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Following the EUs deal with Turkey over people smuggling, the issue of migrants trying to cross, and quite often drowning in, the Mediterranean has largely disappeared from the British media. There have been no more images like that of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach after the rubber dinghy in which his family were trying to reach the Greek island of Kos capsized in August 2015.

Now, people smugglers and migrants know there is little point in trying to make the crossing from Turkey to Greece because they will only be sent back, in return for the EU taking refugees directly from camps in Turkey. The deal has successfully curtailed the activities of criminal gangs operating in the eastern Mediterranean: in the first six months of this year arrivals in Greece had fallen by 93 per cent compared with a year earlier.

But the problem hasnt gone away; it has shifted westwards to Italy, where things just go from bad to worse. Last year a record 181,000 migrants arrived there by sea, nearly all from Libya, and this year there are sure to be many more: over 90,000 have so far been ferried across the Mediterranean from near the Libyan coast to Sicily, 300 miles away, according to the latest figures from IOM, the UN migration agency. Earlier this week IOM reported that 2,359 migrants have died trying to cross the Mediterranean already this year, on top of 5,083 deaths last year and 2,777 in 2015.

The EU, which has mismanaged the migrant problem from the start, only sealing the Turkey deal after years of inaction, has washed its hands of the latest explosion of migrant trafficking. It has ignored the Italian governments increasingly desperate appeals for help.

Italy used to have a pressure valve. Most migrants used the country as a staging post to more prosperous countries in northern Europe. But with France and Austria reneging on the Schengen agreement by reintroducing border checks, they are stuck in Italy, a country with an unemployment rate of 12 per cent and an economy forecast to take another decade just to get back to the size it was in 2007. Worse, the migrant problem is concentrated in the south of Italy, where the economy is weakest and taxpayers most scarce. Many migrants are living in hostels, each at an annual cost of 13,000 to those Italians who do pay tax. Others disappear into the black economy, sleeping rough or living in illegally let and overcrowded flats.

Thanks in part to guilt about their fascist past, Italians are eager not to be racist, yet they are sick of what they see as an illegal migrant invasion and of the complicit role of four unelected Italian prime ministers since the resignation of the last elected one, Silvio Berlusconi, in 2011. According to a recent opinion poll published in the Rome daily Il Messaggero, 67 per cent of Italians want Italy to close its ports to rescue vessels or deport all migrants ferried to Italy, and 61 per cent want a naval blockade of the Libyan coast.

The left lost heavily in Italys local elections in June as a result of brewing anger at the migrant crisis. Giusi Nicolini, the mayor of Lampedusa who had won a peace prize from Unesco and been praised by the Pope, finished a humiliating third in her bid for re-election, defeated by a rival from her own Democratic party. She blamed her defeat on local opposition to a crackdown on illegal building, playing down the bigger issue of migrant arrivals.

But Lampedusa, just seven miles long and two miles wide, is 180 miles north of the Libyan coast and has been in the frontline of people trafficking, for which Nicolini showed rather too much tolerance. Italian attitudes are hardening, thanks to obvious and growing evidence that very few of the arriving migrants can honestly be called refugees unless you widen that definition to include anyone who lives in Africa, on the basis that its standards of living and respect for human rights are universally lower than in western Europe.

The debate about migrant crossings tends to be held in the context of people fleeing from wars in Syria and Libya. Yet according to Eurostat, the EUs statistical arm, of the 46,995 migrant arrivals in Italy in the first four months of this year, only 635 were Syrians and 170 were Libyans. By contrast, 10,000 came from Nigeria, 4,135 from Bangladesh, 3,865 from the Gambia, 3,625 from Pakistan and 3,460 from Senegal. None of these countries can be said to be consumed by civil war, and even if some individuals had reason to claim asylum, international law dictates that they should claim it in the first safe country they reach which in every case would be before crossing the sea to Italy.

What is causing growing Italian anger is the role of charities and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in the transport of migrants across the Mediterranean. The image the charities like to present is that of desperate people putting to sea in any vessel they can lay their hands on because whatever risks they run cannot exceed the dangers of staying in their homelands. Save the Children, for example, declares in heartrending prose on its website, between photos of young children wrapped in foil blankets, that children are fleeing bullets, poverty, persecution and the growing impact of climate change, only to drown in European waters.

