European Union ministers on Monday approved a new Rome-based and Italian-led naval mission to destroy the boats of migrant traffickers, hopefully starting once UN approval is won next month. The decision came amid rising friction over a European Commission proposal for the 'fairer' distribution of refugees arriving from North Africa according to migrant quotas, easing the pressure on Italy, Greece and Malta.
It was the first time in 12 years that the EU foreign and defence ministers met in their so-called jumbo format.
"The ministers have approved a mission to destroy the business model of the (migrant) smugglers and the networks of traffickers in the Mediterranean," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini announced in a tweet.
The headquarters of the mission will be in Rome and it will be commanded by Italian Admiral Enrico Credendino, Mogherini said.
She said the EU was aiming to launch the mission when foreign ministers meet next on June 22, having hopefully obtained a green light from the UN Security Council. Britain is working on the relevant UN resolution with the aim of finding an agreement with Libyan authorities.
The ministers' meeting, Mogherini added, also launched the phase of "detailed planning" of the naval operation to bomb empty boats on the Libyan coast - an operation that requires the Security Council's OK. Mogherini was tasked with drawing up plans to "identify, capture and destroy" potential people-trafficking vessels before they can set sail with their human cargoes.
Meanwhile, on a visit to Tunis, Italian President Sergio Mattarella stressed the importance of finding "a political and not military solution" to the Libyan crisis, where efforts to establish a national-unity government have so far proved fruitless.
"The EU must take responsibility for migrant flows," Mattarella stressed.
On the quotas, both Mogherini and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni called for the implementation of the EC proposal on refugee and migrant quotas, after France suggested it might not be willing to take its share - a suggestion that came after Britain, Denmark and Ireland said they would avail themselves of opt-outs from the accord and amid reports that some eastern European countries will follow suit.
Mogherini, the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said that there must be no steps back on the EU's proposed new system of migrant quotas after the French government expressed reservations. The quotas were adopted by the European Commission as part of its Agenda on Migration in response to appeals from Italy for more help in managing the Mediterranean migrant crisis. "Sharing the responsibility of what we do with the people we save (at sea) is an integral part of the strategy (of the EU on migrants)," Mogherini said. "I expect the member States, those same member States that asked the EU to act speedily and effectively, to allow Europe to be effective in every aspect of this initiative - in the naval operation, in the saving of lives at sea and in the management of the people we save", she said.
Mogherini was echoed by Gentiloni, who said that the Italian government would be "bitter" if there were any reversals on the introduction of the new quota system.
At the weekend French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said his government was against the sharing out of economic migrants among EU member States, arguing they should be sent back home, but was in favour of people recognised as refugees being resettled. "I really hope that there are no steps back regarding the Commission's proposals," said Gentiloni.
"It would be very bitter if there were steps back".
Interior Minister Angelino Alfano also rejected France's efforts to revise the proposed quotas.
"Hands off the quotas," he reportedly said.
As the united front over common action appeared to be crumbling further, Spain also weighed in, urging the European Commission to revise its proposal for the mandatory quotas for sharing refugees. Foreign Minister José Manuel Garcia-Margallo said the effort at solidarity "must be proportional, fair and realistic, which the EC proposal is not".
The mayor of Italian stepping-stone island Lampedusa, Giusi Nicolini, said it was "ridiculous" to set the number of migrants to be settled across Europe at 20,000, "when there have already been 23,000 dead and it doesn't seem to have discouraged new arrivals". NATO, meanwhile, said through its secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, that it was "ready to contribute if requested" to the EU's unprecedented naval mission against human trafficking, but that the Alliance hadn't received any "specific request to contribute".
Stoltenberg added that one of the problems to be faced is that terrorists and foreign fighters could hide among the immigrants being trafficked.
Mogherini later said the link between terrorists and traffickers had yet to be proved.
"We have to respond to this turmoil, to these threats, in many different ways," Stoltenberg said.
Gentiloni, for his part, said that "NATO could certainly make a contribution" to the mission, suggesting transformation of the NATO mission Active Endeavour, an ongoing naval patrol operation aimed at deterring terrorist activity in the Mediterranean. Gentiloni said the EU naval mission would be "a mission of a few countries under a European umbrella with the authorization of the United Nations". Measures to stop people smugglers and share out refugees more fairly have moved to the top of the international agenda after a series of disasters in which hundreds of lives have been lost.
They are part of the EU's response to the vast numbers of illegal migrants from Africa and the Middle East crossing the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, from conflict zones like Syria, Iraq and Nigeria or from failed or repressive States like Somalia and Eritrea.
More than 1,800 migrants have died in the Mediterranean in 2015, a 20-fold increase on the same period in 2014.
The EU also aims to tighten co-operation with migrant transit countries in Africa, to make it easier to send economic migrants from sub-Saharan Africa home. Too many irregular migrants with no right to asylum manage to stay in Europe, the Commission says.
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