France-Italy border row divides EU parties

The Greens/European Free Alliance group called on the Commission to urgently invoke the EU Temporary Protection Directive, which was adopted after the Kosovo war to deal with the potential mass arrival of refugees from war zones but has never been used. This directive provides for sharing the burden of an influx of refugees.

The Greens are also in favour of the Commission presenting a concrete alternative proposal to address the situation with regard to the influx of people seeking refuge from the current instability in the Mediterranean region.

"It is worth remembering that Tunisia and Egypt have had to cope with at least ten times the number of people we have seen so far in the EU," the Greens/EFA group states.

Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group coordinator on the European Parliament's civil liberties committee and Romanian MEP Renate Weber said:

"So far the Council and member states' answers to the migration flows have been disappointing. The reluctance towards the adoption of the asylum and the legal migration packages, and the buck passing attitude of some of the member states puts at risk one of the principal and most popular achievements of the EU - Schengen and the free movement of people."

"Free movement is too valuable for both European citizens and economies to sacrifice in a knee-jerk reaction to the current challenges from North Africa," said ALDE MEP Sarah Ludford (UK).

"It is essential that individual member states fulfil their responsibilities in dealing with numbers of migrants that are not unmanageable, instead of destroying the Schengen zone. The way France and Italy have run around like headless chickens over a relatively small spike in migration shows EU states' failure, despite a decade of rhetoric, to install a coherent ability to manage inflows," said Ludford.

The Party of European Socialists (PES) said it was "outraged" by the concessions made to Sarkozy and Berlusconi by the European Commission.

According to PES President Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the Commission should be "standing tall as the guardian of the EU treaty," instead of "threatening such an important principle as freedom of movement".

Slovenian Socialist MEP Tanja Fajon, co-chair of the PES Migration Network, stated: "The PES advocates a renewed migration policy, not by closing the EU external and internal borders but rather by building on a better facilitation of the flows."

Spanish MEP Juan Fernando López Aguilar (Socialists & Democrats group), chair of the Parliament's civil liberties committee, reacted strongly to the proposal to allow exceptions to the Schengen agreement in exceptional circumstances.

"It is unacceptable that the arrival of a few tens of thousands of immigrants at the borders of countries which are among the largest in Europe and are founder members of European integration, each with a population of over 60 million, should serve as an excuse to question Schengen, the free movement of people and our common policy of freedom, security and justice," López Aguilar said. 

"It is also unacceptable that this is so obviously happening as a result of highly populist anti-European pressures. All this sends a discouraging message, one which is deeply negative and contrary to the Europe that we need," he added.

Portuguese MEP Carlos Coelho (EPP group) said: "I share the feeling that we need more solidarity and a better sharing of responsibilities among member states. Good control of external borders is essential: when this is not the case, it weakens the Schengen area, undermines the Union's credibility and destroys mutual trust."

"I favour a true Schengen evaluation mechanism to verify compliance with the rules and border controls and to identify problems, help resolve them and, if necessary, temporarily reintroduce border controls," said Coelho.

Speaking on behalf of BusinessEurope, which represents private sector employers, Peter Vertessy highlighted the benefits of legal migration into the EU: "The benefits of labour migration to the EU are undisputable. Not only is Europe's workforce shrinking as a result of population ageing, migrant workers also bring valuable skills and ideas and help to fill job vacancies where Europeans are unable or unwilling to do so."

"They make our economies more dynamic by starting up businesses, creating jobs and contributing to economic growth. The EU should do more to attract in particular highly-skilled migrants, he added.

Speaking for the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, UK MEP Timothy Kirkhope told EurActiv: "It is inevitable that EU countries will find migration from third countries to be particularly useful in plugging shortages in the labour market."

"However, decisions of this nature regarding numbers of migrants ought to be determined by national governments in a manner that is kept under constant review," he added.

"If there are skills shortages in the market then national governments' first priority, working with the EU, should be to provide suitable training to fill the gap," he insisted.

Kirkhope noted that the UK government has plans to introduce a cap or ceiling on the number of migrants that will be admitted from countries outside the EU.