The European Union has failed for the time being to get any of the countries in North Africa to host on its soil centers for the screening of migrants.

The idea in question has put forth as one possible solution to the migrant crisis in Europe which is causing political rifts on the EU-wide and national level.

More specifically, the proposed measure has emerged as part of a plan to help prevent migrant deaths at sea as Italy has criticized the agenda of an upcoming emergency summit of EU leaders on the issue this Sunday.

Italy’s new populist government has already declared it wants to deport some 500,000 undocumented migrants, and has refused to receive the Aquarius, a NGO migrant rescue ship with 630 people on board, which has eventually docked in Spain.

Dimitris Avramopoulos, the EU Commissioner for Migration, has revealed the EU wants to “intensify cooperation” with Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Niger and Morocco, The Guardian reports.

Avramopoulos has admitted that no African country has agreed to host any migrant centers yet but the EU has not submitted formal offers to them, either.

“It has to be discussed with these countries. An official proposal has not been put on the table,“ he is quoted as saying.

However, a Tunisian official has made it clear the idea has been communicated to his country’s government.

“The proposal was put to the head of our government a few months ago during a visit to Germany, it was also asked by Italy, and the answer is clear: no!” Tahar Cherif, the Tunisian Ambassador to the EU, has revealed.

“We have neither the capacity nor the means to organise these detention centres. We are already suffering a lot from what is happening in Libya, which has been the effect of European action,” he is quoted as saying, stressing Tunisia’s already existing problems with unemployment.

Meanwhile, the government of Niger has made it clear that its existing centers housing migrants from detention camps in Libya are already fully occupied.

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