page_title: European migrant crisis
section_title: Securing borders
hierarchical_section_title: European migrant crisis / EU's management of the crisis / Securing borders
caption_attribution_description: Magyar: Migránsok Magyarországon a szerb határnálEnglish: Migrants in Hungary near the Serbian border Русский: Мигранты подлезают под колючей проволокой на границе Сербии и Венгрии
context_page_description: The European migrant crisis, also known as the refugee crisis, was a period characterised by high numbers of people arriving in the European Union overseas from across the Mediterranean Sea or overland through Southeast Europe. In March 2019, the European Commission declared the migrant crisis to be at an end.
  The migrant crisis was part of a pattern of increased immigration to Europe from other continents which began in the mid-20th century. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees observed that from January 2015 to March 2016, the top three nationalities among over one million refugees arriving from the Mediterranean Sea were Syrian, Afghan and Iraqi.
  Many refugees that arrived in Italy and Greece came from countries where armed conflict was ongoing or which otherwise were considered to be "refugee-producing" and for whom international protection is needed. However, a smaller proportion was from elsewhere, and for many of these individuals, the term "migrant" would be correct. Immigrants included asylum seekers and economic migrants.
context_section_description: The 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwreck involved "more than 360" deaths and led the Italian government to establish Operation Mare Nostrum, a large-scale naval operation that involved search and rescue, with migrants being brought aboard a naval amphibious assault ship. The Italian government ended the operation in 2014 amid an upsurge in the number of sea arrivals in Italy from Libya, citing the costs were too large for one EU state alone to manage; Frontex assumed the main responsibility for search and rescue operations under the name Operation Triton. The Italian government had requested additional funds from the EU to continue the operation but member states did not offer the requested support. The UK government cited fears that the operation was acting as "an unintended 'pull factor', encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and thereby leading to more tragic and unnecessary deaths". The operation consisted of two surveillance aircraft and three ships, with seven teams of staff who gathered intelligence and conducted screening/identification processing. Its monthly budget was estimated at €2.9 million. In the first half of 2015, Greece overtook Italy in the number of arrivals and became the starting point of a flow of refugees and migrants moving through Balkan countries to Northern European countries, mainly Germany and Sweden in the summer of 2015 .
  The Guardian and Reuters noted that doubling the size of Operation Triton would still leave the mission with fewer resources than Operation Mare Nostrum which had a budget thrice as large, four times the number of aircraft, and a wider mandate to conduct search and rescue operations across the Mediterranean Sea.
  On 23 April 2015, a five-hour emergency summit was held and EU heads of state agreed to triple the budget of Operation Triton to €120 million for 2015–2016. EU leaders claimed that this would allow for the same operational capabilities as Operation Mare Nostrum had had in 2013–2014. As part of the agreement the United Kingdom agreed to send the HMS Bulwark, two naval patrol boats, and three helicopters to join the Operation. On 5 May 2015 Irish Minister of Defence Simon Coveney announced that the LÉ Eithne would participate in the response to the crisis. Amnesty International immediately criticised the EU's response as "a face-saving not a life-saving operation" and said that "failure to extend Triton's operational area will fatally undermine today's commitment".
  On 18 May 2015, the European Union launched a new operation based in Rome, named EU Navfor Med, under the command of the Italian Admiral Enrico Credendino, to undertake systematic efforts to identify, capture and dispose of vessels used by migrant smugglers. The first phase of the operation launched on 22 June 2015 and involved naval surveillance detecting smugglers' boats and monitoring smuggling patterns from Libya towards Italy and Malta. The second phase, called "Operation Sophia", started in October and was aimed at disrupting the smugglers' journeys by boarding, searching, seizing, and diverting migrant vessels in international waters. The operation used six EU warships. As of April 2016, the operation rescued more than 13,000 migrants at sea and arrested 68 alleged smugglers.
  The EU sought to increase the scope of EU Navfor Med so that a third phase of the operation would include patrols inside Libyan waters in order to capture and dispose of vessels used by smugglers. Land operations on Libya to destroy vessels used by smugglers had been proposed, but commentators note that such an operation would need a UN or Libyan permit.
  Eleni Rozali reported in 2016 that the Greek islands (Kos, Leros, Chios, for example) served as main entry points into Europe for Syrian refugees.
  The entry routes through the Western Balkan experienced the highest intensity of border restrictions in the 2015 EU migrant crisis, according to The New York Times and other sources, and are as follows:
caption: Migrants crossing illegally into Hungary underneath the unfinished Hungary–Serbia border fence, 25 August 2015
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