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News:
1. Migration is top of the agenda when leaders meet for a European Council meeting in Brussels
Important facts:
2. Issues:
- More than 1.8 million migrants have come to Europe since 2014, mostly from West Asia and Africa.
- This has become a contentious electoral issue across Europe with right-wing populists capitalising on an anti-migrant sentiment for electoral gains.
- While migrant inflows have fallen since their peak in 2015-16, some countries such as Italy, Spain and Greece have each accepted 12,000-15,500 migrants in 2018.
- EU countries are grappling with the treatment of migrants within their territories and related policies.
3. Migration in Italy
- More than 600,000 migrants have arrived in Italy from Africa in recent years.
- Earlier this month, Italy’s Interior Minister, Matteo Salvini, refused to grant MV Aquarius, a ship that had rescued 629 migrants, docking permission.
- Salvini wants to deport 500,000 of those who are in Italy, fix the migrant resettlement system, build migrant reception centres in Africa.
4. Affect on German government
- More than 1.6 million migrants have made their way to Germany since 2015.
- The bulk of them arrived when Chancellor Angela Merkel suspended EU migration rules in 2015 to accept migrants stranded in other countries.
- It now threatens the coalition government headed by Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), saying she will not allow migrants registered in other countries to enter Germany.
