Summary of the day
Migration could be “a dissolving force for the European Union” because of deep cultural differences between European countries and their long-term inability to reach a common policy, the EU’s most senior diplomat, Josep Borrell, has said.
The European Commission today announced almost €127m in assistance to Tunisia to help reduce the number of migrants heading to the Italian island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean.
Juan Fernando López Aguilar, chair of the European parliament’s civil liberties committee, has criticised the European Commission’s response to the crisis in Lampedusa.
Germany’s parliament has been vigorously debating the country’s migration policy this morning, with opposition conservatives calling on the government of the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to tighten rules to prevent what it refers to as “irregular migration”, and to create more of a streamlined system, which would make a clearer distinction between asylum seekers and economic migrants.
A report published this week by Oxfam found that the EU is increasingly using foreign aid to externalise its borders rather than promote development and eradicate poverty – a finding that suggests the EU is falling short of international standards on aid funding.
Green Border, the new film by Polish director Agnieszka Holland, which won the special jury prize in Venice last month and deals with the refugee crisis on the country’s border with Belarus, has opened in Polish cinemas today.
The film has been sharply attacked by several Polish government figures. The justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, compared the film to a Nazi propaganda movie “showing Poles as bandits and murderers”, despite admitting he had not watched it.
The deputy interior minister, Błażej Poboży, called the film a “disgusting libel” that is “harmful to the Polish state and Poles”. He said the government had prepared a special trailer praising the country’s border guards “that shows the elements that were missing in this film.” He said the government would ask cinemas to show the trailer before screenings of the film.
In a telephone interview with the Guardian, which will be published in full tomorrow, Holland said the venom of the government reaction has taken her by surprise.
“I expected waves of hate and propaganda and denial, but instead of waves we have a tsunami,” she said.
Updated
