Tonight the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties Committee adopted a regulation establishing rules for improving the surveillance of the external sea borders in the context of operations coordinated by the Frontex Agency with the aim of avoiding another humanitarian tragedy.
ALDE spokesperson on the dossier, Cecilia Wikström (Folkpartiet, Sweden) said: “It makes sense to have common legally binding rules when engaging in joint operations at sea, both to avoid human tragedies, like the one off Lampedusa, from repeating and to ensure greater effectiveness. The lack of definition of responsibilities and the discretion allowed until now, based on the current non-binding guidelines relating, for instance, to “search and rescue situations” and “disembarkation”, has not helped overcoming the increasing death toll of migrants trying to reach Europe, or guaranteeing the respect of fundamental human rights”
“No migrant should ever be disembarked or forced to enter a country where his or her life or freedom are threatened based on race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation or political views”, continued Mrs Wikström who succeeded including a definition of non-refoulement principle when disembarking migrants. Moreover in case of disembarkation, intercepted and rescued persons shall be informed in a language they understand or may reasonably be presumed to understand. “The longer we delay this piece of legislation, the greater are the risks of another tragedy like in Lampedusa“, concluded Mrs Wikström, appealing to certain EU countries that are opposing the measure. A similar appeal was also launched by the Commission last week in its communication on the work of the Mediterranean Task Force.
Six Mediterranean Member States are currently opposing the legally binding nature of the EU provisions set out in Articles 9 (search and rescue) and 10 (disembarkation) of the Regulation.