Renzi asks Italian parliament to overcome divisions on repatriation of migrants

Italy must comply with current European Union (EU) rules on the repatriation of migrants, while it keeps working for a common European policy to address more fairly this global phenomenon, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said Wednesday.

He referred to the so-called Dublin regulation, which states that all new migrants arriving in the EU must be processed by the country where they have first landed.

"This rule is very clear, and also very unfair in my opinion, and yet every discussion on migration emergency within the EU has to start from this same rule," Renzi explained while addressing the Italian parliament ahead of an EU summit scheduled on June 25-26.

The prime minister asked all parties in parliament to overcome divisions on the issue to allow the country a strong stand within the EU debate.

"We are calling on the EU to take charge and care of other people together with us," Renzi said.

The strong surge in the migration inflow to Europe from North Africa will be a top issue at the forthcoming European Council in Brussels, along with the Greek crisis.

Italy has received some 61,400 migrants and refuge seekers by sea so far this year, and some 170,000 in 2014. Most of them would be heading to other EU countries.

Italian authorities have long been calling for the EU to agree on a common distribution plan to share asylum seekers more evenly among EU member states, and also appealed for a change in the Dublin regulation to share the burden of migrants and refugees' claims with EU partners.

A quota system to relocate 40,000 asylum-seekers currently in Italy and Greece was submitted by the EU Commission in May, but met with much reluctance by several countries. Endit