MEPs demand boost to Mediterranean rescue missions

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on Wednesday called for more search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean Sea.

Following a long debate on the current humanitarian crisis, in which as many as 1,500 migrants have died trying to reach Europe from north Africa, MEPs passed a resolution by 449 votes to 130, with 93 abstentions, calling for "everything possible" to be done to prevent further loss of life at sea.

The EP voted to expand the mandate of the European Union's (EU) Triton search and rescue mission to include operations "at EU level."

At an emergency summit of the European Council on April 23, EU leaders agreed to triple the annual funding for Triton, which operates off southern Italy, to 120 million euros (about 134 million U.S. dollars).

This will bring the Mediterranean search and rescue budget back to the level of the former Mare Nostrum, the Italian naval search and rescue operation which was abandoned last year after EU states could not agree on its continued funding.

Triton is coordinated by the EU border agency Frontex and currently extends only 30 nautical miles (55.5 km) from the Italian coastline.

But MEPs called for member states to go further, including binding quotas for receiving asylum seekers, bigger contributions to resettlement programs, better cooperation with third countries and tougher measures against people smugglers.

In the debate, European Council President Donald Tusk said the EU would confront smugglers and traffickers.

"The people smugglers in north Africa and elsewhere are cynical, ruthless and often violent," he said. "They take the life savings of desperate people and leave them to drown in the sea, worse they deliberately place vessels in dangerous situations."

He added that European leaders have asked the European Commission (EC) to take more action, including possible operations "to identify, capture and destroy the smugglers' vessels before they are used."

Binding quotas of asylum seekers for member states is a controversial issue. MEPs regretted that the April 23 European Council meeting did not agree a commitment to quotas.

Gianni Pittella, president of the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) group, said that the resolution approved by the EP had shown Parliament "to be much further along the road compared to the selfishness of some European governments."

"It is not fair that just five EU member states deal with the 80 percent of asylum requests," he said. "We also call on the EU to establish a binding mechanism for solidarity urging member states to make greater contributions to existing resettlement programs, especially for the states that have not been contributing anything."

European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group leader Syed Kamall agreed that countries with little immigration should take in more people fleeing persecution. But any arrangement should be based on "mutual trust" rather than compulsory quotas, he added.

Much of the debate focused on reducing the numbers of potential migrants. In the immediate future, MEPs conceded little could be done to bring greater to stability to countries like Libya and Syria to stem the flow of refugees, but more effective development aid for regions in Africa could be taken over the longer term to cut the number of economic migrants.

"The best way to protect people from drowning is to ensure that they do not get on the boat in the first place," said Tusk. "Almost none of the (recent) migrants are Libyans. Therefore, we will help the countries around Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Mali and Niger, among others, to monitor and to control the land borders and travel routes."

Pittella added that to solve the roots of the humanitarian crisis, the EU has to look at Africa with a long-term strategy. "As long as millions of African people have no choice but to run away from poverty, dictatorship, war and violence, the migratory flows will never stop. We know it but we still are not doing enough about it," he said.