On 30 June, a fishing boat containing the bodies of thirty people was found heading for Italy, once again highlighting the problem of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean. As Nina Perkowski writes, the incident came at a time when Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had been pushing for the EU to take a greater role over the issue, with Italy also threatening to halt its ‘Mare Nostrum’ operation aimed at intercepting boats headed for the country. She argues that ultimately the only way to prevent the death of migrants in the Mediterranean is to provide safe and legal entry routes into the EU.
“A Europe that tells the Calabrian fisherman that he must use a certain technique to catch tuna but then turns its back when there are dead bodies in the sea cannot call itself civilised.” Ahead of the European Council meeting in Ypres and Brussels last week, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi used strong words, appealing for more European support for border control. The importance of this statement was emphasised further on 30 June, when thirty bodies were found in a boat bound for Italy.
Setting out Italy’s agenda for its upcoming six-month Presidency of the European Union, Renzi called for a united European effort to carry out search and rescue activities and border control in the Mediterranean Sea. In particular, he requested the taking over of Italy’s ongoing ‘Mare Nostrum’ operation by the EU border management agency Frontex. A large-scale military operation in the Mediterranean, Mare Nostrum was initiated as a response to the deaths of over 360 individuals off the coast of Lampedusa last October. The operation has cost Italy approximately €9.5 million a month, and is said to have saved almost 60,000 people from distress at sea in the first six months of this year.
Now, as summer promises even higher numbers of migrant arrivals, Italy has threatened to suspend Mare Nostrum, citing its high costs and the lack of European support. Some, however, also have other reasons to oppose the continuation of the operation: they blame it for an increase in migrant arrivals in Italy, and claim it acts as a ‘pull factor’ for migrants. Indeed, the first four months of this year have seen relatively high numbers of crossings compared to the previous five years. With the UNHCR warning that this year, we are seeing the highest numbers of refugees worldwide since the end of the Second World War, it is however doubtful whether this can really be attributed to Mare Nostrum. More likely, it is the result of escalating conflicts and widespread displacement in the Middle East and parts of Africa.
The European dimension to the problem
In arguing that migrant boat crossings and deaths at sea are not primarily an Italian issue, but a European one, Matteo Renzi is most certainly right. Not only are many of those attempting to reach the EU in this way aiming to travel beyond Italy to other member states, but restrictive EU immigration, visa, and border control policies are also the reason they have to undertake their journey on small boats, investing considerable sums of money and risking their lives.
This is indeed therefore a European issue, and one that the EU as a whole needs to address. And yet, incorporating Mare Nostrum into Frontex is not a genuine solution to hazardous boat crossings and migrant deaths: while it is of course vital that those in distress at sea be saved without delay and permitted to apply for asylum if they so wish, what is needed is a more fundamental change in EU policies and practices.
Mare Nostrum is a military operation that is bound up with security objectives as well as humanitarian tasks, and as such it furthers the perception of migration as a security ‘problem’ that should be reacted to with military and security-related means. It is this thinking – the association of migration with security concerns – that has led to restrictive policies in the first place. And it is because of these policies that for the vast majority of today’s poor, persecuted, and marginalised people, the only option to reach Europe is by undertaking irregular, life-threatening journeys.
EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem herself recognises that there are no legal ways for asylum seekers to enter the European Union, and that this needs to change. While it is thus of utmost importance to save those in distress at sea, the ultimate objective must remain the creation of safe, legal entry routes to the European Union.
This is seen most clearly by those affected directly by exclusion and security measures. While Renzi sought to influence the European Council meeting by speaking in Italy ahead of it, hundreds of refugees and ‘sans papiers’ set up camp in Brussels to make their own claims heard. After walking 500km in a March for Freedom from Strasbourg to Brussels, they spent one week in the Belgian capital to raise awareness of the struggles by migrants in a variety of EU countries, and to bring forward their demands.
In his speech, Matteo Renzi appealed to European values when speaking about the need to find European solutions to migrant deaths at sea: “Either we accept the idea of having a common destiny and values… or we risk the role of Europe itself.” Appealing to these same values – freedom, equality, dignity, human rights – the refugee protest movements in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, and elsewhere have exposed the violence inherent in the current policies and practices, and demanded fundamental changes over the last two years. To them it is clear that an expansion of Frontex to include Mare Nostrum cannot be the answer.
And the European Council? Seemingly unaffected by Renzi’s appeal and refugee demonstrations in Brussels, the heads of state and government ultimately did not focus primarily on migration during their meeting, but treated it as one topic among others. The measures they agreed on include an appeal to Frontex to reinforce its operational activities and capacity to react to new developments; closer cooperation with third states to prevent irregular migration; better use of the surveillance system EUROSUR; a study to look into the creation of a European border guard; and the objective of ‘addressing smuggling and trafficking in human beings more forcefully.’
