![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/gdb.voanews.com\/3DA27438-EFE9-472B-B130-CDF3EAEDECE9_cx0_cy2_cw0_w1023_r1_s.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
FILE – Migrants who attempted to sail to Europe sit on the shore after their boat was intercepted at sea by the Libyan coast guard in Khoms, Libya, May 6, 2015.<\/p>\n
ROME \u2014\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The EU\u2019s commissioner for migration says Brussels may withhold development aid and impose trade and visa restrictions on migrant-source countries in Africa and Asia to force them to take back failed asylum-seekers.<\/p>\n In an interview with Britain\u2019s The Times published Saturday, Dimitris Avramopoulos said EU chiefs \u201care considering stopping funding of major development projects. We invested in these regions to create opportunities and keep people there.\u201d<\/p>\n He said countries which failed to cooperate with repatriations could face blanket visa restrictions. Germany recently threatened to withhold visas from the ruling elites of migrant-source countries that do not accept returnees.<\/p>\n But Avramopoulos appeared to indicate a much broader visa embargo is now being contemplated, saying \u201cthousands of foreigners, from diplomats and doctors to students and researchers\u201d would be impacted by the travel restrictions now under discussion.<\/p>\n \u201cThe EU is not afraid to make use of leverages in trade or visa policy. Let\u2019s be honest: it is neither good for Africa nor for Europe that so many people cross the Mediterranean,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n FILE – EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos answers reporters’ questions as he arrives for a meeting of interior ministers of the central Mediterranean contact group on migration in Rome, Italy, March 20, 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n This is the first time EU commissioners have threatened to block access to European markets in response to a long-running migration crisis that\u2019s roiling the continent and threatening to upend traditional party politics and empower populist nationalists.<\/p>\n The \u201chard borders\u201d approach now being considered is being condemned by humanitarian NGOs, which often embrace a \u201cno border\u201d ideology.<\/p>\n On Monday, President Emmanuel Macron of France will chair talks featuring European and African leaders in Paris in a renewed bid to thrash out a more effective strategy to stem migrant flows. African leaders are likely to argue they need more development aid.<\/p>\n Italy’s dilemma<\/strong><\/p>\n The following day EU national leaders will hold one of their regular summits in which the migration issue will figure prominently. Both Italy and Germany have national elections in coming months and Italy\u2019s Paolo Gentiloni and Germany\u2019s Angela Merkel will likely want to show voters they are shutting down migrant routes.<\/p>\n Italy will push the EU to try to replicate with Libya a deal that was struck with Turkey last year, which largely shut down the migrant route through the Balkans. But analysts say such a deal would be unworkable when it comes to Libya given the lack of an effective central authority in the northern Africa state.<\/p>\n FILE – Migrants wait to disembark from a ship as they arrive at Crotone harbor, after being rescued by a “Save the Children” crew in the Mediterranean sea off the Libyan coast, in Crotone, Italy, June 21, 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The migration influx has morphed into a political crisis for Italy\u2019s left-leaning coalition government. In municipal elections earlier this year the coalition lost ground to center-right parties such as Matteo Salvini\u2019s Northern League, which has called for a \u201cstop to the invasion.\u201d<\/p>\n Italy\u2019s right-wing Forza Italia party has campaigned for the denial of landing rights to NGO ships carrying migrants. And even the maverick radical Five Star Movement is moving to an anti-immigrant position, calling for a halt to any new migrants being lodged in Rome.<\/p>\n Gentiloni has accused fellow EU nations of \u201clooking the other way,\u201d and not doing enough to assist Italy with the surge in migrants crossing the Mediterranean. A burden-sharing system across the EU has failed with just a few thousand taken off Italy\u2019s hands by other EU member states.<\/p>\n Libya has become the main gateway to Europe for migrants and refugees from across sub-Saharan Africa, and also from the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Syria and Bangladesh. Many are fleeing war and persecution, but most who are using Libya are seeking to escape poverty. Italy has become the main point of arrival of those rescued off the coast of Libya.