At their meeting in Tallinn on Thursday 6 July, EU home affairs ministers gave their backing to the proposed code of conduct which Italy, jointly with the Commission, will draft for NGOs operating in the Mediterranean Sea to save migrants. They also decided to support the measures to help Italy deal with the arrivals of migrants from Libya presented by the Commission on 4 July (see EUROPE 11822). The member states backed the idea of a new voluntary resettlement plan for refugees arriving from Libya. This could involve over 37,000 people, according to the European Commission’s planned budget.
Estonian minister Andres Anvelt said the meeting had demonstrated the solidarity of the member states with Italy. He also said that there was very clear commitment on the part of ministers to add to the trust fund for Africa, although no details of figures were given at the end of the meeting.
Ministers were asked on Thursday morning to offer emergency support to Italy which sounded the alarm last week, telling its European partners that it could no longer cope with the migration flows.
Ministers, therefore, focused principally on what they could do in the short term. First of all, Italy distributed an initial draft of the code of conduct which it will draw up with the European Commission. According to the draft, which EUROPE has seen, Rome intends to call on NGOs to comply with very clear instructions in rescue operations. The NGOs, which Rome feels are encouraging the people smugglers, will be banned from entering Libyan territorial waters. Neither will they be allowed to make telephone contact or send any light signals to migrant vessels so as not to encourage any to put to sea, the code of conduct stipulates. The NGOs will also have to accept police officers on board their boats to conduct investigations into the smuggling networks.
Further, NGOs must not obstruct rescue operations carried out at sea by the Libyan coastguards who take the migrants rescued back to Libya.
They will also be required to state how they are funded.
Rome also says in the text, that, if the NGOs fail to comply with these instructions or to sign the code of conduct, they will not be allowed access to Italian ports and will not be allowed to “land” rescued migrants.
While most member states supported the plan, Italy was unable to persuade them to open their ports to the NGO boats, a European source revealed. An initial indication that this would be so was sent in Paris on Sunday 2 July by the French and German home affairs ministers, Gérard Collomb and Thomas de Maizière. A source said that, on Thursday morning, Italian minister Marco Minniti tried hard to put this request indirectly back on the table.
He argued for a change in the mandate of the European sea search and rescue mission Triton, which took over from the Italian Mare Nostrum and follows rules for disembarking migrants, but “no one spoke about this issue, either for or against”.
The Commission gave its backing to the code of conduct, though the European commissioner responsible for this matter, Dimitris Avramopoulos, stated at the closing press conference that the code of conduct should not be seen “as criticism” of the work being done by the NGO but as a way of easing “concerns”.
Ministers came out in favour of the measures presented by the Commission on Tuesday, which included the resettlement of refugees currently in Libya and in other African countries. There was no commitment on numbers but the member states, as a whole, showed willingness to take part on these projects. Even countries like Poland said they were open to resettlement “if it’s a voluntary scheme”, a European source said.
A source in the Commission said that the scheme had been allocated funding of close to €370 million and would see member states receive €10,000 per person resettled. The commitments from the member states are expected before the end of September, the source said.
On Thursday morning, ministers also backed measures to support the weak Libyan coastguard which they want to see built up to be able to carry out rescue operations at sea and return migrants to Libyan shores. They also insisted on the return of irregular migrants to their country of origin – at least those who have no claim to asylum. The Estonian minister said that there had been agreement to speed up efforts on this issue and to make a better link at European level between asylum policy and decisions on returns.
No path was opened up to legal migration, with ministers confirming that all economic migrants should be swiftly returned to their countries of origin or transit. The EU again laid emphasis on the signature of readmission agreements with the countries of departure. Several meetings will take place on the action plan next week. The ambassadors to the EU will hold a discussion on it on Wednesday.
Bilateral discussions to take forwards Dublin reform. Alongside the immediate measures, ministers also discussed how to continue their discussions on the reform of the Dublin regulation on the handling by member states of asylum requests. The matter is currently in deadlock, notably because some measures are to be compulsory.
According to a source, Thursday morning’s very short discussion focused essentially on short-term measures for Italy. The Estonian Presidency said that it wanted to continue discussions, building on what had been done by the Maltese Presidency and had no intention of sidelining Dublin regulation discussions. It wants to make progress on the whole asylum package, all strands of which are interlinked. The asylum package comprises seven texts, for example on the EASO and on the European resettlement programme.
The Presidency will conduct bilateral discussions on the Dublin regulation this summer, a Presidency source indicated, with the intention of focusing somewhat more substantially on the countries for which this is particularly important, such as Greece and Italy and, indeed, the countries of Eastern Europe, which oppose any compulsory solidarity measures. It will take stock of its talks after the summer break and is likely to firm up its views in October on how to move forward and find further agreements on the chapters of the reform, Anvelt said. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)