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MIGRANT CRISIS

Italy impounds charity rescue ship under new migrant law

Italy detained a migrant rescue ship run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on Thursday for allegedly breaking new government rules on life-saving missions in the Mediterranean.

Published: 24 February 2023 16:34 CET

Migrants getting off a rescue ship in Sicily, Italy

The Geo Barents, run by Doctors Without Borders, was the first charity ship impounded under Italy's new migrant rescue decree. Photo by Gianluca CHININEA / AFP

The Geo Barents ship has been impounded for 20 days and will be fined between 2,000 euros ($2,100) and 10,000 euros ($10,590), MSF spokesman Maurizio Debanne said.

The seizure took place on Thursday, while Geo Barents was docked in Augusta, Sicily, and came just hours after parliament converted the new government’s controversial decree on migrant rescues into law.

READ ALSO: Italian court rules government’s anti-migrant decree unlawful

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the far-right Brothers of Italy party, took office at the helm of a coalition government in October after promising to curb the number of migrants landing in Italy.

The new law obliges charity ships to only perform one rescue at a time, which critics say increases the risk of deaths in the Central Mediterranean – the most perilous crossing in the world.

“It’s unacceptable to be punished for saving lives,” MSF said on Twitter, while Debanne said the charity was considering a possible legal challenge.

The seizure and fine follow a complaint by the port authority in Ancona that the Geo Barents “did not provide all the information requested during the last mission”, Debanne said.

The ship brought 48 rescued migrants to safety in Ancona, in the central region of Marche, last week.

Marche has been governed by Meloni’s party since September.

READ ALSO: ‘More will drown’: Italy accused of breaking international law on migrant rescues

Italy’s geographical position makes it a prime destination for asylum seekers crossing from North Africa to Europe, and Rome has long complained about the number of arrivals.

Over 14,000 migrants have landed in Italy since the start of the year, according to the interior ministry, up from just over 5,300 in the same period last year and 4,300 in 2021.

Charities only rescue a small percentage of those brought ashore, with most saved by coastguard or navy vessels.

But the government accuses charity ships of acting as a pull factor and encouraging people traffickers.

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Italy joins countries calling for asylum centres outside EU

The countries presented their joint stance in a letter dated May 15th to the European Commission, which was made public on Thursday.

It was sent less than a month before European Parliament elections across the 27-nation European Union, in which far-right anti-immigration parties are forecast to make gains.

Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania signed the letter.

In it, they ask the European Union’s executive arm to “propose new ways and solutions to prevent irregular migration to Europe”.

They want the EU to toughen its asylum and migration pact, which introduces tighter border controls and seeks to expedite the deportation of rejected asylum-seekers.

The pact, to be operational from 2026, will speed up the vetting of people arriving without documents and establish new border detention centres.

The 15 countries also want to see mechanisms to detect and intercept migrant boats and take them “to a predetermined place of safety in a partner country outside the EU, where durable solutions for those migrants could be found”.

They said it should be easier to send asylum seekers to third countries while their requests for protection are assessed.

They cited as a model a controversial deal Italy has struck with Albania, under which thousands of asylum-seekers picked up at sea can be taken to holding camps in the non-EU Balkan country as their cases are processed.

READ ALSO: Italy approves controversial Albanian migrant deal

The European Commission said it would study the letter, though a spokeswoman, Anitta Hipper, added that “all our work and focus is set now on the implementation” of the migration and asylum pact.

Differences with UK-Rwanda model

EU law says people entering the bloc without documents can be sent to an outside country where they could have requested asylum – so long as that country is deemed safe and the applicant has a genuine link with it.

That condition differentiates it from a scheme set up by non-EU Britain under which irregular arrivals will be denied the right to request asylum in the UK and sent instead to Rwanda.

Rights groups accuse the African country – ruled with an iron fist by President Paul Kagame since the end of the 1994 genocide that killed around 800,000 people – of cracking down on free speech and political opposition.

The 15 nations said they want the EU to make deals with third countries along main migration routes, citing the example of the arrangement it made with Turkey in 2016 to take in Syrian refugees fleeing war.

Camille Le Coz, associate director of the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank, said: “In legal terms, these models pose many questions and are very costly in terms of resource mobilisation and at the operational level.”

The opening date for migrant reception centres in Albania set up under the deal with Italy had been delayed, she noted.

With the June 6th-9th EU elections leading to a new European Commission, the proposals put forward by the 15 countries would go into the inbox of the next commission for it to weigh them, she said.

She also noted that EU heavyweights France, Germany and Spain had not signed onto the letter.

“For certain member countries, the priority really is the implementation of the pact, and that in itself is already a huge task,” Le Coz said.

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