Death and desperation at the walls of Fortress Europe
Dozens of coffins are lining up the runway at the airport in Lampedusa, the small Italian island south of Sicilly. The airshed is now turned into a morgue. The island just doesn't have enough space for all the bodies of the African immigrants who drowned when their ship, full-packed with 500 men, women and children, mainly from Eritrea and Somalia, capsized and sank near those rocky shores.
The body count amounts to at least 300. They had sailed off from the Libyan coast, looking for a better life in Europe. The fishing and tourist island of Lampedusa has long been a key gate into Europe for those who constantly leave Africa. Tens of thousands of refugees and immigrants have been cramming themselves into small, unstable vessels for years, taking the dangerous route across the sea.
The map of the immigrant-related incidents along the borders of Fortress Europe looks really frightening (sorry for the French):
The incidents along Europe's southern shores are pretty frequent. But this tragedy was among the deadliest ever, and it became the most eloquent symbol of EU's inadequate refugee and immigration policies. The president of the European Commission Barroso, the European commissioner of home affairs Cecilia Malmström and the Italian prime-minister Enrico Letta were booed by the citizens of Lampedusa during their visit last week, although Barroso had promised that Italy would receive extra 30 million euros for solving the immigration problem. "Shame" and "murderers" were among the most frequent chants of the crowd, who are accusing the Italian government for its failed policy, and Europe for its total lack of solidarity on the problem. As some other peripheral member states may've realized already in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis, those countries that have the geographical bad luck to be at the external border of the EU and located in proximity to countries that generate large waves of refugees and economic migrants, are practically left to largely deal with the problem on their own, without any will for sensible coordinated effort from the rest of Europe.
"The Med cannot be an open-air cemetery", the French minister of the exterior Laurent Fabius said emotionally. "We need coordinated action". Pope Francis was even more explicit: "This is a disgrace". And this disgrace has been going on for a very long time. Sadly, this tragedy is nothing new, it's just another episode in an endless story. For the last couple of decades about 20,000 people have met their end along the Italian shores. And the local people have stopped being shocked about it - as Gabriele del Grande states in her blog Fortress Europe, which for 6 years has been documenting the dramatic stories of the immigrants who've tried to cross the Mediterranean.
Lampedusa is the emblem of a fragmented migration policy in the EU, focused entirely on border control and being left in the hands of national governments, which has often turned it into hostage of internal political bickering. And despite the strong and tearful words that were pronounced over the hundreds of coffins on the Italian island, there's little hope that any of that would change any time soon. At the Luxembourg meeting of the EU ministers on foreign affairs, the statements of sympathy abounded, and yet the only specific decision that emerged was to considerably increase the capacity of the agency that deals with the security of the union's external borders, Frontex. Its annual budget is more than insufficient, and two years ago it was reduced from 115 million euros to 85 million. And this, as the leader of the European Liberals Guy Verhofstadt says, is less than the amount that Real Madrid paid to Tottenham Hotspur for the purchase of a single player. With such financing, it's no surprise that Frontex is only able to write reports on the issue, rather than really managing the European borders.
Now commissioner Malmström is asking the EU for border patrols in the Mediterranean, "to cover the borders from Spain to Cyprus", which would detect and track immigrant vessels. Right now Frontex is assisting Italy in this task, but their resources are only limited to 4 ships, 2 helicopters and 2 planes. Furthermore, Malmström announced that a new surveillance program for the external EU borders would start operating in December (the Eurosur program), which would allow the EU members to coordinate their work better in tracking and possibly rescuing immigrants in distress.
But let's not fool ourselves. The problem is really much bigger. The European states have consistently failed to reach an agreement on a common policy on immigrants and refugees, and this has been going on for many years. Countries like Italy, Greece, Malta and Spain are bearing the bulk of the burden. The speaker of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz has said that the situation where Brussels has left Rome to deal with the huge influx of refugees from Africa, is utterly unfair. And Malmström specifies that 90% of those seeking refuge are being handled by just 10 EU member states.
All of this is due to the so called Dublin II Regulation which was implemented in 2003. It essentially stipulates that the EU member states not only have the right, but are obliged to turn back the refugees to the country where they first entered into EU territory. And that country is obliged to provide shelter, aid and all that, until the refugee's status is ultimately resolved. And this is putting the peripheral countries at great risk, and under immense pressure.
But on the other hand, it's a bit weird that a country like Italy, one of EU's 4 biggest member states, is claiming they can't handle a few thousand extra people. We're talking of 30,000 people who've landed in Lampedusa since the beginning of the year, after all. And Italy's population is 60 million. That hardly constitutes a humanitarian crisis. But it sure is a political issue. Not to mention that most of these people actually do not stay in Italy, but they move on to other EU member states. We all remember what happened between France and Italy during the Libyan refugee crisis: the French temporarily closed the border for fear of a refugee flood, trapping all those people within Italy and "resurrecting" the border between two EU member states in direct breach of one of the fundamental EU principles, the freedom of movement.
