The European Commission reported on Wednesday on progress made on measures to tackle the refugee and migration crisis in Italy, Greece and along the Western Balkans Route. The European Agenda on Migration presented in May 2015 included a series of measures to address the migratory crisis.

In September, the Commission set out the priority actions under the Agenda to be implemented immediately. Today progress is assessed on the hotspot system and relocation scheme in Italy and Greece and the measures taken to implement the commitments in the Statement agreed at the Western Balkans Route Leaders’ Meeting in October 2015.

Greece and Italy should speed up the procedures of the construction of hotspots stressing, though, that there has been some progress.

As the report mentions, in Greece “the proportion of migrants fingerprinted has risen markedly from 8% in September 2015 to 78% in January 2016” adding that “Once fully operational and equipped, the hotspots in Greece should reach a total fingerprinting capacity of around 11,000 persons per day, which is well above the average arrival numbers for January”.