FIve of the European Union member nations on September 23 mutually decided to have an interim agreement on the process of offloading and resettlement of migrants who were saved in the Mediterranean sea from human traffickers. The concerned officials put in more efforts to include more member nations in the arrangement that was agreed upon. 

A safe passage

With the dialogues being held in southern European island country, ministers from the nations of Finland, Germany, France, Italy, and Malta agreed to share the load of migrants crossing over from Libya who were eventually rescued by officials deployed at sea.

For a period of more than 1 year, ships that were responsible for rescuing migrants were held by Malta and Italy from using their ports or offloading the rescued on the lands of those two countries. With policies acting against the rescued migrants, there were deadlocks that lasted for a week till the time a few other member countries came forward to take in a few of the migrants.

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Maria Osihalo, Finland's interior minister, stated that the short term deal that is applicable till October 8, focuses on the humanitarian ships finding a safe place to dock so that the migrants do not face any trouble and a swift response to the relocation of these people gets underway.

Italy's minister, Luciana Lamorgese, stated that the exact outline of the division of the migrants will all depend on how many member countries decide to participate in this arrangement. Spain's Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, is also working towards a bigger deal for all the migrants coming in from the sea.

According to reports, the short term deal planned to cover all of the humanitarian boats involved in the rescue process on the route used by the human traffickers. 

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'Humanitarian' roadblocks

According to the current rule of the European Union, all those fleeing their home countries and seeking asylum have to stay put in the country they disembark in while their cases are considered and processed accordingly. But a lot of the migrants trying to cross over do not meet the criteria for being granted asylum.

Meanwhile, Spain registered more than 16500 migrants coming in by sea and 33000 by Greece. Although, the camp set up on the Aegean Sea island of Lesbos stopped taking in people as the capacity exceeded 12000 i.e. 4 times the actual capacity.

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(With inputs from AP)