After the Mediterranean Sea, Another Journey for Migrants in Europe

Part 2: The Administrative Mayhem and the Political Situation | by Avery Enderle Wagner & Lakshna Mehta

More than 12 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian support (video by Gistory)

Divided, European countries fail at tackling immigration with minimalist measures

E.U. governments failed to agree on a plan to resettle 40,000 migrants across European countries on Monday, making the European Union look more divided on the immigration issue.

Italy and Greece, overstretched with migrants mostly coming from Syria and Eritrea, had called the other 26 European governments to share the burden of asylum seekers. Their argument? Migrants reach Europe by Italy and Greece, but other governments also have to help.

So the European Commission had come up with a plan was to resettle 40,000 migrants, but governments could only agree on 32,256. Hungary and Austria refused to take any. The European Commission wanted Spain to help with 3,700; it only agreed to accept 1,300. Germany will take in 10,500 migrants, and France will take in 6,752.

Hadn’t European governments tried to reach an agreement before?

In an E.U. summit June 25 to 26 attended by the heads of state of all 28 countries, some agreements — albeit reluctantly — had been made about how the E.U. would deal with the influx of migrants.

But the E.U. members didn’t make a lot of efforts. Here were the two main decisions:

1. “Structured border zones” or “hotspots” will be established in southern Italy to fingerprint and register arrivals. The process will be used to separate economic migrants and illegal arrivals from refugees or asylum seekers.
2. A voluntary quota system has been agreed upon. Each member state will take in a fixed number of migrants that has not yet been agreed on. The caveat: they must be Syrians or Eritreans, and only 60,000 asylum seekers will be taken in by the E.U. in the next two years.

That’s on paper. What’s the reality?

Great Britain, Bulgaria, Hungary and Lithuania had already set the tone by refusing to take in any more migrants.

Angry that no more measures came out from the Summit, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi had called the plan “modest.”

“Europe should not just be about budget controls,” Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said. “In an emergency, it must display solidarity, not self-interest.”

While E.U. leaders are debating quotas and budgets, Frontex, E.U.’s border patrol, has been rescuing migrants after Operation Mare Nostrum, Italy’s migrant rescue mission, ended in 2014 and was replaced by Operation Triton.

What is Frontex?

Frontex is the European Union’s border patrol. It coordinates the cooperation of member countries’ border guard forces.

Frontex has two operations currently underway in the Mediterranean Sea with a budget of €56 million ($61.7 million):

• Operation Triton in Italy (€38 million)
• Operation Poseidon Sea in Greece (€18 million).

Operation Triton began in November, 2014 with only seven vessels and a monthly budget of just €2.9 million euros. But faced with a sudden increase in migrants in 2015, the E.U. expanded Triton’s funding to €120 million in April.

Has the increased funding made an impact?

Yes.

The Mediterranean Sea has seen a “dramatic” decrease in deaths since the E.U. increased Triton’s funding.

Just before the funding was approved, 1,200 people died in a single week in mid-April. But since implementing the funding expansion and increasing border patrols in the Mediterranean, fewer than 99 people perished between April 27 and June 29.

Brief contributed by Lakshna Mehta. Edited by Elian Peltier. Video by Wei Chou and Sean Na.

Read the first part on our Mediterrean story: “The Crisis in the Mediterranean Is Still Happening: Don’t Forget About It”

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