Kirkhope: Threats and recriminations will not solve Europe's migrant crisis

Speaking as EU home affairs ministers meet in Luxembourg to discuss plans to deal with the EU's migrant crisis, European Conservatives and Reformists Group home affairs spokesman Timothy Kirkhope MEP (pictured) said: "We keep hearing about the need for solidarity between countries but solidarity is built on trust and that is clearly lacking in today's EU.

"Countries that want to help Italy cope with the pressures it faces are not going to feel enamoured by thinly veiled threats from Mr Renzi.

"The real danger with the European Commission's proposals are that countries are now turning on each other over the numbers of migrants, they are going to take, rather than working together to ease the pressures on the front line and trying to tackle the issue at source. Some countries should try to do more to help but in a borderless zone, compulsory relocation is not going to be the solution to this crisis."

The former UK immigration minister concluded: "The EU needs a holistic approach to tackling this crisis, to discourage economic migrants from making the journey, and to assist in protecting genuine refugees. Instead EU countries have descended into bickering and finger pointing that will undermine the co-operation that is clearly needed and which we began to see emerging from the terrible tragedies that happened in the Mediterranean a few months ago."

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