EU: European Commission technical mission to Libya: exporting Fortress Europe
01 March 2005
On 4 April 2005, a report was published on the European Commission technical mission in Libya from 28 November to 6 December 2004 involving experts from 14 member states, the Commission and Europol, and aimed at developing cooperation with Libya on illegal immigration. The mission’s stated goals involved obtaining an in-depth understanding of migration-related issues in Libya, identifying concrete measures for EU-Libyan cooperation in this field and to illustrate EU policy on this issue to the Libyan authorities.
Some key findings include the fact that Libya is not only a transit country towards the EU, but is predominantly a destination country, although the Libyan transit route to cross the Channel of Sicily to reach Italy (particularly the island of Lampedusa) or Malta is being used by increasing numbers of migrants. After a long period during which they applied an “open-door” policy in this field, Libyan authorities now perceive illegal immigration as a “growing threat with the dimension of a national crisis”, while the EU is concerned about the relationship between the emergence of the Libyan transit route and increasing pressure on EU borders.
Libya has a population of around 5.5 million, with 660,000 legal foreign workers in the country and between 750,000 and 1,200,000 “illegal” immigrants, with between 75,000 and 100,000 illegal entries on a yearly basis. Italy has reported that 14,017 migrants arrived from North Africa in 2003 and 12,737 arrived after setting off from the Libyan coast and landing either in Lampedusa, Sicily or the Italian mainland after crossing the Strait of Sicily. Malta recorded 1,369 arrivals by boat in the first ten months of 2004. Almost 2,000 would-be migrants are recorded as having perished out of approximately15,000 who attempted the sea-crossing.
Obstacles to effective border control include the length and characteristics of the Libyan border (4,400 km of land borders with 6 countries, much of which crosses the desert, and a 1,770 km coastline). The mission deemed that there is a need for a dramatic increase in the number of staff, improvement of training, the provision of appropriate equipment, the development of cooperation at an international level and between relevant services within Libya. The report highlights the lack of a refugee policy and Libya’s failure to sign the 1951 Geneva Convention on refugees, although provisions on this Convention and forbidding the repatriation of refugees exist in the national Constitution and in the Organisation of African Unity Convention on this issue that has been ratified by Libya. The return policy and related repatriation operations that the Libyan authorities are carrying out have resulted in the repatriation of 54,000 illegal immigrants in 2004 (5,688 of whom were deported using a charter flight program funded by Italy), whose return appears to be decided “without due consideration to detailed examination at an individual level”, and involves the use of reception camps whose conditions is described by the mission as varying “greatly, from relatively acceptable to extremely poor”. Bilateral cooperation only exists with Italy, involving repatriation of illegal migrants (including non-Libyans) arriving in Italy after transiting through Libya, training, permanent liaison for combating organised crime and illegal migration, supply of materials, the financing of a programme of charter flights to repatriate “illegal” migrants from Libya to their countries of origin, and of a camp for illegal migrants (two more have been planned), and Malta, with which a draft readmission agreement which includes third-country nationals has been reached.
The report stresses that although the absence of formal relations between the EU and Libya hinders cooperation on illegal immigration, available funding opportunities and instruments exist to develop initiatives (under the AENEAS, ARGO programmes and the Cotonou agreement for complementary actions<