*** modified Wednesday 19 May 10 am ***
On Tuesday 18 May, MEPs held a lengthy debate on migrant rescue operations at sea and on the external dimension of European migration policy and called on the EU Council to make progress on the Pact on Migration and Asylum and to stop its ‘hypocrisy’ on sea rescues, as denounced by some MEPs.
The discussion was structured around a morning debate on rescue at sea and an afternoon debate on the protection of human rights in the EU’s external migration policy, which is the subject of a report by Dutch MEP Tineke Strik (Greens/EFA).
It also took place the day after new arrivals of migrants in Spain, in Ceuta, which led the Spanish government to deploy the army and to demand that Morocco prevent departures to Spain.
Of the 6,000 people who arrived from Morocco in the space of a few hours, the Spanish government had already sent 2,700 back to Morocco by Tuesday afternoon.
The European Commissioner for Migration, Ylva Johansson, also urged the Moroccan government to prevent these departures. The foreign ministers of the EU Member States, meeting on the same day, and the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, also expressed their support for Madrid.
Augusto Santos Silva, the Portuguese Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, recalled on Tuesday morning that 700 people had already lost their lives in the Mediterranean since the beginning of the year, and that “the safety of people takes precedence over the management of borders”, with all those involved having to “ comply with the rules of rescue at sea”, which require that the nearest vessel must go to the rescue of a vessel in distress.
To save lives, there is “a need for the Pact on Migration and Asylum”, the commissioner said, again citing the example of the recent arrivals of migrants in Lampedusa, even if, at this stage, only Ireland has responded to the Commission’s call to help Italy.
In addition to regulations for controlling external borders, the new Pact provides for a special mechanism for rescue and relief operations at sea with compulsory aid plans to be activated as soon as landings occur. Relocations of migrants will be compulsory in such situations.
The commissioner also recalled that she intends to launch an action plan against smugglers, who currently charge “on average 3,000 euros” for a crossing. This action will also involve enhanced dialogue with North African countries and partnerships that may include joint surveys and awareness-raising campaigns. Legal opportunities will also have to be created, she added.
MEPs believe that the EU Council must make progress on the European asylum pact to put an end to the smugglers’ “cynical” model, said Jeroen Lenaers for the EPP. But other MEPs asked the same Member States to stop being “hypocritical” and to say whether they “really want to save lives”, as Erik Marquardt (Greens/EFA, Germany) asked. If this is the priority of the Member States and European leaders, then it must be “translated into policy” at European level.
Impact assessments of migration agreements
Tineke Strik, for her part, insisted on the need for control and monitoring of the informal agreements that the EU makes with third countries, agreements to manage migration, “but which are not subject to any control”, like the EU/Turkey declaration of 2016, which migrants, such as those sent back to Turkey, cannot challenge in any court.
For the MEP, these informal agreements, which are multiplying, do not offer sufficient guarantees of respect for fundamental rights, “no clear criteria”. For example, she proposes that humanitarian impact assessments be carried out before entering into informal cooperation agreements and that a monitoring system be put in place to intervene if things go wrong.
Her report will be put to a vote on Wednesday 19 May. Link to the report: https://bit.ly/3eZ0Gn0 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)