The reality could not be more different. The vast majority of migrants from Libya are young men paying the equivalent of 1,000 each to people smugglers in what they see as a calculated risk to reach a better life in Europe. The business model of the smugglers does not include transporting their customers all the way to Italy, but rather to take them 12 nautical miles to the boundary of Libyas territorial waters, so they can then be rescued and ferried the rest of the way to Europe. The people smugglers are quite open about what they are doing: what can only be described as a Libya-based migrant travel agency has set up a Facebook page offering tickets to passengers with discounts for group bookings on ferries i.e., smuggler boats complete with phone number. The journey, it says, lasts only three or four hours before rescue by an NGO, Italian or EU vessel, which will complete the ferry service to Italy.

Between October 2013 and October 2014 the second leg of the journey was provided by the Italian navy and coastguard in a search-and-rescue operation called Mare Nostrum, which brought 190,000 migrants to Italy. But those vessels operated 150 miles north of the Libyan coast near Lampedusa, which itself is 170 miles south of Sicily. This meant migrants had to undertake much of the journey under their own steam. Mare Nostrum encouraged them to take greater risks and thus added to the death toll. The operation was replaced in 2014 when the EU agreed that Europe, not just Italy, should shoulder the search-and-rescue burden. So Operation Triton was launched. Under this, search-and-rescue vessels from across the EU operate up to a line 120 miles north of Libya. However, all charity vessels (now responsible for about a third of rescues) operate right up to the Libyan coast. Among them are the Vos Hestia, a 59-metre former offshore tug operated by Save the Children, the 68-metre MV Aquarius, jointly operated by SOS Mediterrane and Mdecins Sans Frontires (MSF) and the 40-metre Phoenix, owned by MOAS, a charity founded by an American businessman and his Italian wife.

The operators of these vessels are legally obliged to assist those in distress at sea if they are in a position to do so. What they are not allowed to do is to operate deliberate and unauthorised search-and-rescue missions within territorial waters, nor to pick people off a boat which is not in distress on the pretext of rescuing them. Moreover, if they do save people in distress, they are obliged under maritime law to take them to the nearest safe port, which is seldom in Italy.

But these boats are entering Libyan territorial waters. I asked an independent Dutch research institute, Gefira, for evidence. It used marine traffic websites (freely available to the public) which track ships in real time via satellite. It discovered that a dozen NGO vessels entered Libyas waters, often many times. The Vos Hestia, for example, did so on the 5, 16, 22 and 23 May; the Aquarius on the 2, 5, 16 and 23 May and as recently as 9 July. The Phoenix was tracked there three times, most recently on 10 July.

The NGOs are now under investigation by Sicilian magistrates for possible collusion with people smugglers. Carmelo Zuccaro, the magistrate in charge, told the Turin daily La Stampa in April: We have evidence that there are direct contacts between certain NGOs and people traffickers in Libya. He says phone calls have been made from Libya to certain NGOs, lamps have been lit to illuminate the route to these organisations boats, and some of these boats have suddenly turned off their locating transponders.

At the time, Save the Children said: The Vos Hestia, which operates in international waters and in coordination with the [Italian] coastguard, has never entered Libyan waters. It has since changed its tune. George Graham, Save the Childrens Director of Humanitarian Policy, said: Save the Children operates in international waters, moving closer to territorial waters only if instructed by the Italian coastguard. On a highly exceptional basis, and if deemed necessary to save lives, Save the Children may enter Libyan waters operating under the coordination of the Italian coastguard. We are not a ferry service. We do not communicate with traffickers or people smugglers.

Marco Bertotto, head of advocacy for MSF Italy, admits: There were three occasions in 2016 when MSF in critical and urgent cases and with the explicit authorisation of the relevant Libyan and Italian authorities assisted in rescues 11.5 nautical miles from the coast. Also in 2017, we have entered on a few occasions in Libyan waters, and with the explicit authorisation of relevant authorities. A MOAS spokesman said Phoenix entered Libyan waters only when authorised by the Italian coastguard in Rome. Despite repeated calls and emails, the coastguard declined to explain why it issued such authorisations.

