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EU Approves Military Action to Fight Smugglers at Sea

© AP PhotoEuropean Union High Representative Federica Mogherini
European Union High Representative Federica Mogherini - Sputnik International
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European Union ministers have approved plans to use military force against people smugglers in the Mediterranean Sea.

Federica Mogherini, the EU's foreign and security policy coordinator said the aim was to launch the operation in June. The naval headquarters will be based in Rome under an Italian admiral. The UK is to play a lead role in any action.

The EU naval plan includes destroying smugglers' boats before they reach European shores. The areas around the Libyan coast would be flooded with radar and planes to identify potential smugglers. Then as part of the military offensive, the smugglers would be confronted and their vessels boarded to remove the migrants and arrest the crew — the boats subsequently destroyed.

According to the UK military think tank, Royal United Services Institute, the EU military plan was based on Operation Atalanta, the EU anti-piracy mission in the Gulf of Aden. A RUSI analysis report by Peter Roberts titled 'Five Reasons Why Militarising the EU Migration Plan Will Not Work' points out that:

"Piracy poses a threat to security, peace and good order… As such, the basis for action (Chapter 7 of the UN Charter) could be fairly implemented. Migration does not pose such threats and it would be a struggle for any western institution to make the case that it did… The UN, therefore, has a problem in finding a legal basis for the proposed EU plan."

Indeed, following the meeting in Brussels to approve EU military action, Britain's Defense Secretary, Michael Fallon said: "We are seconding some planning staff to think through the details of how it will work.

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"Any destruction of boats will require some legal authority and that has to come from the United Nations but we are not at that stage yet," he added.  

The use of military means to tackle the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean has come under fire from various human rights groups. German Catholic relief organization MISEREOR has severely criticized the proposals. Martin Brokelmann-Simon, MISEREOR's managing director told Catholic news agency KNA:

"Highly risky actions to fight smugglers, in which one also has to worry that the refugees themselves — those that these operations are supposed to be helping — could be struck in military attacks against boats, is the wrong answer to the deaths in the Mediterranean."

Brokelmann-Simon added that it was conflict and poverty in the nations the people come from which caused so many to migrate — not the people smugglers themselves.

Record numbers of people from Africa, Asia and the Middle East attempt the perilous journey across the Mediterranean Sea each year to reach Europe. Almost 90 percent of crossings commence in Libya, where people smugglers work with complete impunity in a lawless country.

Men, women and children are so desperate and determined to leave their old life that they risk losing it on board a wooden boat. According to Human Rights Watch 20,000 people have died attempting to make the crossing in the last decade. 2014 was the deadliest — with 3,400 drownings.

Military Force to Fight Migration

The EU naval response to the migrant crisis is proving to be more popular than Brussels' proposed EU emergency resettlement program for the migrants themselves. The proposed 'key' system set by Brussels will establish a quota system of sharing refugees among the 28 member states. The policy document says: "The EU needs a permanent system for sharing the responsibility for large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers among member states."

But Brussels' proposed EU emergency resettlement program isn't going down well with Britain's Home Office which says it will refuse to accept any refugees under the proposed program:

"We will not participate in any legislation imposing a mandatory system of resettlement or relocation."

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The plan backed by Germany will be launched by the European Commission. But Britain isn't the only country to reject the EU compulsory quota system.

Spain has said it has already done more than its fair share to help asylum seekers. Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and France have also rejected the resettlement proposal.

The UK has said it will help with the humanitarian mission to rescue migrants — but once rescued, the migrants will be taken to the nearest country to be processed. The European Commission argues that quotas are essential to solving the problem on what's now known as the Mediterranean graveyard.

Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Malta currently bear the burden of the increasing numbers of migrants desperate to reach Europe and fleeing war, poverty in Africa and the Middle East.

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