and the enforcement of existing return decisions. The EFTA/EU Delegation was represented at the talks by its president, National Council member Thomas Aeschi (SVP/ZG).