These charities, and others operating ships in the Mediterranean, of course claim to be saving lives. But what they are really doing is colluding either intentionally or not in a people-trafficking operation. If charities and NGOs stopped providing a pick-up service a few miles off Libya, and if Italy started returning migrants to the North African countries whence they came, the smugglers boats would not put to sea.

Those who are dying are the victims of a wellintentioned but thoroughly misguided operation which will come to be seen as great moral stain on Europe.

Read more from the original source:
Madness in the Med: how charity rescue boats exacerbate the refugee crisis - Spectator.co.uk

Violence at a refugee processing centerin Greece and talk of desperate measures in Italy demonstrated this week thescale of the impact the migrant crisis has wrought on European nations at keypoints of entry.

On Tuesday, police on the Greek island of Lesbos had to quell an uprising by African migrants within the Moria Migration Reception and Identification Centre, reported state broadcaster Athens-Macedonian News Agency (AMNA).

Police officers and two entire platoons of riot police were brought in from Athens to put down the revolt, according to the stunning report.

The migrants burned an acre of olive groves as well as tentsand garbage receptacles, and they destroyed some of thecenter's infrastructure before being subdued. They also damaged five cars, a few of which belonged to police, and injured seven police officers.

Authorities arrested over 30migrantsof African origin for starting the violence; they will be taken to a processing center for deportation, according to the AMNA report.

The incident in Greece came less than a week after Italy, another point of entry for many cross-Mediterranean migrants, threatened to issue 200,000 visas to African migrants and send them north into the rest of Europe.

"Letting migrants travel once they reach Italy would create a real problem for our EU neighbors. But I hope it would force France to confront the migrant problem head-on," said Deputy Foreign Minister Mario Giro said in an interview with U.K. newspaper The Times.

So dire is the situation that at the beginning of July, Italian officials threatened to seize migrant rescue ships operated by NGOs and shut down their ports entirely after 13,500 African migrants arrived on the country's shores in a span of just two days at the end of June.

In response to the massive June influx into Italy, neighboring Austria sent 750 soldiers and four tanks to the Italian border.

"The preparations at our border with Italy are not only justified but necessary. We are prepared, and if necessary we will defend our borders," said Austrian foreign minister Sebastian Kurz at the time, following a complaint from the Italian government.

This month the United Nations Migration Agency figures released earlier this month revealed that nearly 100,000 people crossed the Mediterranean during the first half of 2017 alone.

But despite the ever-worsening situation, the EUhas done very little to solve it. After weeks of desperate lobbying from the Italian government, on Tuesday the EUfinally restricted sales of rubber boats to Libya.

"EU member states will now have a legal basis to prevent the export or supply of these goods to Libya where there are reasonable grounds to believe that they will be used by people smugglers and human traffickers," EU officialssaid in a statement.

Read more here:
European Nations at Points of Entry Grow Desperate as Migrant Crisis Rages - LifeZette

Denmark is pledging 91 million Danish kroner ($14 million) to curb the human and social costs of unwanted pregnancies in places with poor infrastructure and opportunities for young women. Much of the focus will be on Africas least developed countries.

Danish minister for development cooperation, Ulla Trns, said, part of the solution to reducing migratory pressures on Europe is to reduce the very high population growth in many African countries.

The framing of contraception aid as an act of foreign policy reflects a change in attitudes towards refugees and migrants in the Scandinavian country. In August 2015, the government passed legislation to cut welfare benefits to refugees and migrants residing in the country for less than eight years. And in January 2016, Danish parliament approved plans to allow police to seize the refugee assets worth more than $436.

Over a million migrants and refugees reached Europe by sea in 2015, with nearly 4,000 reported missing, or suspected to have drowned, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

The UN high commissioner for refugees, Filippo Grandi, said the move was a deeply concerning response to humanitarian needs and an affront to their dignity. In an 18-page report, Grandi also wrote that Denmarks proposed immigration policies were out of touch with its tradition of providing sanctuary to those in need.

