As rescue efforts in the Mediterranean Sea flagged last week, and bodies were found more frequently than survivors from among the more than 500 people missing after an overcrowded fishing trawler sank, the European Commission’s president was asked for her thoughts.

“It is horrible, what happened, and the more urgent thing is that we act,” Ursula von der Leyen told reporters at the headquarters of the European Union’s executive branch in Brussels.

The priorities, she said, should be to help the authorities in Tunisia — where people bound for Europe sometimes leave from — to stabilize its economy and better manage migration, and to finalize the long-awaited reform of the EU’s asylum rules, which is unlikely to happen before next year, reports AP.

At a summit starting on Thursday, EU leaders will discuss von der Leyen’s plans. As countries like Austria, Hungary and Poland block any meaningful attempt to equitably share out refugees arriving in Greece, Italy, Malta or Spain, the work focuses by default on preventing migrants from entering.

More than 50,300 attempts were made to enter the EU without authorization from January to May, according to the border and coast guard agency Frontex. It’s more than double the number in the same period last year, and the most since 2017.

Source: Bahrain News Agency