Partly, the Council Conclusions thus seem to be a repetition of the same approach that the EU has followed over recent years: more surveillance, control, and security, an approach that has led to 20,000 deaths over the last 20 years. At the same time, they recognise the need to increase resettlement to Europe, and to open legal migration routes. If these latter objectives were to be taken seriously and followed up on with political will – in the past too often they were not – it could be, slowly, the beginning of a much-needed opening of Europe’s borders.
Importantly, the Council conclusions make no mention of Mare Nostrum, or the need for search and rescue efforts at Europe’s southern borders more generally. With summer ahead of us and Italy threatening to suspend its operation, the neglect of this vital issue might lead to a renewed increase in deaths at Europe’s frontiers – something which may already have begun with the incident on 30 June.
While in the long run, an opening of legal migration routes is what might decrease risky sea crossings, these will continue in the present, and will continue to cost lives. Rather than averting its gaze and treating incidents like the Lampedusa deaths of October 2013, or the thirty deaths on 30 June, as deplorable and unpredictable exceptions, the EU needs to accept its responsibilities. This includes living up to its self-proclaimed values, and ensuring a functional and civilian search and rescue regime at its southern borders – as well as looking for long-term, genuine solutions.
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Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of EUROPP – European Politics and Policy, nor of the London School of Economics.
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Nina Perkowski – University of Edinburgh
Nina Perkowski is a PhD candidate in the School of Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh.
That is not our problem, it is the problem of the states that are letting these people leave illegally. The UN should prosecute the leaders of these regimes & put an end to it by force. WE have no idea how many of these so call refugees are terrorist sleeper cells that want to come to the EU & wreak havoc on our society
I hear you Joe, but consider Australia’s policy settings. Twice we have had a people smuggling problem. Thousands died and drowned enroute. Thanks to the mindless combination of leftist humanitarianism and the misuse of the refugee convention. The Italians have failed to protect and defend their borders. Your EU treaties institutionalise a failure to defend your borders.
In Australia, if you pay a people smuggler and get on a boat it is GUARANTEED that you will never be able to enter Australia. You will be assessed as to your bonafides under the numbskull convention and if “found” to be a refugee offered refuge in a third world location.
Look around Joe, you are seeing the last whimperings of your nation.
I fully supported the John Howard method of dealing with these people, I agreed totally that they should be kept at a location like Villawood that is secure & away from the general population where they can be lost forever. We too have umpteen islands located across the world where these people could be placed
No need for Villawood much now Joe.
What happens is this:
If caught at sea, our Navy will place you on a $2 million dollar submersible lifeboat.
You will be aimed at the country that sent you.
You will not turn it round.
Those who arrived earlier are processed for asylum and if “found” to be a genuine refugee, you are told you can stay either in Papua New Guinea or the island of Nauru.
The funny thing is: When faced with these options most vote for repatriation home.
Such are the pressing needs of these people smuggling customers.Villawood is onshore Joe, and anyone attempting to support people smuggling businesses will not be processed on shore.
RESULT: No deaths at sea for over 6 months – although Nina doesn’t appear to know this.
And no successful landings on shore. None at all.
As I said we have umpteen islands dotted around the world where they could be located to or returned to whence they came. Gatecrashing should not be an option ever.
Joe – you really have no idea do you? “States that are letting these people leave illegally” – do you know anything about the situation in places like Eritrea, Sudan, Congo.
You might be interested to know that every person has the right to leave their country, this is enshrined in international law – so you can’t ‘leave illegally’. Its also not ‘illegal’ to enter another country to seek protection.
‘So-called refugees’ – as you like to put it – once included those fleeing Hitler. Europeans who were sent back to their deaths when trying to escape the death camps. This is why international human rights standards were put in place – so populist governments (with the full support of ill-informed cheer-leaders like yourself) could not simply decided to eliminate unpopular and disadvantaged groups.
So once you’ve found Congo on the map, try googling ‘MS St. Louis’ & ‘the Holocaust’.
If this is really the element of modern civilisation that troubles you, I suggest you consider moving – maybe Eritrea?
Half of these people could be terrorists how do you know who is a sleeper cell? once people of these beliefs started hacking heads off people on our streets my sympathies ended, they can sort there own mess out. I’m sick of alien cultures coming over & taking advantage of our liberal lifestyle & outlook on life to try & return us to the stone age. If these folk want regime change it should take place in their own lands not ours
That’s a pretty appalling comment Joe, even by your standards. You seem to be trying to put all asylum seekers in the same box as Islamic extremists simply so you can ignore the fact we have people dying on Europe’s doorstep on a regular basis.