Trnss comments follow French president Emmanuel Macrons diagnosis of Africas problems as civilizational , saying one of Africas essential challenges was population growth, and noting that in some countriesseven or right children [are] born to each woman. However, the 2017 Revision of the UN World Population Prospects tells a different story. Fertility rates for Africa were recorded at 4.7 births per woman for 2010-2015. The only country in Africa, let alone the world, that resembles Macrons statistic is Niger.

While global fertility rates are set to fall, the UN anticipates a rapid increase in the population of 33 African countries categorized as least developed nations. These nations are expected to triple in size between 2017 and 2100.

Like Denmark, Germany has received high numbers of refugees coming to its borders since the crisis in 2015. Chancellor Angela Merkel was criticized by opposition leaders over her open door policy towards refugees and migrants in 2016. But on July 17, Merkel said she wouldnt set an upper limit on refugees in a live interview on German TV.

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Denmark thinks free birth control for African countries will slow Europe's migrant crisis - Quartz

Aleks Szczerbiak

The migration crisis has rumbled on for the last two years since it developed as a major issue in Polish politics dividing the main parties in the run up to the most recent October 2015 parliamentary election. Along with the three other Central European Visegrad countries the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia the previous government, led by the centrist Civic Platform (PO) grouping, initially opposed the European Commissions proposal for mandatory re-distribution quotas for Middle Eastern and North African migrants located in Greece and Italy.

However, concerned that the country was coming across as one of the least sympathetic to the migrants plight, the Polish government changed its approach following the summer 2015 migration wave. Civic Platforms EU strategy was based on trying to locate Poland within the so-called European mainstream by presenting itself as a reliable and stable member state adopting a positive and constructive approach towards the main EU powers, so it was anxious to appear to be playing a positive role in helping alleviate the crisis. In the event, at the September 2015 EU summit Poland broke with its Central European allies and signed up to a burden-sharing plan which involved the country admitting 6,200 migrants as part of an EU-wide scheme to relocate 160,000 people in total by September 2017.

On the other hand, the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, at the time the main opposition grouping, bitterly opposed the EU plan arguing that Poland should resist pressure to take in migrants. The party warned that there was a serious danger of making the same mistakes as many West European states with large Muslim communities, which could lead to admitting migrants who did not respect Polish laws and customs and tried to impose their way of life on the country. While it always supported Polish EU membership in principle, Law and Justice was a broadly anti-federalist (verging on Eurosceptic) party committed to defending Polish sovereignty, especially in the moral-cultural sphere where it rejected what it saw as a hegemonic EU liberal-left consensus that undermined Polands traditional values and national identity. It viewed the migrant relocation scheme as part of this wider clash of cultures which also threatened the countrys national security.

Not surprisingly, therefore, Law and Justice accused the outgoing Civic Platform government of betraying its Central European allies by taking decisions under EU pressure that undermined Polish culture and security. It argued that the figure of a few thousand migrants was unrealistic because family members would be able to join initial arrivals and that the quota would be used as a precedent to force Poland to take in additional migrants in the future. Following its October 2015 election victory, the new Law and Justice government agreed initially to implement the scheme approved by its predecessor and, as a start, accept 100 migrants. However, in April 2016 it suspended the process arguing that the verification procedures for the vetting of migrants were insufficient to guarantee Polish national security. Since then Poland (along with Hungary) has not accepted any migrants under the EU scheme.

The migration crisis re-surfaced as a major issue last month when, in a sharp escalation of its dispute with Warsaw, the European Commission decided to launch the first step of a so-called EU law infringement procedure case against Poland (together with the Czech Republic and Hungary) for its refusal to implement the relocation plan. Although the first stage of the process simply requires Poland to give a formal response to letters of notice by the middle of July, it also opens the way for prolonged legal wrangling. The case could take up to five years to resolve at the European Court of Justice and only at this point would Poland face any possible financial penalties.

