turning boats away will make new arrivals almost impossible. going back to twenty fifteen with there's no distinction between genuine refugees and economic migrants we're going back because the government is now talking about preventing people from even requesting asylum talking about denying access based on the country of origin and this is a violation of international law italy has shut its ports to charity boats carrying rescued migrants they believe if these boats disappear migrants won't be tempted to cross the mediterranean but charity boats account for forty percent of the search and rescue operations here in testing this idea thousands could die. italy's new hardline policy is driven by money a rock star of the italian right seen here in libya pushing for asylum identification centers to be set up in north africa not europe his slogan stop the invasion. local councillor and salvini supporter fabulous took me to parts of catan

yehi says overrun by migrants that is you know. if you need a few grand prix is now the biggest refugee camp in europe many times we have taken the issue to europe but it's taken salvini to put a stop to it our coasts are being invaded and the impact of illegal immigration is particularly evident in neighborhoods like this one back at the camp a message from one refugee that this anti migrant rhetoric is dangerous. you can't group of migrants together some of us fled persecution others have come just to earn money and then return to africa we don't have that choice we came here because we were being persecuted we came to europe because the rule of law is respected in africa it isn't that with these new policies italy risks accusations that it is also forgetting the rule of law and its moral obligations to those in need charlie and to al jazeera to tell you.

ok let's bring in our guests joining us here from geneva leonard doyle spokesman for the director of the international organization for migration from brussels julian to garner a senior analyst on e.u. migration and asylum policies at the open society european policy institute and in london claude maurice labor member of the european parliament for london and chair of the european parliamentary civil liberties justice and home affairs committee welcome to all leonard doyle in geneva why has it taken so long to get to this summit today and tomorrow given that the migrant crisis kicked off what three years ago and it will end there there are fundamental disagreements within you and we will surely be talking about those about and it goes down to the issue of free move but within europe and also there's a kind of exaggerated risk action of the number of migrants coming to europe. both in the political space and in the media landscape it's kind of double what. whereas it's a pretty pretty manageable situation and it should be done with

a great rate humanity and dignity join in the ghana in brussels migration is the number one is you no matter how you slice or dice slice and dice the statistics on this for european voters is that real or is it an illusion well i would argue that it's real for the people who believe in its efforts and it's been whipped up by far right parties and populist parties in various european countries to become the number one priority is a meeting today in brussels and they're supposed to focus on a host of very important issues for the u.k. the trade war with america the next budget for the next seven years defense corporation and instead they'll be in the usual panic in crisis mode about migration this will be one of a series of and this crisis is some migration called marius in brussels this is partly as well i guess a burden sharing sharing the burden of unprecedented numbers of people who've got into europe or who are trying to get into europe that's the framework that they

have to work around how do they do it. unprecedented during this crisis and twenty fourteen fifteen we now have the lowest number of sea crossings of migrants of refugees since twenty thirteen the paradox is we have the fewest number crossing the mediterranean but the biggest political noise that is that the ultimate paradox here and it's a very real noise it's a noise coming from italy the first big country but this kind of populist anti immigrant government the split in germany and sort of visit grad countries just ramping up the ante migrant rhetoric and it is very real because it is causing an existential crisis for the e.u. but it is creating the wrong policies at the summit today we do want responsibility sharing we do on an external border we do want some fair policies

like dublin but we seem to be getting some externalization and i am really worried about the limits or than geneva when claude in london talks about policies like dublin he's referring basically to the way that some new e.u. member states got in effect an opt out because there's this. concept within being a member of the e.u. which is one for all all for one but those countries on the eastern edge of the shell of europe they managed to get a situation where they're not taking part in that is that fair. i think european solidarity is is a work in progress is a kind way of saying it and while it's interesting to hear the rhetoric and debates of certain leaders and countries across europe where they have minimal migration the end of the day is political rhetoric what we're kind of really interested in i think into focus possibly should be is on the those poor unfortunate the souls who are trapped. in europe dry on the way to europe whether they are refugees into

the asylum or whether they're economic migrants they are all being you know they're being in tricked into this journey by smugglers and by social media and at the end of the day i think the thought is kind of has to be on how do we save the lives of these people then we can argue about distribution and or the other things out later on in the gonna this seems to be a slightly weak but across the board a general consensus claude touched on this earlier about tightening europe's borders would that solve the askew. well there's a minimal consensus yes it's a magic between north and south europe and east and west on the fact that we should basically keep people out and also these plans that are trying to off shore camps know that austrade a style models for sign and processing and of course the problem with those ideas is that they're largely unfeasible maybe because no country is willing to host camps and i think the key issue that was dead and again that's being played out you

never will is that you governments have failed to deliver on what they promise to do which is to have equal status for influence across the bloc and they failed to deprive or on reforming the dublin regulation which is which then it was speeding to which is the rules for the way responsibilities allocated for a side of decisions and now they've got to convene at state goes one is that michael is that he usual scapegoat and the other one is the e.u. itself and now they've reached i think the final point of how far they can bend that reality that particular expediency and i think tonight is going to be conscious time with a group of countries basically telling those governments who are still playing that caught that now is the time to move on and look for practical solutions coming chief the next sixty seconds or so there is talk of holding census disembarkation census outside of europe north africa how do they work how do you fund them how do you police them and how do you not have them turning into the children in cages

