Fixing EU foreign ministers' crocodilean tear ducts
Quite a while ago, there appeared a very good ZEIT Online article on practical things the EU foreign ministers could decide on to really & humanely prevent refugees from attempting to cross the Mediterranean from North Africa to the perceived European paradise. I was given permission to translate it, so without further ado:
As Europe tried to recently save 700 people about to drown, it sent a Portuguese container freighter. That ship couldn't do much more than roll out its rope ladders and rescue materials to save at least a few of them from a watery grave. A flush of shame should be visible in the faces of the EU's members' foreign ministers because of that murderous weekend, when they met the Monday afterward in Brussels.
For this reason their reaction to the Mediterranean catastrophe long actively disregarded by them can only be: Who handles what task now? Suggestions abound. The foreign ministers could agree on a practical plan of action in a few hours, in 6 parts. A plan, that would be effective in the short as well as the long term. That comes to the rapid aid of those refugees, that are getting into boats today & tomorrow on the coasts of North Africa, and, at the same time, permanently pushes people to no longer attempt the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean that they undertake to live in security.
It would be a chance to give up national egoisms in the face of a thousand drowned refugees. To grasp that a big scare tactic used in foreign policy is a military concept, like the threat of mutual assured destruction that works when opponents armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons face off. But not when people are running for their lives. To prove that the wealthiest continent in the world isn't left helpless by the dynamics of the surrounding conflicts, as could be assumend when observing the deadly scourges taking place in Syria, Iraq or the Ukraine.
The foreign ministers could have agreed, and still can, to implement the following:
The EU rapidly organises a rescue mission for the Mediterranean. All member countries supply men & material for this on a round-robin basis. The EU could base its actions on experience gained in the anti-pirate Operation Atalanta around the Horn of Africa. It could use the command & monitoring structures of NATO, and the border control agency Frontex. The Mediterranean is one of the most densely commercially used oceans in the world. The EU could therefore support merchant shipping that is currently increasingly aiding boats in jeopardy. It could train crews for rescue missions, so that merchant captains are not confronted by dehydrated & desperate surivors at sea, not knowing what to do. The EU could recompensate appropriately for accommodation costs, detours & delays that accrue for merchant ships. EU members dissolve the Dublin agreement, that forces countries in which refugees arrive to solely support them. Instead the council of ministers could agree on a fair algorithm, that distributes refugees over all member states as they are able in terms of financial prowess & populousness. In the past year 626065 refugees reached the EU. Compared to 500 million EU citizens a pretty manageable number to have to integrate. The EU takes in far more people from refugee camps in the Middle East without bureaucratic hindrances and in this way lightens the load for neighbouring states of war regions in Syria & Iraq, which states are bearing the largest aid costs of these conflicts so far. Because the most part of Mediterranean refugees comes from Syria. Every refugee that can find direct entry into Europe from Lebanon, Turkey or Jordan will not be getting into a boat, after all. The EU develops a strategy to help reestablish state authority in Libya. The country would be supported in accommodating & feeding refugees, and, as for the refugee camps in the Middle East, in establishing reliable & secure paths of access to Europe. At the same time strategies that go beyond borders are developed together with the North African states - strategies that put smugglers & traffickers of people out of business, and equip the police forces accordingly. The EU establishes visa centres that organise regular immigration to Europe for people looking for work, in the stable North African states, like Tunisia or Morocco.
That would constitute a plan. It wouldn't prevent ever more people taking flight across the sea. Europe would remain the target of migration of many desperate or simply poor people. But the EU could show that it is prepared to act. Yes, one can't solve the whole world's problems. But this one problem can be.
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