European Commission Takes Measures to Tackle Migration, Actions Against Human Smugglers

The European Commission is planning to take a series of measures in order to deal with illegal migration and take strong actions against human smugglers.

Ii is estimated that in the first four months of 2015, almost 2,000 people lost their lives attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa to Europe. At the same time, thousands of migrants from Africa and refugees from war-torn Syria flood the Mediterranean shores on a daily basis.

Greece in particular is facing a major problem as hundreds of illegal migrants and refugees cross the Aegean Sea from Turkey and land in Greek shores. Many of them are often drowned as their overcrowded boats sink under bad weather.

The European Commission announced on Wednesday the agenda to address this emergency issue and outlined a new migration policy in order to distribute the share of responsibility among the 28 member-states.

The immediate actions to be taken are tripling the capacities and assets for Frontex operations Triton and Poseidon, implementing a temporary distribution mechanism for persons who clearly need protection, an EU-wide resettlement scheme, operations to fight human smuggling and dismantle human trafficking rings.

According to the European Commission official website, the four pillars of the new Agenda on Migration are:

Reducing the incentives for irregular migration, notably by seconding European migration liaison officers to EU Delegations in key third countries; amending the Frontex legal basis to strengthen its role on return; a new action plan with measures that aim to transform people smuggling into high risk, low return criminal activity and addressing the root causes through development cooperation and humanitarian assistance;

Border management – saving lives and securing external borders, notably by strengthening the role and capacity of Frontex; helping strengthen the capacity of third countries to manage their borders; pooling further, where necessary, certain coast guard functions at EU level;

Europe’s duty to protect: a strong common asylum policy: The priority is to ensure a full and coherent implementation of the Common European Asylum System, notably by promoting systematic identification and fingerprinting and with efforts to reduce its abuses by strengthening the Safe Country of Origin provisions of the Asylum Procedure Directive; evaluating and possibly revising the Dublin Regulation in 2016;

A new policy on legal migration: The focus is on maintaining a Europe in demographic decline as an attractive destination for migrants, notably by modernising and overhauling the Blue Card scheme, by reprioritising our integration policies, and by maximising the benefits of migration policy to individuals and countries of origin, including by facilitating cheaper, faster and safer remittance transfers.”

Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos stated that “Europe cannot be on stand by while lives are being lost. The European Agenda on Migration concretely responds to the immediate need to save lives and assist frontline countries with bold actions, including strengthened presence at sea of Frontex-coordinated vessels, €60 million in emergency assistance and an action plan to crack down on smugglers who take advantage and abuse vulnerable migrants. In a spirit of greater solidarity, we are determined to implement a comprehensive approach that will significantly improve the migration management in Europe.