Brussels, 04/12/2013 (Agence Europe) - Let's provide ourselves with the means to achieve our goals. Two months after the Lampedusa tragedy in which 360 migrants from Libya died and which unleashed a cascade of sympathetic declarations from European leaders, the European commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, called, on Wednesday 4 December, on EU countries follow up their declarations with definite action, particularly by putting money on the table. She presented them with five avenues for discussion - border surveillance, assistance to the countries of the South, tackling trafficking, regional protection/refugee resettlement and action with third and transit countries - and 38 proposed initiatives in total.
Shortly after the Lampedusa tragedy, the Swedish commissioner and the member states meeting in Luxembourg on 8 October more or less reached agreement on the organisation of an extensive security and rescue operation in the Mediterranean between Cyprus and Spain. A task force, charged with identifying all other appropriate measures to avoid similar tragedies, was also set up.
It is the work of this task force that the commissioner presented on Wednesday. Malmström indicated that Frontex, which will coordinate a future network of European patrol boats and focus on key migratory routes, will need approximately another €14 million to carry this operation out effectively.
If organised crime and human trafficking networks are to be tackled, Europol activities may have to be stepped up but the European police agency believes that they will need around another €400,000 a year, particularly if it is to work directly with third and transit countries to step up the fight against the traffickers.
The commissioner also proposed to the member states that they pool the resources that had already been earmarked. Thus, in order to help countries in southern Europe which have to deal directly with migrants arriving on their shores and which have often been unable to provide adequate care for them, the commissioner proposed setting aside €50 million for border surveillance operations by Frontex (€30 million) and for taking care of migrants in terms of reception and registration procedures (€20 million).
Other proposals include: assistance with refugee resettlement, particularly the Syrian refugees stuck in countries neighbouring the conflict. The commissioner deplored the fact that only 12 member states have so far shown any solidarity and proposed €6000 in aid per refugee resettled in European territory. This would be aid from the funds already earmarked for 2014-2020. The Swedish commissioner has often urged member states to do more in the resettlement field. In 2012, according to the figures published on Wednesday, 4,930 people had been resettled in the EU (by the Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Sweden, Portugal, Finland, Lithuania and the Netherlands). Over the same year, the US took in 50,000.
Other areas for reflection put to member states included the possibility of setting up “humanitarian corridors”, that is, providing humanitarian visas to people directly in danger, at the consulates of the member states in the third country in question. This should help prevent people in danger from taking to the sea and other dangerous routes in order to get to Europe.
In addition to this kind of action, it will also be necessary, especially so in the view of the member states, to step up efforts with third countries and work closely with them so that they prevent migrants coming to Europe or take them back if they are found to be illegally residing in the EU. This is the logic underpinning the mobility partnership agreements, including the one with Azerbaijan, which became official on Thursday 5 December. A partnership with Tunisia was negotiated but it will not be signed as planned on 5 December (see other article). Five agreements of this kind are already in place with Morocco, Cape-Verde, Georgia, Armenia and Moldova.
These initiatives will be examined on Thursday 5 December by EU ministers for home affairs, who will be the first to look at them. The commissioner considers that not all of these proposals will be new, given that they reflect the task force's discussions at which all member states participated. The European Council this December, notwithstanding any surprises, is also expected to develop a position on these measures.
These proposals are far from being radical and are very much part of the continuity of the work undertaken since the first Lampedusa tragedies in spring 2011. At the time, the Commission also looked at strengthening the EU's borders by way of increased surveillance and which has, notably, started to happen recently with the launch of the Eurosur system, as well as the mobility partnerships. The idea was to compensate third countries by making visas easier to obtain, in exchange for increased surveillance of their coastlines and the boats containing migrants that could possibly leave from them.
The strategy advocated is not to the liking of the Greens/EFA at the European Parliament, which declared in a press release that the Commission had not learned any lessons from the 3 October tragedy. The Greens consider that the Commission has simply focused on protecting the EU's borders rather than rescuing migrants at sea. The Greens said that this illustrated a high degree of cynicism. (SP/transl.fl)