However, the governments critics argue that there could still be short-term political consequences as the Commissions action further weakens the position of a Polish government which, they say, has become increasingly isolated within the EU since Law and Justice took office. The Law and Justice administration has, for example, been involved in an ongoing dispute with the Commission since the latter initiated a rule of law procedure against Poland in January 2016 following the outbreak of a bitter, domestic political and legal row over the membership and competencies of the countrys constitutional tribunal. The governments opponents say this could have a negative impact in the next EU budget round, of which Poland is currently the largest net beneficiary, and the negotiations for which are due to begin in a few months. Law and Justice argues that, as EU budgets require unanimity, Warsaw can prevent any attempts to develop such linkages, although its critics say there are ways that this veto can be by-passed.

Shortly after the Commission launched its legal probe, Law and Justice prime minister Beata Szydo also came under fire for a speech that she made at a ceremony to mark the seventy-seventh anniversary of the first Polish prisoners arriving at the Auschwitz German death camp. Mrs Szydos comment that Auschwitz is a lesson showing that everything needs to be done to protect ones citizens was interpreted by the governments critics as a dog-whistle defence of her governments opposition to the EUs migrant quota plan. Earlier, during a May parliamentary debate Mrs Szydo had denounced the madness of the European elites for failing to stand up to terrorism and argued that the recent wave of Islamist attacks in Western Europe vindicated Warsaws refusal to comply with the relocation scheme. However, accusing her critics of cynicism, Law and Justice denied that Mrs Szydos remarks at the Auschwitz commemorations in any way referred to the issue of migration.

The Law and Justice government has responded by vowing to fight the Commissions infringement action all the way. It argued that the EU scheme was pushed through using a qualified majority vote on very weak legal foundations; Hungary and Slovakia have challenged it in a separate action which the Court of Justice is expected to give an initial ruling on within the next month. Law and Justice denounced the Commissions move as an instance of double standards, pointing out that, although Poland and Hungary were the only countries not to have taken in any migrants under the programme, no other EU member state had so far fulfilled its commitments. The party argued that Warsaw had shown solidarity by helping to protect the EUs external borders and allocating funds to aid victims of conflicts locally; although less than other countries, according to its critics. It also pointed out that Poland had taken in over one million migrants from war-torn Ukraine, thus easing migrant pressures on other EU countries; although the governments critics said that these were virtually all economic migrants rather than refugees.

In fact, most Poles are strongly opposed to the EU migrant quota scheme. A May 2017 survey conducted by the CBOS polling agency, for example, found that 70% were against accepting refugees from Muslim countries and only 25% in favour; with 65% still opposed even if Poland was threatened with financial penalties. Poland is an overwhelmingly Catholic country with very few ethnic minorities which has had little experience of the modern migrations that have transformed Western Europe. Poles are keen to avoid the kind of cultural and security problems that many of them feel West European countries have experienced through admitting large numbers of Muslim migrants who are seen as difficult to assimilate and embedding violent extremists within their communities. Not surprisingly, therefore, Law and Justice has made the European migration crisis one of the most important issues legitimising its government. Indeed, last month ruling party-backed President Andrzej Duda proposed holding a national referendum on the issue, possibly timed to coincide with the next autumn 2019 parliamentary election.

This is important because a key motivation for Poles voting overwhelmingly to join the EU in the countrys 2003 accession referendum, especially among the older generations, was the idea that the European integration process represented a symbolic re-uniting of Poland with a Western international community of shared values that they had always considered themselves to be part of culturally and spiritually. This notion of EU membership as a natural and obvious historical and civilisational choice has, however, come under strain in recent years due to an increasing sense of cultural distinctiveness that many Poles feel towards Western Europe. This was particularly evident in the sphere of moralcultural values where Polish attachment to traditional morality and national identity stands in stark contrast to the socially liberal, cosmopolitan consensus that predominates among West European cultural and political elites.The contrasting reaction of Poles (and other Central Europeans) to the European migration crisis highlighted this and raised questions about whether they actually wanted to make the same civilizational choices as West Europeans.