situation that we're seeing right now in real time on the us mexico border. well maybe you should also ask your colleague from the i.o.m. about this because u.n.h.c.r. and i am have been talking to the council about this what i'm worried about is that talking about disembarkation centers they're making a very big. at the moment and deliberately vague but let's hear what they really mean to demean disembarkation centers involved in africa. you know libya where i was recently albania they've all said no to these kinds of centers no this is a long march potentially towards offshoring as you heard from. our other guest and we've seen that in australia and the e.u. by the way would not survive this kind of opprobrium the idea of diminishing human rights in this way i mean i was in libya recently and we could send set up

disembarkation centers in libya really the government there what is left of the government there is already said no so you know the policies we do need dublin you know all the various files that we've worked really hard the parliament to work through with the council need to be implemented but if we chase the far right. as is happening at the moment and create this kind of offshoring situation we're going to be in trouble because practically they don't work but in human rights terms and values terms it's a worry because you know what you do strengthen the coastguard i mean i saw that in the documents today maybe we could get a comment on this there are there is a coast guard in libya and the e.u. is partly funding that and that is a mess because you know there is no coherence the human rights issues are huge and i remind people again that the numbers coming are at a real low for for the last five six years and we should be getting together

a policy there's a common policy on redistribution there are some bilateral agreements. one at the moment which you know i'm not against as long as we get a calmness in the political debate but if we chase the far right on this which is what's happening then i really worry for what is going to happen at the end of this summit for on that workable policies and maybe there i am calling can comment on that as well linda told you want to come back on that because the e.u. does surely have a problem just interrupt you for a second come back on claude's point but also we've got the italian interior minister also saying he wants to set up centers in sudan chad and mount mali that one will simply never fly. yeah i mean i think you know mr rose makes some excellent points as usual but at the end of day i think this is question would be helped if we just accept for one minute that about ninety percent of those coming across process are what we would term economic migrants now i've been. in favor of

economic markets but the reality is if you try to get into a country without papers and you're an economic migrant rather than deserving of international protection whether that's beyond asylum or not you really don't have a place there so i think we should just have a reality check that be rather than chasing the far right as has been described maybe it's a lack of cohesion and a lack of my actions of the process which has allowed the extremists a space in which to wreck havoc in our system but moving on to the issue and the important issue of this or shoring up detention centers is certainly not sorry if i mean it is i don't it's a reality check in fact a jump in is a reality check having no international law basis for even determining whether somebody is an asylum seeker or an economic migrant and an african country like libya how are you going to decide whether somebody is an economic migrant or an asylum seeker in a country like libya how are you going to do that for a reality check you know. if i could kind of just answer your question that you

previously asked rather than the one you second just after that too i mean i think doing going to one we certainly are in for. the the disk embarkation to be within the european union. there are really detention centers in libya and they are not the places that we go into one next tuesday with the director general of our i mean that means that you have our senior national leaders are going to the detention centers in libya and they're not no. he places and that is absolutely what we are seeking to avoid we're seeking to ensure that what ever it is disembarkation so-called pursuit of that they have the food protection of the un's business units there are and i am there as eyes and ears to make sure that they do not become as i as it and probably right in the heart i visited i visited to tension centers in libya last month and the i.o.m. were there but these detention centers were abominable and these detention centers

need to close your eyes to what i am serious here and yet i want is where we have to decide on in africa i do want to put one point lou to judy on the ghana julia do you understand the fears in europe combined with the reality we now have. the e.u. commission boss saying there are divisions in europe and they're getting bigger one third of the italian electorate do not want any more migrants on italian soil at all and their logic i guess would be the builders logic which is you don't go to bed up stairs and leave your front door open because if you do when you come down in the morning a t.v. video on your credit cards are gone so there is this fear that european politicians have to be seen to react to or educate the people of europe how does that happen. well i just thought to quickly point out the protection rates for people arriving in italy firm from libya currently about forty percent overall so i wouldn't say

that ninety percent of those arriving. and i would also point out that you know the conditions of the abominable and i think we all agree on that but that even if you are in iran were in charge of those offshore sentence states will still not take these people the end because they are still sending the experts to unite safa cities to screen them afterwards if there's no consensus within europe on asylum rules i doubt there will be for caps offshore and so on on your specific question i think the key point is the one the quotas making i mean unfortunately this is derrius been whipped up by political actors in their own political gain and by and by the media which has been largely complicit in this and it is a textbook example of that even if the numbers were higher than in the cost of last few years it is a country of sixty million it has the capacity to absorb those flows and it has in the past when i had labor migration schemes the reason those people are now arriving regularly is because the jobs that they're actually filling can't be

filled unless they arrive the way they're doing and go through the abuse and be that they're enduring. so i think it's quite useful if you start referring to reality as opposed to pointing out chasing the far right and i think it's indicative that we're seeing a shift from a lot of political leaders and that's why i said that possibly tonight we will see a group of countries break away from the sort of copy just train and try to set things on a course of expanded cooperation conditions of the willing if you want to make the system actually work i was quite disappointed by president to six letter from the european council to further details in which again he referred to the waves of migrants in the crisis that's in golf in europe and so on and i think that kind of language is definitely not helpful. you know on that point that julia made there about the media is it's a question of the we have to have a root and branch reform of the language and also when it comes to the media the reporting of this it occurs to me this is in part about depiction and perception so

if your evening news bulletin issuing you wave after wave picture after picture report after report of thousands of people flooding into europe of course there will then be a riding the wave on the part of the right wing perhaps i'm i right around the wrong sure i mean there are many great journalists i mean this station is a good example of that you cover this issue extremely well so let's be clear about this it's about the optics of the wider kind of social media and journalism that is treating us a new situation and that situation is happening when the numbers are going down and this is why it is very dangerous to jump into situations where you're processing of sure in dangerous countries i mean i was in libya.