How to deal with migrations in the Mediterranean

20 April 2015 | In the Media

The recent shipwrecks of large fishing boats loaded with immigrants who wanted to cross the Mediterranean have forced Europe to look south. “It was a known issue that this could happen with the arrival of good weather,” says Xavier Aragall, migration expert at the IEMed. The analyst believes that the EU must urgently reinstate the Mare Nostrum rescue operation, based on rescuing in international waters, and abandon the current and insufficient Operation Triton, which is based solely on border surveillance. In addition, it is essential to establish a clear migration agenda, with ambitious and complex long-term policies.

Instability in the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa, coupled with the non-existence of a state in Libya and the proliferation of human traffickers, is increasing the number of immigrants and refugees. More specifically, in Syria, the violence of the war has been reinforced by the emergence of an Islamic state that has forced the 6 million internally displaced to find a way to cross the Syrian borders into Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, but also Europe.

Libya used to be a shock absorber, a bumper for all this immigration, says Xavier Aragall. But the current situation of misgovernment has allowed the networks of arms and goods traffickers to also take advantage to traffic in human beings. Thus, the cost of human lives is higher than a few years ago, as it is no longer small boats that cross the Mediterranean but large fishing boats with much more capacity.

At the moment, in the Mediterranean, there is an overlap of flows. On the one hand, economic migrants continue to arrive from sub-Saharan Africa. On the other hand, there is a large bag of political refugees arriving in Libya from Syria, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and even from Palestine and Egypt. The reinforcement of fenced borders in Greece and Bulgaria has brought more people to the southern border, the most dangerous route at the moment, laments Xavier Aragall.

However, each flow must be approached from a specific approach. In the case of migrations of political refugees, he explains, it must be understood that they are temporary displacements, given that most have left their land by force and have the will to return home once the conflict is over. “Syria was by no means a migrant-sending country,” the IEMed analyst recalls.

Where are the European values?

It is not right to apologize behind the fear of a knock-on effect, criticizes Xavier Aragall. Mainly because it’s a false fear. What exists at the moment is a pressure for violence in the countries of origin that has nothing to do with Europe softening or tightening its migration policy. In the end, aragall raises, we are facing a moral equation. The European Union was founded on ethical and political principles that seem to have fallen into oblivion. What have we done or, rather, what have we stopped doing because governments have ignored this issue so much? The IEMed analyst is confident in public pressure for the right to mobility to be at the center of the Euro-Mediterranean political agenda.