Social Europe

politics, economy and employment & labour

  • Themes
    • European digital sphere
    • Recovery and resilience
  • Publications
    • Books
    • Dossiers
    • Occasional Papers
    • Research Essays
    • Brexit Paper Series
  • Podcast
  • Videos
  • Newsletter

Four Key Principles For Solving The Crisis In The Mediterranean

Anna Triandafyllidou 21st April 2015 4 Comments

Anna Triandafyllidou, Crisis In The Mediterranean

Anna Triandafyllidou

With over 1,000 migrants in the Mediterranean feared dead following a series of incidents in recent weeks, EU Foreign and Interior Ministers agreed on an action plan on 20 April for addressing the crisis. Anna Triandafyllidou writes on the key elements underpinning the problem and outlines four key elements that a new strategic approach should consist of: strengthening the EU’s search and rescure capabilities, enlisting the support of neighbouring countries, tackling the smuggling networks active in the region, and reforming the system that assigns responsibility for asylum seekers between EU states.

While the problem of irregular crossings and the tragic loss of human life witnessed recently is not new in the Mediterranean, the geopolitical context within which this happens is quite different from what it was in 2006 when the Canary islands crisis took place, with 26,000 arrivals in one year. Since then arrivals along the western Mediterranean route (via Morocco to Spain) have decreased while the central Mediterranean (via Libya to Italy) and the eastern Mediterranean routes (via Turkey to Greece) have fluctuated significantly, with peaks of arrivals in Italy in 2007-08 and peaks in Greece in 2010-12.

The crossings, the associated smuggling businesses, and the overall flight of both economic migrants and asylum seekers now takes place in a completely different context. The map of North Africa has changed: Libya has collapsed into internal chaos, Egypt has restored authoritarian (secular) rule, Tunisia has democratised, and Morocco is also gradually democratising. Indeed the latter two countries promise to be the most reliable allies of the EU in efforts to manage asylum seeking and irregular migration in the Mediterranean.

At the same time, however, several states in the Middle East have imploded, with Islamic State controlling parts of Syria and Iraq, creating huge instability in the region. Islamic State have spread violence across borders through taped beheadings and executions of ‘infidels’ of all kinds, as well as of Muslims who do not align (whether it is the captured Jordanian fighter pilot or its own followers that smoke cigarettes or are deemed to have offended the Prophet).

This new geopolitical context of violence, insecurity and outright war has huge repercussions for irregular migration and asylum seeking flows. It generates new flows of people in search of basic human security. It also pushes the middle classes of North Africa and the Middle East out of those countries which have failed to democratise and transform, while opening up ‘business opportunities’ for both smuggling and trafficking networks. Finally it provides illusory opportunities to cross into Europe for people fleeing poverty and political instability from countries like Somalia, Eritrea, or Nigeria. The escalation of IS violence and its spreading through guerrillas or infiltrators in Libya, through terrorists in Tunisia, and into other states, further exacerbates these trends.

The current pressures stemming from both asylum seekers and irregular migrants will not cease any time soon. There will not be a massive exodus, but the numbers will continue to be sustained. The European Union cannot manage this situation with the toolkit of the 1990s, notably the Dublin Regulation (that despite reforms remains pretty much identical to its initial concept drafted in 1990) and the emphasis on returning failed asylum seekers and apprehended irregular migrants. The approach that is needed is one that is more strategic and multi-faceted.

Crisis In The Mediterranean

Anna Triandafyllidou writes that the EU needs a more strategic and multi-faceted approach to the tragedies regularly happening in the Mediterranean.

A Four Point Plan Of Action

Some commentators have called for a naval blockade of Libya, arguing that this would discourage the smuggling networks and provide relief to immediately neighbouring countries, notably Italy and Greece, while stopping the deaths of innocent people. However such an operation would risk transforming Libya in the short run into a quasi-concentration camp. Until word spreads that the route was blocked, people from sub Saharan Africa would continue to arrive and, with the cost of securing safe passage rising, these individuals would be at risk of being jailed, tortured or exploited by the smugglers, militias and other groups active in the area.

Instead, the EU needs to work with a combined toolkit. First, it must intensify its search and rescue operations, chiefly by implementing a European ‘Mare Nostrum’ operation before the end of this year. This would need to be on a larger and more ambitious scale than the current ‘Triton’ operation led by the EU’s external border security agency Frontex, which has proven to be under staffed and under financed. Ignoring the situation would not tame the flow of migrants, but rather simply increase the loss of human life in the Mediterranean (which is now by far the deadliest sea crossing for migration or asylum seeking worldwide).

Second, in addition to this enhanced search and rescue operation, the EU needs to enrol the support and cooperation of neighbouring countries in the Mediterranean, notably Egypt and Tunisia, as well as Turkey. It should also seek to win the support of countries of origin and transit outside of the region, notably in southeast Asia, and West and East Africa. Development aid as well as technological assistance and training is needed to boost the border guard capacity and ability to fight organised crime in these countries.

