Brussels, 19/02/2015 (Agence Europe) - European Migration and Home Affairs Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos announced on Thursday 19 February that the Triton border surveillance operation coordinated by the Frontex agency, would be extended until the end of this year with additional funding of €18,250,000 from the internal security fund.
Italy will also receive additional funding of €13.7 million to help it cope with the influx of migrants and an envelope of €500,000 in a few days' time for the medical aid provided on rescue vessels.
Over the last few days, Italian coastguards have rescued thousands more migrants and the Commission said on Thursday that it was also ready to further increase the resources of the Triton operation if Rome requested it. For the time being, however, Triton's resources would remain the same. Italy will be the largest beneficiary of European migration funding for the 2014-2020 period, with more than €520 million being made available to it, the Commission pointed out.
The Triton operation, launched on 1 November last year to replace the Italian naval rescue operation at sea Mare Nostrum, has so far saved almost 19,000 people. Currently 21 member states are involved, making ships, helicopters and human resources available to Frontex. The budget for the operation, however, remains small, around €2.9 million per month, compared with three times that for Mare Nostrum, provided by the Italian government. The announcement by Avramopoulos, then, will not be game-changing, as the Triton budget will remain unchanged.
This is what the NGO Amnesty International regretted shortly after the commissioner's announcement. The statement by Commissioner Avramopoulos “contains the right analysis of the overall situation, but offers no concrete solutions to protecting and saving lives”. “We agree that a European solution to the search and rescue crisis is urgently needed. Extending operation Triton without increasing its assets and operational area changes absolutely nothing”, the NGO says in a press release. Neither has the Commission announced any change to the role of Triton, which remains essentially to watch over the EU's borders and not to offer rescue at sea, even though it is called on to fulfil this role.
Avramopoulos said on Thursday the causes of migration had to be looked at and the reasons understood as to why people wanted to flee. He also called for solidarity among member states in accepting war refugees and he wants to discuss once again with them the idea of a European programme for the resettlement of refugees in the member states.
Even though it has the support of the European Parliament, such a programme has so far not been attractive to the member states which have preferred to go their own ways. The commissioner, nevertheless, said he is working on a common framework with the member states and that legal ways of reaching the EU should be increased (he said in September that he hoped visas could be granted directly from embassies or consulates to those in need of protection, thereby sparing them journeys fraught with danger). Cooperation with the countries of origin and transit, a task belonging to EU High Representative Federica Mogherini, must also be improved.
All these initiatives will be followed up at the Home Affairs Council on 12 March. Between now and then, the Commission will hold an initial policy debate on its European Agenda on Migration. This debate will address the sharing and use of resources though it is not certain that anything new will result. The future agenda will have to deal, inter alia, with the issue of people traffickers and smugglers. Avramopoulos said that all means would have to be used and he acknowledged on Thursday that, hitherto, European migration policy has failed. He gave assurances, however, that he now had the support of all the member states to conduct a genuine common migration policy. He promised, too, that Europe would not allow itself to be intimidated by threats from Islamic State, after the terrorist organisation recently threatened to send 500,000 migrants to the EU were Europe to intervene in Libya. (Solenn Paulic)