EU seeks temporary deal over refugees and migrants rescued at sea

The European Union is attempting to agree on a temporary deal on the handling of migrants and refugees rescued at sea, after a push for wide-ranging reforms before the European elections failed to win support.

Diplomats are studying plans from the European commission for a temporary mechanism to manage rescue boats, after a series of incidents in which vessels were unable to dock in any Mediterranean port.

The latest case concerned 49 people who were at sea for almost three weeks onboard two German NGO ships, SeaWatch 3 and Sea Eye. They were allowed to disembark in Malta after a deal was struck to disperse them among eight EU member states.

Speaking in the European parliament on Tuesday, the European commissioner for migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said the incident was shameful and called for an end to “unorganised ad-hoc solutions”.

A spokeswoman said: “The commission stands ready to work with member states in order to set up temporary arrangements that can ensure solidarity with the most exposed EU countries, which can serve as a bridge until the new Dublin regulation becomes applicable.”

The Dublin regulation is a draft EU asylum law that has stalled over proposed quotas to distribute asylum seekers around the bloc. EU legislators – ministers and MEPs – have given up hope of a breakthrough before European elections in May.

The latest idea for a temporary fix would not include quotas, nor prejudge decisions on the Dublin regulation, according to one EU source. Elements could include EU funds to return refused asylum claimants to their home countries.

The plan has backing from around 10 member states, including France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands, but has run into opposition from Hungary, which argues that the policy would encourage more people to attempt the sea crossing.

The commission said it was not searching for unanimity but for a “critical mass of countries” to get the plan off the ground.

Avramopoulos held separate meetings with Italy’s far-right deputy prime minister, Matteo Salvini, and prime minister, Giuseppe Conte, in Rome on Monday to discuss the plans. The commissioner described the meeting as constructive; the Italian government has yet to comment.

Since Salvini closed Italian ports to NGO rescue boats last summer, EU countries have been scrambling to come up with ad-hoc arrangements whenever a vessel is stranded. The delays are seen as adding to the distress of those onboard and damaging to the EU’s credibility.

“From a political perspective, with every crisis that occurs in the Mediterranean the political leverage of the EU is diminishing rapidly,” said Hanne Beirens, an associate director at the Migration Policy Institute in Brussels.

She said the EU’s growing resistance to people coming from Syria had prompted other governments to question whether they should help. “We saw third countries that have been traditionally hosting a lot of refugees, in the Middle East or Kenya, becoming really resistant [and asking]: ‘OK, why should we continue to do this and should we not get more financial help?’”

Numbers of people crossing the Mediterranean has fallen sharply since the peak of the crisis, although Spain has seen a surge in arrivals. Beirens said these relatively low numbers could reduce the incentive to reach an agreement, but that a coalition of “the usual suspects” could strike a deal.

France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Malta and Ireland have typically been among the countries volunteering to take in refugees.

“I expect that de facto there will be some kind of operational agreement because [officials] cannot spend days on the phone each time,” she said. “The question is how long it takes those ad-hoc arrangements to become more long-lasting.”