French President Emmanuel Macron, after meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, spoke about financial sanctions against EU countries that would reject migrants with proven asylum claims. With a European solution to the migration crisis, a mini-summit of sixteen countries will be held in Brussels on Sunday.
"I'm personally for a mechanism that would take this into account," Macron said, questioning possible financial sanctions in the case of refugee refusals.
"You can not have a country that takes great advantage from the solidarity of the European Union and which strongly emphasizes its national egoism when it comes to migration issues," the French president told on a conference.
According to Macron, France and Spain agree on the creation of "closed centers on European soil" for migrants. These centers would meet the standards of the UNHCR and be set up by EU funds. "This would allow for immediate financial solidarity, swift processing of applications and European solidarity, so that every country can take over asylum-seekers in an organized way," Macron said.
The European solution has stressed that the national ones are not working. "We are dependent on each other, we need a cooperative approach," he added.
A number of European states want shelter centers outside the EU
The idea of setting up centers on European soil is in direct contradiction with what other European politicians have called for in recent days. On Thursday, at the summit of the Visegrad Four countries in Budapest, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš called for the creation of centers in North Africa.
Danish Prime Minister Lars Lökke Rasmussen and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told the German Bild that they are working with some other states to create "protection zones" for refugees outside the EU.
In an interview with the German newspaper Funke, the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, has also spoken out for centers outside the EU. He said he could imagine some of them in the Balkans, such as Albania or Macedonia. "Two or three" such camps would be needed in Africa as well. The idea of "capture camps" outside the EU was also introduced in the past by European Council President Donald Tusk.
Minisummit is to create a system of mandatory redistribution of migrants
Emmanuel Macron met with Pedro Sánchez just one day before a brief meeting to be held in Brussels on migration before a proper EU summit at the end of next week.
According to a working document available to AFP, participants in the Sunday meeting foresee the creation of an "effective solidarity mechanism" with mandatory quotas for the redistribution of migrants among EU member states, which the Visegrad Group countries (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland) strongly oppose.
The schedule for the Sunday meeting is likely to arise at Tuesday's meeting of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Macron and Commission President Juncker.
The Chancellor, on Friday, ruled out that a European solution to the migrant issue could be found at the EU summit on 28 and 29 June, on which her political future depends to a large extent.
More hundreds of migrants are saved in the Mediterranean Sea
Over the Mediterranean Sea, meanwhile, is trying to reach hundreds of migrants from Africa. With two hundred migrants aboard in international waters, the Lifeline is still waiting for the Italian and Malta to refuse to enter their ports.
Along the Spanish coast, a total of 569 migrants were saved during Saturday afternoon. The container ship, Alexander Maersk, rescued 113 from a ship near southern Italy and is now waiting for further instructions near Sicily. The Libyan Coast Guard reported on rescuing another 200 migrants, but five people found death in the waves.