The issue of terrorism is completely irrelevant. These people aren’t being given free reign to run around Europe wherever they like, they’re trying to claim asylum. Whether they pass the asylum standards or not is for the authorities to decide – terrorist sleeper cells not generally being what people deem a legitimate asylum application.
Where we have a problem is that there’s no legitimate route for these people to claim asylum until they reach EU territory. So in the absence of any legitimate means to claim asylum they risk their lives by piling aboard incredibly unsafe ships and hoping they can reach EU territory without killing themselves in the process. If they make it they can then make an asylum application (most of which get rejected anyway).
You can advocate rejecting all their asylum applications if you want – presumably you don’t care in the slightest about the plight of refugees and are happy for them all to be slaughtered so long as it doesn’t bother your own comfortable existence in Europe. I expect that kind of sentiment, but there’s no reason whatsoever why we should have ordinary people dying by the hundreds simply to try and submit an application for asylum in the first place.
Can you guarantee there will be no terrorist sleeper cells amongst these “asylum” seekers? If you welcome one of them into your family home I will take you sincerity to be genuine otherwise I don’t want them at the bottom of my garden, sharing a bus,train or plane ride with them
The point in the asylum process is that you review the application to make sure it’s appropriate to grant asylum to individuals that are deemed to merit it. That’s the point at which you weed out “terrorist sleeper cells” if that’s even necessary in the first place. If the asylum process wasn’t effective in that respect then you’d be better off complaining about the hundreds of applications we already receive every day by other means.
The only difference with people in the Mediterranean is that they risk killing themselves just to get to the point at which they submit an application. You seem to think that’s fair game on the basis that some unspecified number (or perhaps none for all we know) might be terrorists (though we have no evidence of that at all). The theory in this case presumably being that anyone from Africa should be assumed to be a terrorist by default.
These kinds of arguments are bad enough at the best of times, but when we have hundreds of people needlessly killing themselves at our borders most reasonable people – pro-immigration, anti-immigration or otherwise – would accept the system doesn’t work in its current form. We don’t need to “let people in” but we do need to do something about it. Branding them all potential terrorists simply so we can ignore the problem is a nonsense.
Tell that to Lee Rigbys’ family
@Joe
Perhaps you could explain precisely what you mean by that comment given Lee Rigby was murdered by two British citizens who were both born in the UK (not asylum seekers). I think it’s pretty clear we’ve veered off from any possibility of having a reasoned discussion about immigration policy/border control at this point (if that was ever your intention in the first place).
They were from the same ethnic background it is only people from this background that carry out these sickening acts & as I said long term sleeper cells alien to our lifestyle & social sensibilities are a clear & present danger to this country & should be kept at arms length until they can be returned to whence they came.
And there we have the truth of it – you think people from certain ethnic backgrounds shouldn’t be allowed to live in the UK and should be regarded as potential terrorists on account of their ethnicity. Nothing to do with immigration policies, evidence, border controls, asylum rules or any of the rest of it. Get rid of the Africans/Arabs because they can’t be trusted not to blow us up.
Preach that to the next wife, husband, child, aunt, uncle, mother or father that is murdered by a former asylum seeker
Thank you cor this article, which is thoughtful analysis of a very complex dynamic and a horrific human rights situation.
What has surprised me are some of the comments. I am really astounded at some of the comments here. First of all, Mr. Thorpe, for the past few years, by far the great majority of those risking their lives on the boats on the Mediterranean were Eritreans. (Almost alwaysChristian Eritreans, by the way). They certainly are not going to be “sleeper cells” of terrorists in Europe. And they have legitimate rights to protection from the international community according to international law. And yes, I have taken them into my home and know many of them and they are good and honest and hard working people who have suffered tragedy after tragedy in their young lives. Yet you seem to imply that because they are African, they are somehow not worthy of consideration or that they present some sort of threat to oir society. It simply is not the case.
I found the statement of Frank Moore praising the draconian Austrailan immigration policy (interception of “boat people” at sea and detaining them in camps in Papua New Guinea) another mystery. This policy is costing Austrailian citizens much more than accepting asylum seekers and letting them assimilate and contribute to Australia’s economy. And the xenophobia expressed is quite ironic considering that the writer’s ancestors certainly also came from somewhere else to Australia, as did most Australians. In fact, if one looks at Australian history, which immigrants were “criminals”? Not the Sri Lankans!