(see related) (ANSA) - Rome, April 23 - Premier Matteo Renzi said Thursday he was "optimistic" that an EU emergency summit on migrants would show that "finally something in Europe has changed". He added that the Mediterranean migrant emergency was an international humanitarian law issue, not just a problem for the countries directly involved. "It's not just a problem for Italy and Malta," Renzi told reporters in Brussels before an extraordinary EU summit on the crisis. "It is a question of humanitarian law, security and justice".
Renzi pressed for following last weekend's boat disaster in which over 700 people are feared to have died. Sources said the EU is mulling "surgical operations" to combat people traffickers, who Renzi has compared to slave traders of the past. Among the actions Italy is proposing is the destruction of traffickers' boats before they are put to use. Also on the agenda at Thursday's emergency EU summit will be other ways to "destroy traffickers' business model (and) make their lives impossible", the sources said. This includes using Europol to hunt down and destroy "Internet content and materials traffickers use to attract migrants". As well, the sources said the summit will likely decide to double the budget for its Triton sea mission and widen its "range of action" - but without changing its mandate. The Triton operation, run by the EU border agency Frontex, took over from Italy's bigger and better-funded Mare Nostrum search-and-rescue operation last November. But it was given a different mandate from Mare Nostrum, focusing on border security rather than search and rescue. Critics have slammed Operation Triton as failing to meet the rescue demands of the thousands of people pouring into Europe each year via Italy's southernmost shores, many of them fleeing war in Africa and the Middle East.
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