The Commission is monitoring the situation of the Sea Watch 3 vessel very closely, flying the Dutch flag, which has been sailing between Italy and the Netherlands for several days, but has not, at this stage, been asked to intervene and coordinate operations, Natasha Bertaud, spokesperson for the Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, announced on 24 June.
On June 12, the Sea-Watch 3 vessel rescued 53 migrants travelling in an inflatable boat from the Libyan coast. The commander of Sea-Watch 3, which flies the Dutch flag, but is chartered by a German NGO, refused to take them back to Libya and headed for the Italian coast.
Since then, the Italian Minister of the Interior, Matteo Salvini, has authorised the landing in Lampedusa of only about 10 people considered as vulnerable, including pregnant women, and has requested, for the other 42 people still on board, that the other Member States, and especially the Netherlands, intervene. "I have written personally to my Dutch colleague: I am in incredulous, as they are disinterested in a ship that flies their flag (...) and has been floating in the open sea for 11 days now", wrote Matteo Salvini in a June 23 statement, according to AFP.
On 13 June, the permanent representatives of the Twenty-Eight had discussed the modalities of temporary regimes for disembarkation of migrants and the first guidelines prepared on this subject by the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU. Work is to continue under the Finnish Presidency (see EUROPE 12274/11). (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)