EU plans to impose rules on NGO migrant rescue vessels
BRUSSELS – European Union interior ministers on Friday weighed proposals to ease tensions between France and Italy over migrants arriving on their shores without permission, including a possible crackdown on ships run by charitable organizations carrying out search and rescue work in the Mediterranean Sea.
In recent weeks, several hundred people hoping to enter Europe have been stranded at sea on aid ships as countries bicker over whether and where they should be allowed to disembark.
It comes in a year in which more than 90,000 migrants have so far arrived in Europe via the Mediterranean, mostly from Libya and Tunisia, an increase of almost 50% on the same period. in 2021. Nearly 2,000 people are dead or missing at sea.
A diplomatic row erupted earlier this month when Italy maneuvered France into accepting a humanitarian rescue ship, the Ocean Viking, with 234 migrants on board. The right-wing government in Rome had refused to grant him access to a port for weeks.
France retaliated by suspending its participation in an EU solidarity pact to accept around 3,000 people, in a process known as “relocation”, who had arrived in Italy this year, and sent agents to strengthen its southern border crossings and prevent migrants from entering.
“If Italy does not take the boats, does not accept the law of the sea and the nearest safe port, there is no reason for the countries that are doing the relocation, France and Germany , are the same countries that accept boats or migrants directly from Africa or Asia,” said French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin.
The executive branch of the EU, the European Commission, has presented an action plan. Part of this plan involves the idea of imposing stricter rules on vessels carrying out search and rescue work. Neither the EU nor any of its member countries actively search for migrants at sea unless they receive an emergency call.
The plan calls on the EU to put its full weight behind ‘discussions within the International Maritime Organization (IMO) on the need for a specific framework and guidelines for ships focusing particularly on research activities and rescue, especially given the changing context.”
After the meeting, European Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas said: “We need dialogue, we need rules and we need order.
“Operations in the Mediterranean and elsewhere cannot work in a Wild West situation, where everyone is doing whatever and it’s fine,” Schinas told reporters in Brussels.
He said the commission would help the 27 member countries develop rules, principles and strategies to improve cooperation between those rescuing people at sea and the countries that must receive them.
The IMO, for its part, has expressed concern about the disembarkation line. She recalled that under international law, a search and rescue operation is not over until the survivors have been brought ashore to safety.
To the dismay of charity groups, Italy has long seized NGO ships carrying rescued migrants or tying up their crew in court cases to deter them. Greece has also tried to discourage aid organizations from helping people trying to enter Europe without permission.
Darmanin told reporters that “NGOs that are in the Mediterranean are there to save people and obviously should not be in contact with any smuggling organization under any circumstances.”
Other EU countries oppose new rules that would prevent NGO vessels from saving lives.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said that with so many lives at stake in the Mediterranean, his agency “appreciates the vital importance of rescue at sea by all actors, including rescue vessels NGOs”.
The International Rescue Committee, a migrant aid group, has called on the EU to mount its own “search and rescue operations and work in coordination with NGOs to ensure that anyone rescued at sea is disembarked. Quickly and safely”.
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