Dan Bilefsky writes: Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy has issued a plea for collective action, and he alluded to a call for the creation of centers in Africa that would process asylum applications in a bid to spare many the perilous sea crossing to Europe.
Italy has become the main target of a wave of migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea on often unseaworthy vessels such as the ship that capsized off the coast of Libya over the weekend, killing as many as 900 people.
Mr. Renzi called for the European Union to have a more coordinated strategy, including expanding search-and-rescue patrols and taking action against smugglers in Libya and elsewhere, whom he referred to as “21st-century slave drivers.”
He also evoked an idea that has previously circulated in Brussels: the establishment of migration centers in African countries, in cooperation with the United Nations, so that would-be migrants could apply for asylum in the European Union from their home countries rather than set off on potentially deadly journeys in search of refuge in Europe.On Thursday, European leaders are expected to discuss proposals to double the size of search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean; increase the budget for Frontex, the European Union’s border agency; improve cooperation between the police across the bloc; and intensify the battle against smugglers and human traffickers.
European Union officials said on Wednesday that the current budget for the bloc’s border protection operation, known as Triton, was about 3 million euros, or $3.2 million, a month, and that the operation’s resources included two aircraft, two helicopters, six coastal patrol vessels and about 65 officers. Even doubling that would probably not be enough to deal with the scale of the migration crisis, analysts said.
The number of people who have died in the Mediterranean Sea this year is thought to have already reached 1,727 migrants, according to the International Organization for Migration — more than 30 times last year’s death toll.
However, efforts to forge a common and robust European approach to immigration have faced several challenges in recent years, including weak political will at a time when budgets are stretched and far-right parties that have gained in popularity across the Continent by tapping into resentment against immigrants.
The efforts to forge a new European strategy on immigration have also been stymied by the fact that migration policy in the 28-member union is mostly the preserve of national governments rather than Brussels.