THE European Union is “shirking” its responsibilities towards migrants with its planned changes to immigration screening, Africa’s envoy to the EU warned yesterday.

The EU is trying to persuade Niger, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco and Turkey to screen migrants and is piloting a plan to send immigration officers abroad.

But African Union ambassador Ajay Kumar Bramdeo told MEPs that by outsourcing migrant management the EU would be “shirking its own responsibility in receiving refugees and migrants and in footing the bill.”

And International Organisation for Migration spokesman Eugenio Ambrosi cautioned against any rush to set up processing centres.
“The priority has to be about protecting people, not borders,” he said.

Mr Ambrosi warned that some EU nations have been unwilling to share the costs of housing asylum-seekers.

“It’s a little bizarre that we ask countries outside Europe to share the burden when, within Europe, we still haven’t got there,” he said.