Third, alongside these approaches, there is a need for further sophistication in the fight against organised crime, notably smuggling networks which usually collide with drug trafficking and the underground arms trade. Working locally in cooperation with transit countries, particularly in Turkey and Syria, to dismantle the operations of the smuggling networks that make the smuggling business so dynamic and flexible, should be an area of priority.

Last but not least, there is a need for essential reform of the Dublin system. The so called ‘first safe country’ principle, under which the state in which an asylum seeker entered the EU is usually responsible for their claim, can no longer hold. This system only creates returnees and further exacerbates tensions within the EU between the ‘first safe countries’ of arrival in the south, and the ‘safer’ countries in the north, that still nevertheless face significant asylum seeker inflows despite the Dublin safeguards. A more efficient system of asylum quotas is required for a fairer sharing of responsibility that would do justice both to the efforts of the “frontier” states like Italy, Malta, and Greece, but also to the northern countries that receive the highest number of asylum applications.

This column was first published by [email protected]

Anna Triandafyllidou

Anna Triandafyllidou is Professor at the Global Governance Programme of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS) at the European University Institute.

Home ・ Politics ・ Four Key Principles For Solving The Crisis In The Mediterranean

Most Popular Posts

schools,Sweden,Swedish,voucher,choice Sweden’s schools: Milton Friedman’s wet dreamLisa Pelling
world order,Russia,China,Europe,United States,US The coming world orderMarc Saxer
south working,remote work ‘South working’: the future of remote workAntonio Aloisi and Luisa Corazza
Russia,Putin,assets,oligarchs Seizing the assets of Russian oligarchsBranko Milanovic
Russians,support,war,Ukraine Why do Russians support the war against Ukraine?Svetlana Erpyleva

Most Recent Posts

Gazprom,Putin,Nordstream,Putin,Schröder How the public loses out when politicians cash inKatharina Pistor
defence,europe,spending Ukraine and Europe’s defence spendingValerio Alfonso Bruno and Adriano Cozzolino
North Atlantic Treaty Organization,NATO,Ukraine The Ukraine war and NATO’s renewed credibilityPaul Rogers
transnational list,European constituency,European elections,European public sphere A European constituency for a European public sphereDomènec Ruiz Devesa
hydrogen,gas,LNG,REPowerEU EU hydrogen targets—a neo-colonial resource grabPascoe Sabido and Chloé Mikolajczak

Other Social Europe Publications

The transatlantic relationship
Women and the coronavirus crisis
RE No. 12: Why No Economic Democracy in Sweden?
US election 2020
Corporate taxation in a globalised era

Eurofound advertisement

Living and working in Europe 2021

The Covid-19 pandemic continued to be a defining force in 2021, and Eurofound continued its work of examining and recording the many and diverse impacts across the EU. Living and working in Europe 2021 provides a snapshot of the changes to employment, work and living conditions in Europe. It also summarises the agency’s findings on issues such as gender equality in employment, wealth inequality and labour shortages. These will have a significant bearing on recovery from the pandemic, resilience in the face of the war in Ukraine and a successful transition to a green and digital future.


AVAILABLE HERE

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

EU Care Atlas: a new interactive data map showing how care deficits affect the gender earnings gap in the EU

Browse through the EU Care Atlas, a new interactive data map to help uncover what the statistics are often hiding: how care deficits directly feed into the gender earnings gap.

While attention is often focused on the gender pay gap (13%), the EU Care Atlas brings to light the more worrisome and complex picture of women’s economic inequalities. The pay gap is just one of three main elements that explain the overall earnings gap, which is estimated at 36.7%. The EU Care Atlas illustrates the urgent need to look beyond the pay gap and understand the interplay between the overall earnings gap and care imbalances.


BROWSE THROUGH THE MAP

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

Towards a new Minimum Wage Policy in Germany and Europe: WSI minimum wage report 2022

The past year has seen a much higher political profile for the issue of minimum wages, not only in Germany, which has seen fresh initiatives to tackle low pay, but also in those many other countries in Europe that have embarked on substantial and sustained increases in statutory minimum wages. One key benchmark in determining what should count as an adequate minimum wage is the threshold of 60 per cent of the median wage, a ratio that has also played a role in the European Commission's proposals for an EU-level policy on minimum wages. This year's WSI Minimum Wage Report highlights the feasibility of achieving minimum wages that meet this criterion, given the political will. And with an increase to 12 euro per hour planned for autumn 2022, Germany might now find itself promoted from laggard to minimum-wage trailblazer.


FREE DOWNLOAD

ETUI advertisement

Bilan social / Social policy in the EU: state of play 2021 and perspectives

The new edition of the Bilan social 2021, co-produced by the European Social Observatory (OSE) and the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), reveals that while EU social policy-making took a blow in 2020, 2021 was guided by the re-emerging social aspirations of the European Commission and the launch of several important initiatives. Against the background of Covid-19, climate change and the debate on the future of Europe, the French presidency of the Council of the EU and the von der Leyen commission must now be closely scrutinised by EU citizens and social stakeholders.


AVAILABLE HERE

About Social Europe

Our Mission

Article Submission

Membership

Advertisements

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

Social Europe Archives

Search Social Europe

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Follow us on social media

Follow us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow us on YouTube