EU naval mission nears launch

No agreement was reached on mandatory relocation after Tuesday’s meeting of ministers.

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker’s pitch for the mandatory relocation of asylum-seekers continues to face fierce resistance from EU countries, but a consensus is forming on a military operation to crack down on smugglers.

“If everything goes well, we could launch the operation on June 22 at the Foreign Affairs Council in Luxembourg,” says an EU diplomatic source involved in the talks.

Another diplomatic source from one of the Eastern European countries resisting the refugee relocation confirms the desire to move forward with military action to interdict smugglers. “There is a strong pessimism on the rest of the [Migration] Agenda,” the source said, “but there is a determination to launch the naval operation.”

EU ministers agreed last month to launch the mission against smugglers, as part of a response to a rash of tragic incidents in the Mediterranean, including one in which more than 800 migrants from Libya perished at sea trying to reach Europe.

The planned mission, called Eunavfor Med, would be divided into four stages. The first phase, as stated in the EU document approved on May 18, supports “the detection and monitoring of migration networks through information gathering and patrolling on the high seas in accordance with international law.” It would take place only in international waters, and so does not require UN approval.

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While several weeks ago the fate of the naval mission was foggy, member states are now moving toward final agreement to launch at least the initial steps.

However, the second phase, which includes “boarding, search, seizure and diversion” of vessels in the Libyan waters, would require the backing of the UN Security Council. The UK, France, Spain and Lithuania are currently drafting a UN resolution in New York.

One obstacle to UN support, agreement from Russia, appears to be slipping away. One diplomat involved in the negotiations told POLITICO that the Russians are “broadly supportive but have questions about the details.”

The Libya hurdle

Another more difficult obstacle for UN support is the tense political situation in Libya.

The North African country, from which the majority of migrants and asylum-seekers cross the sea to arrive in Europe, is torn apart between two capitals, Tripoli in the west and Tobruk in the east.

The UN envoy to Libya, Bernardino León, has been trying for months to reach an accord between the two capitals, but after drafting four different deals, he has failed to conclude an agreement.

 

León set a deadline to reach a deal by the beginning of Ramadan, which will start at the end of this week. It seems less and less likely that he will succeed.

“There is a strong pessimism on the success of the talks,” says Karim Mezram, a Libya expert at Washington-based Atlantic Council. “And even if he did, the problem would be how to turn the deal quickly into practice since, for example, the Libyans would have to set up a 120-people assembly.”

León “is now trying his last attempt, otherwise it is very likely that he will be forced to quit. There is a strong discontent for his work,” argues Arturo Varvelli, a Libya and terrorism expert at the Italian Institute for Political Studies.

Talks between the Libyans and the Europeans take place in Germany. The Libyans consider Berlin more neutral territory than France, which launched the military operation that toppled Colonel Muammar Gaddafi four years ago; and Italy, the former colonial power in the African country.

Meanwhile, the details of the EU naval mission are still in flux.

EU leaders have decided that the Italian admiral Enrico Credendino will lead the mission, with its headquarters based in Rome, but other details are still under discussion.

“We don’t know yet who exactly the admiral will respond to,” says an Italian military source involved in the preparation of the mission.

“We are planning the mission based on what the Council has decided. Any decision on the timing, the member states that will be involved and the rules of engagement will be defined shortly,” says another source at the Eunavfor Med headquarters in Rome.

Italy evokes ‘plan B’ on mandatory relocation

The military mission was also discussed during the Justice and Home Affairs Council taking place Tuesday in Luxembourg. But the main item of the Council meeting remains Juncker’s wider migration agenda.

The Commission president is resolutely defending his plans, despite weeks of push-back from several EU member countries who do not like its mandatory quotas.

“If European solidarity has a chance of manifesting itself, it should be on the topic of migration,” Juncker said last week in a radio interview with France Culture.

Yet the draft conclusions of the next summit of EU leaders, to take place on June 25 and 26, show the lack of consensus on the relocation and resettlement of asylum-seekers.

The main point of dispute remains the proposal for relocation of 24,000 asylum seekers from Italy and 16,000 from Greece to other EU countries.

However, after the Interior Minister meeting on Tuesday, the German minister Thomas de Mazière, his Italian colleague Angelino Alfano and his French counterpart Bernard Cazeneuve claimed to cooperate together on the problem.

“We three represent the core group of states that will hopefully come to a common agreement,” de Mazière said. “You see three friends standing here,” Cazeneuve said.

But so far, there is no compromise at the level of all 28 EU members. De Mazière was nevertheless optimistic: “For the first time I heard very constructive propositions from the Eastern European states. They might be willing to support the Migration Agenda, but only on a voluntary basis. That’s the right direction.”

In a draft obtained by POLITICO, the section on relocation is still completely blank, whereas the document focuses more on the details of a so-called return policy to “promote readmission of unauthorized economic migrants to countries of origin and transit.”

In an effort to find a compromise on the binding relocation, the Latvian EU presidency has asked member states to put forward new proposals.

But in the meantime, Italy’s Prime minister Matteo Renzi is increasing the pressure for other countries to accept the quotas.

 

“Redistributing just 24,000 people is almost a provocation,” Renzi said Sunday in an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera. “If Europe chooses solidarity, good. If it doesn’t, we have a Plan B ready. But it would first and foremost hurt Europe” he added without elaborating further on the alternative plan.

According to a source in the Italian government, Rome was pushing for at least 50,000 asylum seekers to be relocated, but at the end it got only 24,000.

Meanwhile the issue continues to smolder throughout Europe. On Saturday night, riot police were deployed along the Italian-French border after a group of around 150 migrants were denied entry into France.

Renzi also announced that he will meet the British Prime minister David Cameron and French President François Hollande in bilateral meetings before next week’s summit to discuss the issue.

Most refugees coming to the EU are currently landing in Italy and Greece. But whereas both countries are under pressure from the influx, it remains unclear how Greece will be able to handle the migrant pressure if it fails to strike a deal with its creditors by the end of the month.

On Monday, Günther Oettinger, the commissioner in charge of the digital economy and a senior figure of the German party CDU, told journalists in Berlin that Greece could soon turn into a crisis zone itself.

“We should work out an emergency plan” for the case of a Greek default, Oettinger said, “because Greece would fall into a state of emergency.”