Archive
EU: Mediterranean migration plan underpinned by more policing and border enforcement in repressive states
An extraordinary meeting of the EU Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) Council will take place tomorrow to discuss migration. The European Commission has published a plan setting out the general direction for action in the central Mediterranean. Other documents obtained by Statewatch shed more light on the matter: more intensive police cooperation with repressive states and externalisation of borders instead of relocation of refugees, in full knowledge of the dire situation for people seeking safety, in particular in Libya. Read More
Frontex: agency gives limited outline of role of surveillance in Mediterranean
Responding to a Parliamentary question, Frontex's reply, published here, gives a cursory outline of how its aerial surveillance fits into search and rescue operations, and the agency's knowledge of "Maltese Armed Forces apparently allow[ing] fully loaded and obviously unseaworthy vessels to sail through their maritime rescue zone without taking the necessary measures". Read More
UK strengthens policing cooperation with Malta
Press release published by the UK Home Office, 6 December 2021. Read More
EU: New report highlights impact of pandemic on reception facilities for asylum seekers
COVID-19 lockdown measures across Europe increased homelessness and destitution among asylum seekers due to evictions and the temporary closure of relevant administrations, says a new report by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS). Read More
EU: Ad-hoc relocation: A lottery from the sea to the hotspots and back to unsafety
A new report shows how people rescued at sea and brought ashore in the EU are "being denied their fundamental rights" through the ad-hoc relocation mechanism, through which people seeking international protection are relocated from maritime border states such as Italy and Malta to elsewhere in the EU. Read More
Malta: Magistrate calls for new prisons if number of false passport cases continues to rise
Up to a third of Malta's prison population is made up of people who have been jailed for offences involving false passports. Some 250 people are currently behind bars for such offences. Whilst sentencing a Moroccan national to six months for use of a false passport, a magistrate recently said "that new facilities would need to be built to accommodate such offenders if the trend continued," and said there was a "dire need for a European and International mechanism for dealing with such cases." Read More
Mediterranean: Nine new legal proceedings against civil search and rescue ships since June 2020
Over 1,000 people have died in the Mediterranean in 2020 and EU member states are still halting civilian search and rescue initiatives. An overview produced by the EU's Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) documents nine new legal proceedings against civil search and rescue ships seeking to operate in the Mediterranean since June 2020, making a total of 50 proceedings since the beginning of 2018. The proceedings launched since June are all administrative in nature, but some of the 50 invoke criminal law against the crews of rescue ships, the organisations operating them or the vessels themselves. Read More
EU military mission aids pull-backs to Libya, with no avenues for legal accountability
An EU military operation is assisting the Libyan Coast Guard in ‘pull-backs’ of people trying to cross the Mediterranean, by providing information on the location of boats in distress. Despite admitting that Libya is not a safe country in which to disembark people, the EU argues that it is acting according to international law. Legal experts say otherwise, but given the complex legal structure of EU security and defence missions, holding anyone accountable for this assistance with ‘pull-backs’ may prove difficult. Read More
EU: Frontex on cooperation with Libya: nothing to see here
Two recent Amnesty International reports have highlighted the role played by EU institutions, agencies and member states in facilitating 'pull-backs' by the Libyan Coast Guard (LCG). Amnesty argues that collaboration with the LCG in this way violates international law. In a response to Amnesty, Frontex has avoided any meaningful engagement with the issues raised. Read More
ICS, UNHCR and IOM call on States to end humanitarian crisis onboard ship in the Mediterranean
In a joint press release, two UN agencies and a global industry body have called on the International Maritime Organization to take steps to ensure that the Maersk Etienne cargo ship is allocated a port of disembarkation. 27 rescued people have been trapped on board the ship for over a month. Read More