Leaders commit ships, aid to save lives in Mediterranean
BRUSSELS — European Union leaders on Thursday started committing new resources to save lives in the Mediterranean at an emergency summit convened after hundreds of migrants drowned in the space of a few days, and discussed action to destroy vessels that could be used for trafficking.
“First and foremost now, we have to save lives and take the right measures to do so,” said German Chancellor Angela Merkel as she arrived.
The latest summit draft statement, obtained by The Associated Press, would pledge the 28 nations to double their spending to save lives, “increase search and rescue possibilities” and “undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and destroy vessels before they are used by traffickers.”
Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain would contribute the navy’s flagship, HMS Bulwark, along with three helicopters and two border patrol ships to the EU effort. “As the country in Europe with the biggest defence budget we can make a real contribution,” he said, but added this would not include accepting a share of the refugees.
German army sources told the DPA news agency Berlin would offer to send the troop supply ship Berlin as well as frigates Karlsruhe and Hessen toward Italy. The ships participate in the anti-piracy operation Atalanta at the Horn of Africa and could be in the Mediterranean within five days.
Belgium also committed a navy ship on Thursday.
The task ahead is huge, with more than 10,000 migrants plucked from seas between Italy and Libya in the past week.
“Europe is declaring war on smugglers,” said the EU’s top migration official, Dimitris Avramopoulos, who was in Malta to attend the funeral of 24 migrants who perished at sea.
The draft statement also called for “a first voluntary pilot project on resettlement, offering at least 5,000 places to persons qualifying for protection.”
That resettlement plan would amount to about half of the number who arrived in just the past week and a tiny fraction of the tens of thousands likely to arrive this year.
Such countries as Germany, Sweden, France and Italy are dealing with a disproportionate number of asylum requests while many Eastern member states are hardly taking any. Five of the 28 member EU states are handling almost 70 per cent of the migrants.
In a joint statement, the UN’s top refugee and migration officials called for an EU-wide resettlement plan and for beefing up the capacity of such front-line countries as Greece, Italy and Malta to receive more migrants.
The draft statement also proposes cutting the time needed to process migrants — which can now take up to a year before a person is deemed legitimate to stay — to as little as two months.
According to the UN’s refugee agency, 219,000 refugees and migrants crossed the Mediterranean last year, and at least 3,500 died trying. More than 1,000 are believed to have died already this month alone.
Critics blame the increased deaths on the phasing-out of Italy’s large rescue operation — Mare Nostrum — in 2013-14, which worked close to the coast of Libya, the biggest migrant departure point.