EU: MED CRISIS: Press coverage (29-05-2015)
29 May 2015
EU's refugee plans need a reality check: The EU this week outlined plans to resettle and relocate refugees, but one expert taking a closer look at the proposals argues they put the rights of migrants and asylum seekers at risk. (The Local, link) Good critique of EU plans
EU border chief wants protection from armed smugglers: The EU’s border agency Frontex wants military protection from armed migrant smugglers as it expands operations in the Mediterranean and closer to the Libyan coast (euobserver, link)
British tourists complain that impoverished boat migrants are making holidays 'awkward' in Kos (Independent, link)
Mediterranean migrant crisis: Hundreds rescued off Sicily (BBC News, link) and
Migration: Are more people on the move than ever before? (BBC, link) with map
Italy Hands Smuggler Unprecedented Life Sentence as Europe Prepares for Migrant Deluge (BB, link)
Tunisian - and Top E.U. Generals - Fear Mission Creep Madness in Libya (The Daily Beast, link):
"A newly revealed classified document and a history of grave misjudgments warn against the dangers of the new EU plan to stop migrants.... Europe’s defense chiefs are warning their political superiors that the planned military mission to stop migrant-smuggling boats crossing the Mediterranean can lead to land operations in Libya and possible clashes with the Islamic State’s affiliate in that failing North African state, a turn of events bound to threaten neighboring Tunisia’s fragile equilibrium still further."
Tunisian PM Speaks Against EU Military Action to Stop Refugee Smugglers (Sputnik News, link):
"Tunisia opposes any military effort by the EU to tackle refugee smuggling across the Mediterranean Sea, Prime Minister Habib Essid said Thursday. “Tunisia’s position was always clear… We are originally against all military action, both to regulate political conflict and to regulate the problem with illegal smugglers,” Essid said in the European Parliament."
Migrants en Méditerranée: la Tunisie contre toute intervention militaire [Migrants in the Mediterranean: Tunisia against all military intervention] (rtbf.be, link):
"Habib Essid said that his country is "against any military intervention to solve this problem. This problem must be resolved upstream and downstream. These people take risks, sell everything they have around them to come to Europe, for more freedom, for better economic opportunities for work. I know the problems this poses for all countries of the European Union, but the solution is to look other than make occasional military interventions."
The European Parliament press release does not mention these comments:
Tunisia’s Prime Minister Habib Essid on security and migration challenges (pdf)
Before the Boat: Understanding the Migrant Journey (MPI, link):
"Deep, sophisticated insight into the decision-making process of those who undertake these journeys is necessary; without this information and a wider understanding of the political economy of migrant smuggling, policymakers essentially are making decisions in the dark."