After the BBC’s revealing report, Greece-EU is facing a new round of negative international publicity.
Many authoritative international media conclude that the Greek Coast Guard authorities contributed to the dimensions of the tragedy with over 500 dead and missing. The interest is justified since it is the second largest shipwreck, in terms of human losses, since 2014. On April 18, 2015, a boat heading from Western Libya to Italy sank with the loss of more than 800 refugees and migrants.
From 2014 until today, it is estimated that more than 27,000 people have lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean or the Aegean Archipelago, in search of safety and a better life in the EU.
Despite the losses and the restrictive measures, the passage to the E.U. it continues in various more or less dangerous ways. As a rule, it is organized by rings of traffickers who reap huge profits.
50,318 refugees and migrants arrived in the EU. from the Central Mediterranean in the five months January-May 2023 and 10,285 from the Eastern Mediterranean while 4,329 arrived in the E.U. from the Western Mediterranean. Another 30,717 took the Western Balkan route and 4,329 the Canary Islands. Finally, 15,855 arrived in the UK by crossing the English Channel.
The numbers are not considered particularly large. After all, the main feature of 2022 was the refugee of 4-5 million Ukrainians in EU countries, especially in Poland which has an extremely harsh policy towards other refugees and immigrants.
But it is open to the Ukrainians and welcomes them in a very good way on the grounds that they are a neighboring people threatened by Russia just as Poland was at critical periods in its history.
Therefore, it is not the numbers that scare the European public opinion regarding the flows from the south and the east, but the composition and the fact that countries that send them to the EU, such as Libya and Syria, have particularly negative characteristics. Moreover, there is no serious possibility that they will return home as it is hoped will happen to the Ukrainians when Russian aggression is checked.
At the moment, Greece is paying, with negative international publicity, a hard geopolitical game and the inability of the Greek Coast Guard – as well as Frontex – to operate based on rules that would combine effective dealing with trafficking rings and limiting the risk faced by the desperate who resort to them.
Libya and Marshal Haftar
Libya has been destabilized since 2011, when European forces played a leading role in the fall of the Gaddafi regime without, unfortunately, preparing for the next day.
The country has… two governments. One is based in Tripoli and is internationally recognized with Abdel Hamid Dbeiba as prime minister. It controls the capital and Western Libya with military support mainly from Turkey. Recently, government forces launched an attack on Zawiya, 50 km from Tripoli, with a military unit trained in the use of Turkish drones. It was a show of force to supporters of the government of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, who controls eastern Libya, Cyrenaica.
Until now, the trafficking of refugees and immigrants to the EU was carried out from the areas under the control of the Tripoli government. This is beginning to change with areas under the control of Khalifa Haftar sending more to the EU. The fatal fishing boat that swept over 500 to their deaths had set off from Tobruk, Eastern Libya.
This shift has an interesting international political dimension. More and more Egyptians are crossing, due to the deterioration of the economic and social situation in their country, to Eastern Libya. This passage is combined with migrant trafficking. It is typical that the fatal boat was a fishing boat bought in Egypt.
At the same time, thousands of refugees and immigrants from Pakistan, Syria and Bangladesh are arriving by air from Damascus to Benghazi, the capital of Cyrenaica.
According to the report, the price of the ticket is 1,500 euros, there is a charge of 500 euros for… administrative reasons, that is, in favor of the circuit that organizes these flights from Syria.
There are an estimated three such flights from Damascus to Benghazi a week, carrying refugees, migrants, weapons and even Captagon, a hallucinogen produced on a large scale in Syria and a key export of the Assad regime.
Another reason Haftar has started sending people to Italy is believed to be his opposition to the country’s government, which recently signed major energy deals worth €6 billion with the Tripoli government.
Libya without elections
In theory, the UN as well as the EU they are putting pressure on the two rival governments to organize elections that are supposed to democratically elect a government that will control the whole of Libya.
But the theory has nothing to do with reality. Elections are constantly being postponed and the two leaders, Dbeiba and Haftar, are negotiating behind closed doors to share Libya’s power and wealth.
One of his sons is negotiating on behalf of Haftar and his nephew on behalf of Dbeiba. In 2022 there was an agreement under which Haftar allowed oil exports mainly from eastern Libya in exchange for the Central Bank of Libya, which is controlled by the Tripoli government, to pay him a significant percentage of the revenue in order to finance the his own authority.
In order to sign this agreement, the UAE (United Arab Emirates), which is Haftar’s main supporter, intervened. They now wield enormous influence over the Libyan National Oil Company through its new president, who was installed in July 2022 and has been residing, for years, in Abu Dhabi.
The situation is complicated by the fact that Haftar’s forces are largely controlled by the Russian Wagner mercenaries. Another of Haftar’s sons leads a well-organized brigade operating in the south of the country with the help of Wagner. It is worth noting that Russian mercenaries control bases of strategic importance in Haftar’s area, which increases the concern of Europeans and Americans.
Erdogan’s recent re-election prepares for greater Turkish influence in the Tripoli government as it serves Turkish energy interests and prepares a leading role for Turkish companies in the future reconstruction of Libya.
Moreover, the two powerful men see their power limited in conditions of great uncertainty. Haftar, now 79 years old, is preparing a regime in which his sons will succeed him, but who are not accepted by the tribes of Eastern Libya.
In Tripoli, Dbeiba’s popularity is plummeting as government corruption and incompetence deprive the majority of Libyans of the basics.
So we have a complex situation in Libya where putting pressure on the international community through the flows is a great temptation for both opposing governments.
