Debate: The need for EU action on search and rescue in the Mediterranean
Date: WEDNESDAY, 12 JULY 2023
Speaker: Ylva Johansson
Language: EN

We must honour the dead, help the survivors establish the facts. What appears to have happened is that the smugglers brought the victims to the trawler that was to be their tomb, packed them like sardines, like cattle, like cargo. Possibly 750 people, women and children down below. The boat drifting, rocking. We can imagine the panic spreading. In the dead of the night, the  I immediately contacted Frontex Executive Director Hans Leijtens. I also spoke with the Greek caretaker government and the head of the Hellenic Coast Guard. And with the newly appointed Greek ministers last week. Our agencies intervened also immediately. Frontex by air identified the vessel at the scene. The Frontex Executive Director was on the ground in Greece the next day to support. Frontex also launched a serious incident report. The EU Asylum Agency helped survivors in Malakasa – just over 100 people were saved from the sea after the  There are many unanswered questions here. Now we need to establish exactly what happened every step of this fatal journey. Why the  We know that the practice of irregular departures from eastern Libya have increased by 600 % this year. Libya remains a very complicated situation as again shown recently. And let me make clear, coast guards have to carry out their responsibilities in full respect of international law. This means any demonstrations of violence is unacceptable.  Let us remember our fundamental principle: our first duty is to save lives. This is what coastguards in countries of first entry are doing on a daily basis. The EU does everything in its power to support Member States on search and rescue. This year alone, Frontex helped to save 20 000 lives.  The Commission relaunched the Search and Rescue Contact Group and pushes Member States to make progress working towards a common framework on search and rescue. And in the pact, we have proposed special solidarity measures for search and rescue.  Any serious attempt to saving lives has to be also include developing legal pathways and information campaigns along irregular routes to alert people of deadly dangers. We are supporting such campaigns in Morocco, in Tunisia, in Niger, in Senegal, in Mauritania, in the Gambia.  But we also need to fight the smugglers, the smugglers who sold people tickets not to Europe but to their deaths. Last week, Europol announced that the dismantling by Spain of a smuggling gang, which spanned nine countries. We have set up by operational anti-smuggling partnerships with Niger, with Morocco, with Tunisia. I welcome Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif’s order to crack down the smugglers right after the disaster. And we are working with Senegal on the Atlantic Route, a route that again this week revealed how deadly it is.  Last month, we proposed a toolbox to address misuse of commercial transport for irregular migration. We must change smuggling from a low-risk, high-profit crime into a high-risk, low-profit crime. And we need EU laws fit for purpose. I’ve already issued guidance on the non-criminalisation of genuine humanitarian assistance. And now the Commission is also assessing the facilitators package, which is over 20 years old.  Last Tuesday, I was in Lampedusa with Italian Minister Piantedosi. 4 000 people had arrived over the weekend, the majority immediately transferred, only 500 were left. The facilities were dignified and respectful. I met a young man from Chad, a young woman from the Ivory Coast. There were so full of energy, of plans and ambition. They were already learning Italian. Our economies need young people like this. They told me they had walked two months through the desert before paying the smugglers taking the boat from Tunisia. This is not the way to come to Europe. We need to continue to work on legal pathways. We will implement a talent partnership for labour migration, and in October I will propose an EU talent pool to match talent with employers.  I have also asked Member States to pledge generously on the resettlement for refugees. Only with a comprehensive approach, preventing irregular departures, fighting smugglers, improving legal pathways, working in close partnership with countries of origin and transit can we manage migration safely and effectively.  And, of course, we need an agreement on the pact. We are making good progress and I welcome the message from the Spanish Minister of State on the good progress that the Spanish Presidency is now doing. I call on you all to seize the opportunity to reach an agreement within this mandate.  Above the