It's become clear at this point that the issue with the deaths at the Italian shores is something that should be of topmost priority in the EU's agenda, and the member states in the interior just cannot remain indifferent. On the other hand, it's important to note that Italy and the other southern states are among the countries that generally contribute the least to the refugee influx. For instance, in 2012 there were about 17,000 asylum applications in Italy, compared to 77,000 in Germany, 61,000 in France and 43,000 in Sweden. So the EU should urgently change its regime of international protection of refugees, to allow a more even distribution of the pressure between the member states. Because right now we've got the following situation: a Syrian refugee fleeing the conflict at home, has arrived in Germany or Sweden, and they instantly receive refugee status and get into a protection program. But if the same refugee ended up in Greece, they'd immediately be kicked back across the border into Turkey. Which doesn't make any sense when you think of it.
It's normal that for people fleeing war, famine, poverty and persecution, Europe would be a logical option. And the predominant view among the experts is that the possibilities for legal immigration should be enhanced, because at the moment many immigrants are forced to use illegal ways to enter the EU. The special UN rapporteur on the human rights of immigrants, François Crépeau concludes that it's exactly the "criminalization of irregular immigration" that has played a crucial role in the Lampedusa incident. And solely treating immigrants and refugees with repressive measures would only create more and more tragedies like this.
And Italy is not the only country where immigrants are viewed only as a problem as opposed to seeing the opportunities that they could offer in a constantly ageing old continent with a deteriorating working force. Last week for example it became clear that a new British law on immigration would aim at turning the UK into a "hostile environment for immigrants".
In fact it would seem that the more constructive approach to the problem would be the actual opening up of the borders, including at sea. But only if that is coupled with efficient and fast procedures and choosing adequate protective mechanisms for detecting the complex migration flows, particularly of people of need, like single mothers with children, etc. Europe should keep the current direction toward harmonization of the procedures, of the criteria and of the legal practices in all member states, if it really wants to have a unified protection system in the union. Let me remind that every country that has signed the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and the relevant protocol, and which has its own national protection legislation, should be taking its responsibilities accordingly.
Of course the immigration and refugee problem in Europe is an issue that just doesn't have easy answers. But there should be a better sharing of responsibility between all EU members. This could include shared commitments on processing the asylum applications, and providing long-term solutions for people in need of international protection, and assistance in the voluntary return of those who do not need such protection. We need more commitment, more solidarity and new initiatives for a more collective addressing of the problem, because it affects everyone, including my current country of residence, Switzerland, which may technically be a non-member, but definitely does not exist in a vacuum. The Europeans don't want to see an approach solely focused on discouraging people from coming to Europe; instead of solving the problem in its roots, this approach only fills the pockets of the human traffickers, depriving those in need of the right of a safe choice.
It's no surprise that the idea that they should give up their national politics on refugees and immigrants is particularly sensitive for many European governments and particular segments of the public. So it turns out that the EU is stuck in a paradoxical situation: most solutions to the problem pass through developing a shared policy, but meanwhile the countries have no desire to do it. The truth is, the elephant in the room is not so much the influx of immigrants itself, but the problem with their possible repatriation back to their country of origin. The member states don't want to receive aliens, as they have very limited efficient means of returning them to their home countries in case of application rejection.
There's a crisis currently emerging in Italy: there aren't enough places in the refugee center in Lampedusa. It's only designed for 350 people, and there already are more than 1000 people, including 155 survivors of the shipwreck tragedy. The system is in collapse. The local authorities are desperately waiting for the planned expansion of the camps, the conditions are deteriorating. Meanwhile, the legal system is in urgent need of a safe procedure for entry which would guarantee the refugees from countries like Libya that they could reach Europe in a safe way. Because at the moment, in order to apply for protection, one has to first reach EU territory. And the local authorities would be much happier if the immigrants could get a visa or use a humanitarian channel before they've arrived. Otherwise a refugee could have excellent accommodation conditions and perfect processing of their application, but if they still have to risk their life at sea to reach the promised land, the whole thing wouldn't make any sense either.
Sure, there are problems with the laws in Italy itself. In this case those who died near Lampedusa got Italian citizenship posthumously (which has prompted complaints of utter hypocrisy), and a one-day national mourning was announced in their memory. But those who survived the shipwreck will now be investigated for illegal immigration, as a very controversial 2002 law stipulates. The fine is 5000 euros. The government is promising to change the immigration law, because there've been complaints from MPs that some articles prevent the local people from aiding refugees in distress.
In fact the Italian laws on immigration are very severe and controversial. Apparently, some of the people who could've helped the drowning foreigners in fact had refrained from intervening, for fear of being prosecuted later for aiding illegal aliens in entering the country.
Meanwhile, there are calls around the blogosphere for stopping the money that's being given for immigrants and refugees, and giving it to the Italian families in need, instead.
But despite the temptations of populism and the ascent of anti-immigration political formations across Europe, EU's most adequate way of handling the immigration issue definitely goes through finding a common approach. Which means the Europeans have to rethink their entire policy. It should be more focused on the countries in need where these immigration flows emerge from, rather than on the requirements of the labor market in the recipient countries. I know, this is easier to say than do, but without such steps, the tragedy at Lampedusa will remain as shameful as it'll be frequent and ordinary.