EU Ad Hoc Relocations - 5
Channel: BnC Coop
Date: 2021-05-03

The current EU ad hoc relocation system is the result of a political approach that, over the last two years, has made the disembarkation of people rescued from distress at sea subject to temporary relocation agreements. It aims at moving persons arriving in Italy or Malta to a different European Member State. Starting from July 2018 and in the context of the closed-ports policy implemented by the former Italian government, these agreements – which were supposed to work as an “exception” to the principles of the Dublin regulation – have represented the EU's response to manage the arrival of people rescued at sea in Italy and Malta. Coordinated by the European Commission, the EU Member States adopted a ship-by-ship approach in order to address the refusal of Italy and Malta to allow disembarkation of people rescued by NGO (and sometimes military) vessels.

Since summer 2018, disembarkations have been accompanied by long-lasting negotiations in which some EU Member States have taken responsibility by accepting a specific quota of rescued people, as Italian and Maltese authorities would have otherwise denied entry into their ports.⁴ This has resulted in a series of delayed disembarkations (standoffs) that have forced rescued people to stay at sea for prolonged periods of time in extremely precarious and unsafe conditions, while waiting for the outcomes of these negotiations on European level.⁵ By threatening SAR NGOs and forcing them into long standoffs at sea, the Italian and Maltese governments attempted to pressure the EU Commission to renegotiate the criteria that assigns responsibility for the processing of asylum applications to the country of first arrival, as defined by the Dublin Regulation. The Dublin regulation has been considered as a burden by southern EU countries ever since its implementation.

More info: https://eu-relocation-watch.info/