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1/ Spent most of my Sunday trying to figure out what's the deal with this extraordinary meeting on #migration today in Paris. France invited Schengen countries, plus AU, IOM, EASO, HCR, et al. Salvini won't bother showing up. Greece is alarmed, but going bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
2/ The immediate problem is what to do with people crossing through the central Mediterranean route. But it's all part of a wider debate on burden sharing & solidarity. There's also a certain annoyance about DE & DR acting as EU's viceroys bloom.bg/2Z31Lj7
3/ The proposed plan is forming a coalition of the willing, offering to swiftly relocate some of the asylum seekers who are disembarked in Italian & Maltese ports. They ll also pledge assistance to Italy to facilitate the swift return of migrants not entitled to asylum protection
4/ But Salvini is not happy. Italy and Malta argue that Search and Rescue rules dictating that those saved at sea should be taken to the nearest safe port, were intended to deal with shipwrecks and other individual emergencies, and not with mass migration
5/ Also, the plan's promise to take some of those entitled to international protection rings hollow to Salvini. Most of those arriving do not qualify for asylum, so won’t be eligible. Salvini wants actual disembarkations to be spread, not disembark in Italy and take it from there
6/ It's of course interesting that Salvini attacks those planning to offer at least *some sort* of relief, and not fellow-minded right-wing governments in the East, who aren't willing to share *any* of the burden for migration flows. Or agree to a change of Dublin rules
7/ It's also absurd that no one dares to say that the EU actually needs migration, because all of its member states face all-but-irreversible demographic decline - straining welfare systems and damping growth outlook. No one seems to care about who will be paying taxes, work, etc 
8/ More absurd is that everyone treats the issue as some sort of foreign invasion, when in fact total inflows this year equal less than 0.001% of EU population. Even in 2015, total flows were just 0.2% of EU population. Surely something 1st-World countries could handle as adults
9/ Anyway, I won't go into the details of how the flows dried since their peak, the deals with warlords, the horrific conditions in EU-funded Greek camps, etc. I wonder how some people sleep at night, but hey... The elephant here is the next migration wave and what will cause it.
10/ Scientists are certain that if we don't do something about climate change NOW, vast swaths of Africa will become *permanently* uninhabitable. A desolation land. It's already starting. Countless millions will be forced north. And then what?What's a conceivable policy response?
11/ All the planes of dignitaries hastily flying to Paris today have actually contributed to bringing the day of climate/migration reckoning closer. Maybe the scorching heatwave about to strike Europe, just after the hottest June ever will remind them that bloom.bg/2Z4jDKH
12/ Closing the loop on this: one senior diplomat says the whole point of the Paris meeting was France trying to lay the groundwork for an EU response to a potentially *imminent collapse of Libya*. Here's what Paris formally says about the outcome: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
