6/7/2007
Migrant deaths at sea: MEPs reiterate Member States' responsibilities

Up to 120,000 irregular migrants cross the Mediterranean each year and at least 10,000 have died trying to reach Europe's southern shores over the last decade, estimates the International Centre on Migration Policy Development. The need for more co-operation among Member States on illegal immigration, their responsibility for rescue operations, and the role of the Frontex border security agency were reiterated at a public hearing held by Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee this week.

All Member States must respect their international legal obligations regarding safety and rescue at sea and the protection of human lives, regardless of status or country of origin, said Committee chairman Jean-Marie Cavada (ALDE, FR). However, this responsibility cannot be shouldered solely by those few countries whose geographic position puts them in the front line - it belongs to all EU states, which share the same external frontiers. He also regretted that Frontex representatives had declined an invitation to the hearing.
 
Sicilian strait: 210 people drowned or missing in June
 
In June, a total of 210 people were reported dead or missing at sea in the Strait of Sicily alone, said Paolo Artini, of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Rome.  Due to gaps in the legal framework governing rescue at sea, and to insufficient co-operation among states who often hold different views, UNHCR has had to assume some responsibility by default. "During 2007, some 5,200 persons have arrived irregularly by sea in Italy - a 30% decrease as compared to the same period last year. In Malta, some 700 persons arrived this year, which is four times the figure during the same period last year", he said.
 
Lost between Libya and Malta
 
Furthermore, "at the beginning of June, UNHCR was particularly concerned about the whereabouts of at least 53 people, mostly of Eritrean origin, who after having been photographed by a reconnaissance plane on 21 May, had gone missing between Libya and Malta. Their fate is still unknown", Artini reported. The tragedy occurred in Libyan waters and not Maltese ones, as most media reported, replied Simon Busuttil (EPP-ED, MT).  In any case, concluded Malta's permanent representative to the EU Richard Cachia Caruana, the key need is to reach an international consensus on where to locate immigrants once they have been rescued at sea, and on who will be responsible for them.
 
Shared responsibility
 
During the debate, invited members of the permanent representations of Cyprus, Spain and Greece to the EU all called for a "system of shared responsibility" to be set up between all EU countries in order to determine where rescued migrants should be disembarked, before the problem actually occurs.
 
Close legal loopholes
 
MEPs demanded greater involvement of Council, but also saw the need to be more specific in their own requests, in order to change legislation and close legal loopholes. Several areas of conflict that add legal precarity to the physical dangers faced by migrants at sea were cited by Christopher Hein, Director of the Italian Council for Refugees: the EU's right to protect its external borders, the difficulty of differentiating between asylum seekers and illegal economic immigrants, complying with the "non-refoulement" principle while coping with the repatriation of massive arrivals and the lack of progress in managing the legal entry of protected people into the Union.  
 
Tackle economic roots
 
"Less than 1% of the illegal immigrants arriving to Spain request asylum, most are economic migrants", said Eugenio Burgos Nieto of the Spanish permanent representation. He argued that the problem has to be tackled at its root, by helping the economic development of countries of origin and by stepping up co-operation, including the creation of new joint patrols of the coasts of the countries of origin and transit. 
 
Head of Morocco's EU Mission Menouar agreed that the number of people attempting to leave Morocco and enter the EU illegally had decreased by 60% in 2006, thanks to closer co-operation with Spain and to agreements to repatriate illegal immigrants transiting through Morocco from countries of origin like Senegal, Mauritania, Ghana or Nigeria.