MIDDAY BRIEF, IN BRIEF

Today at Commission, migration and fishing

Spokespeople refuse to be drawn on Japan trade deal and UK threat to leave London Fisheries Convention.

A surge of migrants crossing the Mediterranean from Libya to Italy will dominate discussions at the Commission and Council this week.

The interior ministers of France, Germany and Italy met in Paris Sunday with European Commissioner for Migration Dimitris Avramopoulos to discuss “the need to take action immediately,” according to Commission spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud.

“The problem is not a new one, the solutions are not new,” she said. “What we need is to step on the gas.”

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She said the college of commissioners would discuss “concrete measures” at Tuesday’s meeting in Strasbourg, although she emphasized that a political decision would have to be taken by interior ministers when they meet in Tallinn later this week.

When pressed about the Italian government’s threat to stop ships disembarking at the country’s ports, she said she didn’t want to prejudge the college’s discussion.

Fish troubles

Reporters asked several questions about a declaration by Michael Gove, the U.K.’s secretary of state for the environment, that Britain would pull out of the London Fisheries Convention at the same time as it leaves the EU.

“I will not get into any of this for a simple reason,” said Commission spokesman Alexander Winterstein. That simple reason? It’s up to the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier to answer, he said.

Japan-EU trade deal

Winterstein also declined to comment on the specifics of a free-trade deal between the EU and Japan, which could be signed off at a summit later this week after commissioners have discussed the subject at Tuesday’s college meeting.

“Now is not the moment for me here in the press room to spell out the contours [of the deal] … It’s not for me to say,” said Winterstein, urging reporters to be patient.