The European Commission today proposed ways to increase solidarity and mutual support in order to prevent migrants’ death in the Mediterranean, in a follow-up to the tragedy in Lampedusa, one of the many Europe has witnessed in recent years, which prompted an unprecedented call for action by EU leaders and citizens.
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Actions proposed are the result of the work carried out by the Commission chaired Task-Force for the Mediterranean, with the aim to bolster EU’s policies and tools in the short to medium term.
The Task-Force identified concrete actions in five main areas:
Border surveillance to help saving lives
Europe must be able to provide assistance to those in need by stepping up its border control operations and enhance its capacity to detect boats in the Mediterranean.
A new strategy to achieve this objective has been presented by Frontex to the Task Force. It aims at coordinating patrolling in the area under a common and coordinated platform – from Cyprus to Spain, focusing on the key migratory routes. The efforts in national borders surveillance will be fully coordinated with the operations undertaken by Frontex and altogether will constitute a European Patrols’ Network. This European Patrols Network should focus on the key migratory routes from Cyprus to Spain and should enhance early detection and intervention, thereby saving life of migrants in distress at sea. According to Frontex estimations, the implementation of this new strategy would require additional financial resources amounting to around 14 million euro per year.
The newly operational European Border Surveillance System (EUROSUR) is part of these efforts. By providing with a better picture of what is happening at sea, it will strengthen the information exchange and cooperation within and between Member States’ authorities, as well as with Frontex. Information on incidents and patrols will be shared immediately by the newly established National Coordination Centres and Frontex.
Shipmasters and merchant vessels should be reassured once and for all that helping migrants in distress will not lead to sanctions of any kind and that fast and safe disembarkation points will be available. It has to be clear that, provided they are acting in good faith, they would not face any negative legal consequences for providing such assistance.
2) Assistance and solidarity
While Member States have the responsibility to have efficient asylum, migration and integration systems in place, those dealing with high migratory pressure need particular support. New tools should be available.
Regarding financial support, overall the Commission is setting aside funding (including emergency funding) of up to 50m. In support of Italy 30m have been set aside, including for border surveillance operations under the Frontex mandate. For other Member States 20m have been allocated in order to improve, between others, reception capacity, processing capacity, screening and registration capacity.
Key new tools have been developed such as the “supported processing” of asylum application, where Member State officials will be deployed to frontline countries in order to help processing asylum applications in an efficient and effective manner. The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) will be at the core of this effort and a key player in order to channel the solidarity of Member States to countries which are under significant pressure.
3) Fight against trafficking, smuggling and organised crime
Practical cooperation and exchange of information must be reinforced, including with third countries.
Initiatives include: – giving Europol a stronger role and resources to coordinate other EU agencies working in the field of smuggling of human beings and fight against organised crime; – reviewing of the existing EU law on human smuggling, the so-called ‘facilitators package’ by reconciling effective fight against smuggling with the need to avoid criminalising humanitarian assistance; – further supporting capacity-building programmes to address smuggling and trafficking in human beings in North Africa, key countries of origin and countries of first asylum (also through trainings for law enforcement and the judiciary).
Europol estimations indicate that in order to step up actions to fight organized crime and smuggling additional resources of up to 400.000 euro per year will be needed.
4) Regional protection, resettlement and legal ways to access Europe
Resettlement is an area where Member States could do more to ensure that those in need of protection arrive safely to the EU. In 2012, 4.930 persons were resettled to the Union by twelve Member States (Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, Lithuania, Netherlands, Portugal, Finland, Sweden and United Kingdom). The US in the same year resettled over 50.000 persons.
If all Member States would get involved into resettlement exercises and make available a proportionate number of places, the EU would be able to resettle thousands people more from refugee camps. In order to stimulate resettling, future EU funding for 2014/2020 will be available to support additional efforts and commitments in this field. The European Commission intends to make available a lump sum up to 6.000 euro per resettled refugee.
The Commission is ready to explore possibilities for protected entries in the EU, which could allow non-EU nationals to access the asylum procedure from outside the EU, without embarking on difficult journeys to reach Europe. This will be further refined in the coming months, notably in the context of the discussion on the future of Home Affairs policies.
To enhance protection capacities in the regions from which many refugees originate, existing Regional Protection Programmes should be reinforced and expanded. In particular, a stronger Regional Protection Programme for Northern Africa (Libya, Tunisia and Egypt) will need to be compounded by the new Regional Protection and Development Programme for Syria. New RPPs should cover in the future other key countries of the Sahel region.
The EU and Member States should seek to open new legal channels to access Europe: the Seasonal Workers Directive should be fully implemented; the Commission hopes that the co-legislators can soon agree on its proposal for a Directive making it easier and more attractive for non-EU national students, researchers and other groups to enter and stay in the EU temporarily.
5) Actions in cooperation with third countries
The European Commission has just concluded the negotiations for the Mobility Partnership agreements with Tunisia and Azerbaijan. These agreements will soon officially add to the five already in place with Cape Verde, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Morocco. Mobility Partnerships allow to identify more channels for regular migration and to help those countries developing their capacities to offer protection in the region and to respect human rights in their territory. At the same time they allow to increase cooperation in fighting smugglers and traffickers who exploit migrants.
Diplomatic action will be targeted at achieving further results in our mobility dialogues with third countries. For instance, new Dialogues on migration, mobility and security should be launched with additional Southern Mediterranean countries, notably with Egypt, Libya, Algeria and Lebanon.
Other diplomatic and political initiatives should aim to ensure cooperation of countries of transit and of origin in order to dismantle trafficking networks, combat smuggling, and on readmission of irregular migrants.
Information campaigns could help raising awareness about the risks of irregular channels of migration and the threats posed by smugglers and traffickers, as well as informing about channels available for legal migration.
The work of the task-force
At the October JHA Council Member States agreed to set up a task force led by the Commission (DG Home Affairs). Its establishment was welcomed at the October European Council.
The Task Force met on the 24 of October and 20 of November. All Member States took part to those meetings together with Frontex and other EU Agencies (European Asylum Support Office, Europol, Fundamental Rights Agency, European Maritime Safety Agency), as well as the European External Action Service.
Other entities have been consulted by the Task Force, including the Associated Countries, UNHCR, IOM, ICMPD, the Migration Policy Centre, the International Maritime Organisation, UNODC, and Interpol.
What is next?
The Commission will report to the Justice and Home Affairs Ministers on 5-6 December, for further discussion and endorsement at the December European Council.
Longer term initiatives will also be part of the reflections in the context of the Post Stockholm Programme that will look at challenges and priorities for Home Affairs’ policies in coming years.
Further information:
Communication on the work of the Task Force of the Mediterranean