<\/p>\n As the economic migration has grown, with only a small proportion of asylum-seekers coming from countries engulfed in war, so sentiment in Italy has shifted with Italians becoming enraged at the strain the influx is having on the country\u2019s migrant facilities, which are now all full, and the appearance of migrants even in far-flung villages.<\/p>\n FILE – Women are seen as they are held in the Ponte Galeria detention center for migrants near Rome, May 6, 2017.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n 600,000 asylum seekers<\/strong><\/p>\n This week, police evicted more than a hundred Eritreans and Ethiopians from an abandoned office building near Rome\u2019s central railway station. The occupants \u2014 who had been given refugee status \u2014 complained that Italy doesn’t help asylum-seekers integrate, fails to house them and provide language classes.<\/p>\n In fact, the Italian authorities do, housing many in villages across the country, providing months-long language tuition and up to 45 euros a day per refugee. But many refugees bolt the system, preferring to live in large cities such as Rome, Naples, Milan and Bologna and to try their luck.<\/p>\n The sheer numbers \u2014 more than 600,000 asylum-seekers have entered Italy since 2014 \u2014 are overwhelming. And the assistance asylum-seekers do receive is increasingly infuriating ordinary Italians in villages migrants are sent to for temporary periods. \u201cI don\u2019t get that money from the government and we are struggling as well \u2014 we don\u2019t have enough jobs for our kids and now migrant kids will be competing for the few jobs that are around,\u201d says Anna-Maria Bianchi, a mother-of-two from a Lazio village just north of Rome.<\/p>\n The only good news as far as Italian authorities are concerned is that there has been a fall-off in the rate of new arrivals this August and July. Official figures show arrivals in Italy from North Africa dropped by more than 50 percent in July from a year earlier and August arrivals are down even further, according to the International Organization for Migration.<\/p>\n The decline is being put down to several factors \u2014 from changeable sea conditions to a heightened Libyan coastguard presence and a reduction in humanitarian rescue-refugee operations. There are also several probes by Italian authorities, who say NGOs have been colluding with people-traffickers.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n https:\/\/www.voanews.com\/a\/eu-ponders-tough-action-against-migrant-source-countries\/4001782.html<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" FILE – Migrants who attempted to sail to Europe sit on the shore after their boat was intercepted at sea by the Libyan coast guard in Khoms, Libya, May 6, 2015. ROME \u2014\u00a0 The EU\u2019s commissioner for migration says Brussels may withhold development aid and impose trade and visa restrictions on migrant-source countries in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_ml_titleColor":"#000000","_ml_titleFont":"Roboto","_ml_titleFontSize":1.1359999999999998987476601541857235133647918701171875,"_ml_titleFontWeight":"400","_ml_titleLineHeight":1.3000000000000000444089209850062616169452667236328125,"_ml_metaColor":"#708090","_ml_metaFont":"Montserrat","_ml_metaFontSize":0.67849999999999999200639422269887290894985198974609375,"_ml_metaFontWeight":"400","_ml_metaLineHeight":0.92000000000000003996802888650563545525074005126953125,"_ml_bodyColor":"#a9a9a9","_ml_bodyFont":"Open Sans","_ml_bodyFontSize":0.84999999999999997779553950749686919152736663818359375,"_ml_bodyFontWeight":"400","_ml_bodyLineHeight":1.1999999999999999555910790149937383830547332763671875,"_ml_wooPriceColor":"#666","_ml_wooPriceFont":"Open Sans","_ml_wooPriceFontSize":0.90000000000000002220446049250313080847263336181640625,"_ml_wooPriceFontWeight":"400","_ml_wooPriceLineHeight":1.270000000000000017763568394002504646778106689453125,"_ml_headingColor":"#000","_ml_headingFont":"Merriweather","_ml_headingFontSize":2.020000000000000017763568394002504646778106689453125,"_ml_headingFontWeight":"700","_ml_headingLineHeight":1.4699999999999999733546474089962430298328399658203125,"_mlglobal_userfontcolors":{"headingColorUser":[],"titleColorUser":[],"metaColorUser":[],"bodyColorUser":[],"wooPriceColorUser":[]},"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/gdb.voanews.com\/8CDE48D2-955B-44CE-B356-0A6ADBB2852B_w650_r0_s.jpg\")
<\/div>\n\n\n![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/gdb.voanews.com\/B4A5C3D4-7D8F-4EE8-8C9E-4BE86AC01681_w650_r0_s.jpg\")
<\/div>\n\n\n![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/gdb.voanews.com\/6E9C615D-1BE4-41AA-8697-784DB7B5051F_w650_r0_s.jpg\")
<\/div>\n