EU preparing to start migrant operation before UN approval

The EU is preparing to move ahead on its anti-migrant smuggling operation prior to UN approval, while fretting over the potential loss of life the mission could entail.

A 19-page blueprint, prepared by the EU foreign service ahead of ministers’ talks on Monday (18 May), and seen by EUobserver i, notes that intelligence-gathering and “seizure” of ships can begin before the UN Security Council (UNSC) gives the green light in a “Chapter VII” resolution.

The paper says the EU doesn’t need UN approval to start “force generation”, or to task the EU’s satellite centre in Spain and member states’ aircraft to begin surveillance of potential targets.

It notes that “if using assets other than satellites” it would require “host nation approval” from Libya, Egypt, or Tunisia.

It adds that if the ships have a national flag, they can only be seized “with the consent of this [flag-issuing] state”. But they can still be "boarded" and "searched" even without the state's permission.

If they don’t they can be seized “provided that the warship conducting the seizure is so authorized under its own national law”, or boarded and searched “even in the absence of a warship having its own national legal approval”.

The EU foreign service chief, Federica Mogherini, began lobbying the UN for a Chapter VII mandate last week, with EU leaders hoping to launch the operation in June.

Russia has voiced opposition.

German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in the margins of a Nato meeting in Turkey on Thursday: “My impression is that there is no veto in principal from one of the veto powers in the Security Council”.

But the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a Geneva-based intergovernmental body, has voiced “serious concerns” over the EU’s military plan.

The UN’s special envoy on migration, former EU commissioner Peter Sutherland, has also warned that “innocent refugees”, including children, could be placed “in the line of fire”.

If the EU gets Chapter VII approval, it aims to start “destruction of smugglers vessels and assets on the high seas” and in the “sovereign territorial waters” of host states whether or not those states or the flag-issuing states agree.

It is to involve: “Boarding teams; patrol units (air and maritime); amphibious assets; destruction air, land and sea, including special forces units”.

It also aims to park warships in Libyan waters in order to “deter” migrant smugglers and human traffickers.

It notes, despite Mogherini’s statements to the contrary last week, that “a presence ashore might be envisaged if agreement was reached with relevant authorities” for the sake of “seizure and/or physical destruction of smuggling-enabling assets (e.g. boats, fuel dumps, embarkation facilities) … at anchor, alongside or ashore”.

The EU blueprint makes it clear that people are likely to get killed.

Echoing the IOM and Sutherland’s concerns, it says: “Non-compliant boarding operations against smugglers in the presence of migrants has a high risk of collateral damage including the loss of life”.

With no central government exercising control in Libya, it says: “the existence of heavy military armaments (including coastal artillery batteries) and military capable militias present a robust threat to EU ships and aircraft operating in the vicinity”.

It adds: “The terrorist presence in the region also constitutes a security threat. Action taken ashore could be undertaken in a hostile environment”.

It also warns that: “Any casualties as a result of EU action could trigger a negative response from the local population and the wider region, jeopardising support and follow-up”.

The paper says the operation should initially last on year but it’s likely to last longer.

The EU paper says it should only be wound down when Libyan authorities “demonstrate sufficient control of the Libyan coast to tackle the smuggling of migrants”.

But it notes that “kinetic action along Libyan coasts might oblige smugglers to shift their tactics and change their departure sites, eventually relocating them in neighbouring countries”.

To an extent, the shift is already taking place.

Fabrice Leggeri, the head of the EU’s Warsaw-based border control agency, Frontex, told the Associated Press on Thursday: "There is a shift from the central Mediterranean to the eastern Mediterranean" as people try to get from Turkey to Greece by sea.

"They are moving very quickly, so we have to be flexible."

Meanwhile, the operation won’t solve the problem of what to do with the migrants themselves.

The paper says there were already 10,237 “illegal border crossing” attempts in the Mediterranean Sea so far this year, while Italy estimates 200,000 people are in Libya waiting to make the attempt.

It notes that under international law, any migrants intercepted by EU vessels “need to be transported or towed in the safest conditions to pre-identified (in subsequent planning) ports of debarkation where local authorities will take the responsibility to care for the survivors an adopt the necessary measures in case of asylum seekers”.

It adds that it’s unclear what the EU should do with any human traffickers whom it arrests.

“The arrest of smugglers may be a situation faced by the EU operation. The subsequent issue of management of arrested smugglers requires agreed protocols … which will need to be developed in further planning”.

The European Commission last week unveiled proposals for EU national quotas for taking in asylum seekers in order to relieve the burden on Greece, Italy, and Malta.

But the plan has already met with robust criticism from the UK and Hungary.