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May 19th, 2015 
David Schulberg 
European Union foreign ministers have agreed to form a naval mission in the Mediterranean Sea targeting gangs smuggling refugees from Libya to Europe. The decision was made during a meeting in Brussels.
The move will “disrupt the business model of smugglers and
traffickers’ networks in Mediterranean,” according to EU
foreign affairs chief, Federica Mogherini.
The European Union aims to capture smugglers and destroy their
boats off the Libyan coast in an effort to tackle the rising
number of migrants fleeing North Africa for Europe. However, many
countries want UN authorization before acting on that plan.
“This is just the beginning. Now the planning starts,”
Mogherini said, adding that the naval mission may start as early
as July.
“There is a clear sense of urgency. As summer comes, more
people are traveling,” the EU foreign affairs chief is cited
as saying by Reuters.
The headquarters for the operation will be based in Rome, with
Italian rear admiral Enrico Credendino set to head the operation
during its initial year-long mandate, she said.
According to the EU foreign policy chief, the operation will
consist of three main phases – intelligence gathering, inspection
and detection of smuggling boats, and destruction of the captured
vessels.
Mogherini also said that the EU would seek co-operation from
Libya to destabilize the smugglers’ networks and is ready to work
with both the UN-recognized government in Tobruk and its rivals
in Tripoli and Misrata.
“We are looking for a partnership. There is a responsibility
the Libyans themselves have to take on their territory, for the
land and sea borders,” she said.
However, the Libyan government in Torbuk has already called the
mission a “very worrying” prospect, expressing fears that the EU
warships may mistakenly target fishing boats in the
Mediterranean.
The European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE) also expressed
concern saying the operation would only cause even more people to
lose their lives.
“An unintended consequence of this mission is that it may
even lead to more deaths. If there is a shortage of vessels, even
more people will be packed into them. There is even a
possibility, given the desperate situation these people face,
that they might try to construct their own boats,” Michael
Diedring, ECRE secretary-general, stressed.
Previously, Mogherini had stated that such an EU naval mission
would increase the chances of the United Nations Security Council
granting authorization for a more aggressive mission.
READ
MORE: Prize operatives’: ISIS smuggling fighters into Europe
‘disguised as refugees’
A more aggressive initiative from Europe is exactly what NATO
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is lobbying for, since Islamic
State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) militants might be “also
trying to hide, to blend in among the migrants” in order to
get to Europe.
On Friday BBC reported that Islamic State militants are allegedly
being disguised as refugees on boats crossing the Mediterranean.
The journey from North Africa to Europe is an extremely dangerous
one, with 3,500 people dying in the Mediterranean in 2014 alone.
A total of 1,800 have already drowned in 2015, a 20-fold increase
from the same period last year, according to the UN Refugee
Agency.
Political writer, Dan Glazebrook, has criticized the EU plans,
suggesting that the naval mission is likely to prove fruitless or
even counterproductive.
The smaller operators, now running smuggling and trafficking from
Lydia, won’t be able to withstand the European warships, but it
wouldn’t mean that the trade would stop, Glazebrook wrote in his
opinion piece for RT.
READ MORE: EU’s war on migrants will boost ISIS – but perhaps
that is the point
The illegal business would move into the “hands only of those
with the firepower necessary to run the operation in the newly
militarized terrain – that is to say, in the hands of groups such
as ISIS and Al-Qaeda. And they would be doing so in a market that
would have become immeasurably more profitable,” he
stressed.
“Thus, the practically guaranteed result of the EU’s strategy
would not be to eliminate the ‘people smuggling trade, but to
ensure that it helped concentrate massive wealth and firepower in
the hands of Libya’s most violent gangs,” Glazebrook added.
Source Article from http://rt.com/news/259781-eu-naval-mission-refugees/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=RSS
EU agrees to Mediterranean naval mission to stop migration flow amid controversy
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