At the same time, the migration crisis has left Polands liberal-centrist opposition uncertain how to respond. Civic Platform, which is now the main opposition party, has undertaken dramatic political contortions on the issue trying to strike a balance between competing domestic and international pressures. On the one hand, party leader Grzegorz Schetyna was concerned to be seen to be responding to popular anxieties, so in May told a reporter that Civic Platform was against Poland accepting any refugees. Then, as it came under pressure from the strongly pro-EU liberal-left media and cultural establishment, Civic Platform rowed back saying that it was only against illegal migrants. Moreover, accusing Law and Justice of being anti-European and promoting xenophobia, Mr Schetynas party said that it favoured accepting a few dozen refugees as long as they were mostly women and children who were genuinely escaping armed conflict and had been vetted on security grounds.

However, one problem for Law and Justice is that a number of senior clergymen from Polands influential Catholic Church appear to disagree with the governments approach towards the migration issue. This is awkward for the ruling party which presents itself as a staunch defender of Christian values and enjoys a great deal of sympathy among Catholic bishops, clergymen and Church-linked civil society organisations. One suggestion made by the Church Episcopate has been to establish so-called humanitarian corridors for the medical treatment in Poland of a few hundred carefully selected refugees. However, although the government appears to be broadly sympathetic to this idea, it has also expressed concerns about the practicalities, specifically whether effective security controls can be implemented to vet these refugees, and has argued that it is easier to open hospitals on-site in refugee camps where more people could be treated.

Polands Law and Justice government has, therefore, taken an increasingly hard line against the EUs migrant re-distribution programme and appears ready for a lengthy legal battle with the Commission over the issue. The ruling party considers the migration crisis to be of huge political and symbolic importance going well beyond the numbers involved and raising vital concerns about national sovereignty, identity and security. Knowing that the vast majority of Poles are strongly opposed to the EU scheme, and that the liberal-centrist opposition is uncertain how to respond, Law and Justice will continue to use the issue to mobilise public support and thereby, it hopes, smooth the ruling partys path to re-election in 2019.

First published on LSEEuropp blog

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How Is The European Migration Crisis Affecting Polish Politics? - Social Europe

Mario Giro claimed that the Italians were having to negotiate hard with the bloc in order to help them resolve the current migration problem.

Some European countries, such as Poland and Hungary are facing losing funding from the European Union as they have taken a hardline stance against taking in their migrant quota.

Speaking on Al Jazeera, Mr Giro insisted that the country would not start handing out visas to migrants after a threat was being discussed.

He said: We are not preparing to deliver unilaterally visa.

GETTYYOUTUBE

The only thing that we are asking Europe is to let relocation function.

This is very important symbolically and politically.

The deputy foreign minister insisted that the Italians were having to fight hard tonegotiatea resolution with the Brussels bloc.

He continued: We are continuing topush because in Europe you know, particularly multilaterally, in general, the only thing that counts ishardnegotiation.

We are hardly negotiating on this issue with Europeans particularly.

The only thing that we are asking Europe is to let relocation function

Mario Giro

We are also doing a good job in the south with Libyans on one side and Africans on the other side.

Migration is a global affair to be globally resolved.

Mr Giro also voiced his concerns that the migration issue could play a massive role in recent elections in Germany and Italy.

This is a very political and controversial issue, he added.

The question of welcoming refugees coming from Africa and also from Asia it is a controversial question.

We think that we need a European Common Policy on one side and in the countries not to let the populistto havepolitical space, we also need a partisan policy.

In a bid to deal with the crisis, Italy threatened to invoke wartime legislation to hand out 200,000 temporary EU visas to asylum seekers which would allow the migrants to legally travel north using a Brussels directive.

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The Italian Government believes that they can exploit European Council Directive 2001/55, which was put in place after the Balkans conflict to give temporary European entry permits to a large number of displaced people.

Mr Giro and Luigi Manconi, a senator with the ruling Democratic Party, confirmed to The Times that the visa idea was being discussed.

Official figures show that at least 86,000 migrants have arrived in Italy this year alone.

Mr Giro told Il Manifesto: We are in a tug of war.

We dont accept being turned into a European hotspot, or feeling guilty because we rescue people, so deciding what to do with the migrants who arrive is everyones responsibility.

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Migrant Crisis - EU cracks after Italy threatens to hand out 200,000 ... - Express.co.uk