MOSCOW (Sputnik) — It is important for the European Union to redistribute thousands of refugees within the bloc on an equitable basis, Italian Ambassador to Russia Cesare Maria Ragaglini said Wednesday.
"Most important is the principle of the equitable distribution of material costs and distribution of arriving refugees between all EU member states," Ragaglini told RIA Novosti in an interview.
He added that the migrant crisis was a problem for the European Union as a whole, because the bloc had common external borders.
Europe has been experiencing a major migrant crisis, as hundreds of thousands of people flee conflict-torn states in North Africa and the Middle East in an effort to find a better life in stable and prosperous European states.
Italy is one of the countries most affected by the ongoing migrant crisis. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), some 153,000 refugees crossed the Mediterranean to reach Italy in 2015.
