Brussels, 24/04/2015 (Agence Europe) - The results of the extraordinary European Council on the migration crisis in the Mediterranean (see EUROPE 11301) on Thursday 23 April have left NGOs, the European Parliament and the spokespersons of various EU governments with extremely mixed feelings, such as MEP Guy Verhofstadt (ALDE, Belgium), who described these results as “very disappointing”.
At their emergency meeting, the heads of state or government decided to triple the resources earmarked for Operation Triton every month, as well as those for the more modest operation, Poseidon (off the coast of Greece), for the years 2015 and 2016. This will be reflected in an envelope of €9 million a month for Triton. Most of the member states also pledged extra resources in terms of vessels, aircraft or personnel.
With the promised arrival of this new capacity, it will be the job of the agency Frontex and the Italian authorities over the next few days to define the new operational plan of Triton, the search and rescue zone of which is one of the sensitive issues. But as far as everything else is concerned, and particularly the answer to taking charge of migrants arriving on European shores and sharing them out between the member states, the European Council remained cautious, despite expressing its willingness to take action, but not tying itself down to any binding objectives. Nor did the member states wish to commit to any precise figures regarding the number of Syrians they will be prepared to resettle.
“Once again, we have reached the lowest common denominator. Everybody knew that tripling the budget for Triton will not prevent any further disasters if nothing is done about the causes of migration”, said Verhofstadt. Speaking less pessimistically, the leader of the Social Democrat group at the European Parliament, Italy's Gianni Pittella, saw a few “positive” steps in this extraordinary summit. Following the loss of just over 1,000 lives in the space of a week, the European leaders have “finally taken concrete steps”. However, he added, it still remains to be seen whether the member states will move from words to action and whether they will implement a genuine European immigration policy. The Italian did not hide his group's disappointment at the ongoing selfishness of the member states when it comes to sharing out the burden of migrants and asylum seekers. “The Dublin system is anachronistic and inefficient”, Pittella stressed. “It needs to be revised and adapted to the current dramatic situation”, he said.
A further feeling of disappointment regarding the discussions of the summit was expressed on Friday morning by the spokesperson to the French government, Stéphane Le Foll. “This is a long way off the mark, given the stakes”, he said over the French airwaves, observing that everything remains to be done as regards Libya, smugglers and, in general, on the “stabilisation of the entire region”.
Paradoxically, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (HCR) said that the plan to triple the resources of the maritime border surveillance mission Triton was “an important step towards collective European action” in the crisis of migrants in the Mediterranean, Reuters reported. In a press release, however, the HCR calls on the Europeans to focus on rescue at sea and the possibility for refugees to obtain protection in Europe through legal channels. “The ultimate test will be to see whether we observe a reduction in deaths, effective access to protection in Europe without having to cross the Mediterranean and an effective European Community asylum system which is genuinely up to its commitments of solidarity and responsibility-sharing”.
The NGOs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International also sent out conflicting messages, mainly stressing the desire of the Twenty-Eight to “save face”, but having failed to make a real commitment to carry out patrols close to the shores of Libya in order to save lives. (Solenn Paulic)