Brussels, 23/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Saturday 21 March, the GUE/NGL at the European Parliament criticised the proposals introduced by Italy at the European Council on the possibility of outsourcing sea rescue operations in the Mediterranean to countries that neighbour Libya.
According to the Italian proposals, Egypt and Tunisia would be allowed to carry out sea patrols and return migrants to their shores, at the request of Italy and in exchange for European financial support.
The European radical left MEPs have called for these discussions to halt and for the EU28 to focus more on legal channels for asylum seekers entering the EU legally. The GUE/NGL believes that this Italian proposal would consist of non-EU naval vessels being used and the refoulement of asylum seekers.
The proposal seeks to encourage more cooperation with Libya's neighbouring countries in an effort to control flows of migration. It is part of an Italian working document that was subject to discussions earlier last March between the Italian Home Secretary Angelino Alfano and some of his counterparts (French, Spanish and German). The proposal, however, was never part of any formal discussions.
On Monday 23 March, the European Commission confirmed that it had received the Italian working document and considered that it provided a contribution to the discussions and had an appropriate place in the framework for preparing the future Migration Agenda the Commission would be presenting in the middle of next May. The Commission also welcomed the other Italian proposal of setting up migrant reception centres in countries of origin and transit but said that these initiatives would require involvement from the member states at a financial level. The GUE/NGL said that maintaining refugees in third countries was not an acceptable response and according to Cornelia Ernst (Germany), this would be attempting to remedy the humanitarian catastrophe of people dying at sea by proposing to “lock people into Libya, Tunisia and Egypt, risking another humanitarian catastrophe in those countries”. (Solenn Paulic)