Assad’s return
Lately, the return of the Syrian leader Assad has been promoted in the international spotlight, in a way that complicates the refugee-immigrant management even more. Assad is the big winner of the civil war that began in 2011 and resulted in 500,000 deaths and the forced displacement of 12 million Syrians, about half of them in neighboring Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE recently decided to accept Assad’s return to the Arab League from which he had been expelled because of the calamity he caused his country’s population.
The Saudis have taken the initiative, believing that it is better to influence Assad, with their financial capabilities, to become more cooperative, to join a broader Middle East peace plan that requires consultation with Israel, and to stop the exports of Captagon “harvesting” in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq.
Assad has asked for an initial $4 billion in funding, but the Saudis have become more demanding when it comes to funding regimes in financial limbo, as evidenced by their tougher stance on Egypt’s Sisi.
The openings in Syria are of great interest to EU countries. such as Italy and Greece which at times face large flows of refugees and immigrants.
They would be interested in starting the great return of the millions of Syrians who have fled abroad. Unfortunately, we seem to be far from it.
Those who fled abroad are treated by its oppressive machinery as… traitors or suspects who must be punished. In most cases their homes have been destroyed, their relatives and friends have been dispersed, while any assets they have have been passed on to others without any serious possibility of a legal claim.
According to a UN survey, only 1.1% of Syrian refugees and migrants aim to return to their homeland in 2023, while 44% say they have lost all hope of returning.
This does not prevent Assad from playing on the international community’s desire for some kind of normalization regarding refugees and immigrants from Syria. It seems he is also trying to exert pressure through his good cooperation with Haftar.
For Greece, the normalization of the situation in Syria – which unfortunately is not foreseen – would have significant beneficial effects. It would limit the pressure from Turkey where 4 million Syrians are, it would reduce the flows from Eastern Libya. Cyprus would also be relieved, which from time to time comes under pressure from the movement of Syrian refugees who have taken refuge in Lebanon by sea.
Frictions in the E.U.
The member countries of the E.U. they have a different approach to refugee-immigrants, which is colored by their history and interests.
In 2022 we had a period of tension in the relations between Italy and France over where exactly the refugees rescued by the NGO ships in the Mediterranean would end up.
The latest maritime tragedy has already led to some tension between Italy and Greece, with the Italian authorities clarifying that the fishing vessel overloaded with refugees and migrants was in international waters but in the area of responsibility of the Hellenic Coast Guard, which had been alerted in time to intervene.
For their part, the Greek authorities consider that they are the main target of international criticism and that there are no clear instructions and responsibilities for rescue operations in international waters.
Each country deals with the issue of refugees and immigrants with internal political criteria and therefore it is practically impossible to agree on the implementation of a common European strategy.
Every now and then, efforts are made at the level of the European Commission and supporting resolutions are passed in the European Parliament, in search of the necessary common policy.
The last initiative also led to a majority of the European Council which set as a goal that the other member states take at least 30,000 people from the countries of first entry each year who claim asylum. In the event that a member state does not accept refugees, it will be charged 20,000 euros for each one that corresponds to it, with the money going to actions in favor of the EU’s asylum policy.
The decision was hailed as a big step forward, perhaps because previous decisions – when Juncker was President of the European Commission – to relocate 150,000 refugees and migrants without ever being implemented have been forgotten.
Based on the new regulations, greater powers are given to the member states to send those who are not entitled to asylum back to their countries of origin. To date, only one fifth of those who are judged not to have the right to stay in the EU. successfully repatriated. However, it is not certain that greater flexibility and emphasis on the responsibilities of the member states will lead to a better result. Exercising influence at the European level is generally more effective than at the level of member states due to the specific weight of the European economy. For example, it is very difficult for Greece to agree with the authorities of Pakistan or Bangladesh, much more with those of Libya or Syria if there is no systematic European intervention.
The remarkable thing is that countries like Italy, which declares itself negative in accepting refugees and immigrants, admit at the same time that they have a serious shortage of workers and that they need immigrants to meet the needs of the economy. The Italian government is even using the lack of workers as an excuse for the delay in planning the absorption of the funds of the European Recovery Fund.
Of the total program of 800 billion, Italy is estimated to receive 191.5 billion, in the form of subsidies and loans, until 2026.
Over the next three years the working-age population will fall in Italy by 600,000 due to the retirement of many workers.
The Bank of Italy is calling on the government to create “priority channels” to attract skilled workers from third countries in order to advance the recovery plan. Employers estimate they need around 240,000 additional foreign workers but authorities are issuing work permits at a rate of 82,000 a year.
The case of Italy, even more of Greece, shows that where there is no connection between the specialties of the immigrants who go to a country and the needs of the economy, greater social problems are created while the benefit for the economy is limited or even nullified. It is no coincidence that the recent OECD report records poverty rates of over 50% for immigrants who arrived and settled in Greece during the last decade.
The worsening situation in various parts of the world – including the Sahel countries, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Libya and Syria – makes it difficult to distinguish between refugees and migrants. When conditions in a country or region deteriorate, with the result that agricultural production and the local economy in general are destroyed and the inhabitants face the risk of dying of hunger, their movement is more like a refugee than a migration.
Finally, we must bear in mind that the numbers of refugees and immigrants arriving in the E.U. – with the exception of the millions who come from Ukraine and are welcome – it remains small, in the context of the possibilities of absorption by the economy and society. But it is the risk of their sharp increase, as in 2015-2016. Which causes the negative reaction of public opinion and the political, electoral support of right-wing populists who promise an immediate and drastic solution to the issue. The example of Meloni, who dominated Italy politically by cultivating the fear of refugees and immigrants and her government watching their numbers grow, is typical. Now, of course, Meloni does not think that the Italian government is to blame for the increase recorded, but the E.U. and other member states that do not support it.
