ROME – Support is growing for reform to the Dublin Regulation ahead of a meeting of EU leaders in Malta on Sept. 23, to discuss changes to the current system of distributing refugees and migrants between EU countries. 

 The German non-governmental organisation Mission Lifeline has said in a press statement that the Regulation, which requires migrants to stay in the countries where they arrive, must be “urgently revised.”

 The charity’s ship, the Eleonore, is still held by the Italian government following its docking in Sicily on September 2 in defiance of a ban.

 The ship, which had more than 100 migrants onboard, had been refused entry by both Malta and Italy.  The captain, Claus Peter Reisch, declared a state of emergency onboard and docked at the Sicilian port of Pozzallo, ignoring the then interior minister Matteo Salvini’s policy of closed ports. 

 Reisch is facing a fine of 300,000 euros and up to 20 years in prison on charges of aiding illegal immigration, in what Mission Lifeline describes as a “purely political procedure.”

  "We deeply hope that the Italian government will release our rescue boat, the Eleonore, and take back the totally disproportionate 300,000 euro fine against Claus-Peter Reisch," Mission Lifeline board member Axel Steier says. "Saving human lives is a merit and not a crime."

 There is widespread support for reform of the Dublin Regulation.  Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte has stressed the need for better management of migration, to avoid a pattern of repeated crisis situations when ships carrying migrants are refused entry to European ports and to split responsibility for migrants more evenly between European countries.

 German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has already announced that Germany will take one quarter of the refugees landing in Italy.

 Meanwhile, migrants continue to arrive on the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.  The island’s reception facilities are in a critical state, dealing with over double their intended capacity. 

 “The problem of landings remains the same as before,” says the mayor, Salvatore Martello, although news of the landings is now being made public whereas previously they were kept quiet.

 Local sources report that 27 people arrived at Lampedusa on a small boat on Thursday evening, who said they had come from Zwara, the Libyan beach nearest Tunisia.  This provides more evidence to confirm the suspicions of the Italian coastguard that people-traffickers have changed their routes and are now taking small boats from Libya and Tunisia to reach Lampedusa in the shortest possible time without being intercepted, reports La Repubblica.

 Also on Thursday, the ship Ocean Viking took on 36 people from a small boat, at the request of the Maltese authorities.  218 people are currently onboard the ship and waiting for permission to land at a port, according to La Repubblica.

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