EU considers military action over migrant crisis

A draft statement on tackling the migration crisis leaked ahead of Thursday EU summit prioritises deploying military resources to fight traffickers and to close down migration routes.

MENA

2 min read

Paul Raymond

23 April, 2015

Twenty-four migrants died on Thursday after their boat capsized near Malta [AFP/Getty]

European Union leaders are discussing plans to step up border control operations and fight people traffickers, according to a draft statement prepared for an emergency summit on migration on Thursday.

Europe is declaring war on smugglers

The draft statement, leaked ahead of the European Council meeting on Thursday, lays out plans to block migration routes, destroy boats used by people smugglers and return economic migrants to countries of origin.

The statement was leaked to the Guardian and published in full by Statewatch.org ahead of the summit.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain would contribute the navy's flagship, HMS Bulwark, along with three helicopters and two border patrol ships to the EU effort. "As the country in Europe with the biggest defense budget we can make a real contribution," he said, but added that this would not include accepting a share of the refugees.

Rights groups have called on the EU to prioritise rescue operations following the deaths of hundreds of migrants in a string of boat disasters in recent months. The death toll among people attempting to cross the Mediterranean to Europe has soared since Italy cancelled its "Mare Nostrum" search and rescue programme in late 2014.

EU leaders meeting on Thursday are likely to endorse doubling the funding of Triton and Poseidon, two maritime border-control operations run by the border control agency FRONTEX. But unlike Mare Nostrum, neither of the operations focuses on search and rescue.

"We will take action now. Europe is declaring war on smugglers," said the EU's top official, Dimitris Avramopoulos, who was in Malta to attend the funeral of 24 migrants who perished at sea.

Rights groups have criticised what the EU's focus on border control, saying search and rescue should be a priority.

"Instead of 'FRONTEX plus' we really need to see 'Mare Nostrum plus'," Judith Sunderland, Human Rights Watch's Deputy Europe and Central Asia Director, told al-Araby al-Jadeed.

The draft statement also suggested setting up a "first voluntary pilot project on resettlement, offering at least 5,000 places to persons qualifying for protection."

That would amount to about half of the number of migrants who arrived in the last week, and a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands likely to arrive this year. While some are economic migrants, many are asylum seekers escaping war and persecution in the Middle East and Africa.

"These are of course people on these boats trying to get to Europe to improve their lives economically, but fully half of those who arrived in 2014 were from Syria and Eritrea," said Sunderland.