Welcome all is impossible and illogical, persecute/prosecute who flees from countries at war too. But there is some solution, for Europe and for Africa
On the scale of countless crises with which Europe is having to deal with, that of immigration across the Mediterranean is now among the most serious for its proportions in terms of people and moral values involved.
If we want to understand the real dimensions, we cannot overlook some data. The first is certainly that of consistency unprecedented migration: so great that not only Italy, but the whole of Europe has never seen anything like this in its recent history. Insofar as individual states can well believe to intervene by enacting harsh and repressive laws, or think of using weapons and soldiers to lock down the maritime border, the number of people willing to risk dying to get on our continent will not decrease. It understandable by looking at a map of the world: around Europe the scenarios of crisis have multiplied, wars, civil wars, famine – a change often due just to its clumsy diplomacy, or the strategic miscalculations of the individual European states. Mali and Algeria, the Sahel, Libya, Darfur and the Horn of Africa; Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan: leave behind these hells is worth any penalty and any expenses.
The collapse of many states and their administrative apparatus subsequent to these crises facilitates human traffickers: the journey across the Sahara or the routes of the Middle East and boarding from the Southern Mediterranean coasts occur in almost total absence of controls; Moreover, the various groups that are disputing the dominion over the territories of passage, are using migrants as juicy and easy source of income.
For example, to deal with the surveillance of 600 km of the coast of Libyan Tripolitania – an area fell under the control of the rebel forces to the Western-backed government, which is based in the other part of the country – there are only two picket ships stationed in the port of Misurata, half devastated by war. Four other ships are in the hands of Italy that was supposed to re-equip them, thanks to an agreement with the Libyan government, but has not yet returned them because there is no certainty of the actual use of them.
Just the collapse of Libya after the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi means that the country has become the ideal outlet for illegal trafficking of all kinds, and that migration flows will be concentrated, focusing on the route to Lampedusa rather than those from Morocco or Algeria to Southern Spain or from Turkey to the Greek islands.
The records of landings in Italy last year (150 000 refugees and migrants rescued according to UNHCR) is preparing to be beat in 2015: the UN High Commissioner for Refugees already certifies more than 30 000 arrivals in Italy and Greece in mid-April – a figure expected to grow with the stabilization of the weather: Libyan sources gathered by Le Monde speak of 300-700 men departing daily in good weather.
The EU states have so far addressed the issue as a seasonal phenomenon. The Mare Nostrum operation costed 9 million per month to Rome, and according to Human Rights Watch has helped a total of 100 thousand people. However, given the Italian unavailability to lonely confront a phenomenon that affects the whole continent and the belief that a less “generous” mission could discourage migrants, the EU members have agreed on a surrogate.
Under the name of Triton, at a cost of 3-5 million per month shared by the 28 State members, the European operation in force from November is limited to patrolling, and not to the search and rescue as before. Its ineffectiveness, recognized in February also by the Commissioner of the Council of Europe for Human Rights, Nils Miuznieks, is sadly proven by the number of deaths in recent months, including the massacre of Sunday which is only the most conspicuous episode.
What to do then? Considering that our border is the sea and that we cannot build on a wall as the United States did with their Mexican border, the way in which the Europeans are confronting with this epochal phenomenon should change through a new accountability, a Review of the means of intervention and a strategic plan for the medium and long term. The European regulation of Dublin, until now in force, which forces migrants to ask for asylum in the country where they land: in this way the burden of providing for the needs of those rescued always falls on the same Mediterranean countries, in the proportion of 70% on total refugee in EU. The actual destination of migrants is however in most cases, Germany, Great Britain, Sweden or Norway: States from which it is right to expect greater involvement.
Moreover, the EU needs to revise its attitude towards North Africa. The stabilization of the whole area should be a priority on which to have the courage to invest resources, as well as a cooperation aimed to political and civil development that goes beyond the mere recognition of the elections (which in itself do not certify the existence of a Democratic state) widening onto the support of those who by their activities make pluralism and participation a widespread practice. Otherwise, it would be difficult to get a collaboration at the same time effective and humanitarian from states such as Egypt, crossed by many streams of passage, or Libya, consecrated departure pier.
A mutual collaboration that is necessary to turn into practice with pragmatism and preparation: the political impossibility of acceptance in all cases and for everybody, and the illogic of the repressive option of closure, all show the failure of ideological or extemporaneous approaches adopted so far.
Without the cooperation of Libya, currently a ghost-state, nobody goes but little far. The cooperation with her neighbour countries is needed to monitor the routes taken by migrants to the sea and to dismantle the networks of human traffickers who use them; the destruction of the means of transport used by criminals, just as with the anti-piracy operation “Atalanta”, off Somalia, it might be a good start.
The closure of borders in Europe causes an increase in illegal immigration: would be therefore better to extend the opportunity to seek asylum in the countries of North Africa, and directly from the North African countries to all European countries – maybe harmonizing the currently unbalanced policies if the individual EU states regarding refugee status and political asylum. The weight of asylum claimed on Greece, Malta and Italy should be financially and administratively supported by all European capitals.
Finally, the rules of engagement of Triton should at least be brought back to those of Mare Nostrum, waiting to build a greater integration with the forces of rescue and surveillance of North Africa – so that they are not simple assistance at sea, but also allow a better contrast to the traffic of human beings. To this end, Europe should adopt the common immigration policy that until now the states, jealous of their own national prerogatives, refused to give in Brussels. In the absence of such a policy, the EU will only continue to draw up lists of good intentions.
On the north shore of the Mediterranean immigration continues to be successfully used by populist and euro-phobic parties just as evidence of the ineffectiveness and futility of the European Union. On the south bank, not only organized crime uses it as a source of profit and reservoir of recruitment, but also terrorism begins to see the destabilizing potential of the phenomenon.
It is not the first time that the hesitation and the cynicism of Europeans exacerbate problems common to all countries of the continent, on which they preferred to look away; in this case, it is difficult to predict an evolution even worse than the already tragic current situation, in the absence of appropriate solutions.
By Riccardo Pennisi / Limes on line
Translation by George de Surmont