Italy's Renzi says EU must take responsibility for boat migrants
Tue Jun 24, 2014 3:11pm GMT
* Italy has rescued more than 50,000 boat migrants this year
* Navy operation costs 9 million euros per month
* EU border agency Frontex has provided only surveillance
By Steve Scherer
ROME, June 24 (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said on
Tuesday Europe must take responsibility for rescuing boat migrants crossing
the Mediterranean Sea from Africa by making a "significant investment" in
the region's border control agency, Frontex.
"A Europe that tells the Calabrian fisherman that he must use a certain
technique to catch tuna but then turns its back when there are dead bodies
in the sea cannot call itself civilised," Renzi said in parliament.
Italy's navy and coast guard have been patrolling the waters between Africa
and the Italian island of Sicily since October, when 366 people drowned
after their boat capsized just a mile from the Italian island of Lampedusa.
That tragedy focused world attention on the desperate risks taken by many
migrants, whose plight has been highlighted by human rights groups and Pope
Francis.
Italy's Mare Nostrum, or "Our Sea", navy mission costs about 9 million euros
($12.23 million) per month, and more than 50,000 migrants have been rescued
so far this year. Many are refugees fleeing civil war in Syria or forced
military service in Eritrea.
The 39-year-old Renzi, who will attend a summit in Brussels on Thursday and
Friday and takes over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU next week,
is trying to get member states to recognise that Mare Nostrum is in fact a
European border issue, and not only an Italian one.
"If, when facing the tragedies of immigration, we are told, 'This is not our
problem,' then I say keep your single currency and leave us our values," the
prime minister said.
Though about two-thirds of those who are rescued move on quickly to other EU
countries, member states have offered Italy little help with Mare Nostrum,
and Frontex has provided only limited air surveillance.
Italy - along with Spain, Greece and Malta - have been left mostly on their
own to manage the growing number of migrants who seek to enter the EU in
boats departing from North Africa, partly because increasing anti-immigrant
sentiment in countries like Britain and France makes it unpopular to help
out.
"Without stronger collective EU action, this summer could become the
Mediterranean's drowning season," Benjamin Ward, deputy director at Human
Rights Watch, said on Tuesday in a statement.
"EU leaders should give the financial and material backing to continue
Italy's vital efforts to save lives at sea and ensure that those who are
rescued land at a safe place and can have any asylum claims fairly heard,"
he said. ($1 = 0.7357 Euros) (With additional reporting by James Mackenzie;
editing by Ralph Boulton)