Shocked by drowned migrants, Europe restores rescue mission
Four days after up to 900 desperate people drowned trying to reach Europe from Libya, EU leaders agreed on April 23 to triple its naval search mission in the Mediterranean, restoring its funding to last year's level.
Critics called it a face-saving operation that did not go far enough to emulate an Italian rescue mission abandoned six months ago for want of EU support. And divisions remained over longer-term proposals, ranging from dealing with people smugglers and African migrant camps to how to redistribute asylum-seekers around 28 nations where anti-immigrant parties are on the rise.
But Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who had called for the emergency summit in Brussels after the deadly sinking of a crowded vessel on Sunday pierced many Europeans' indifference to the fate of unwelcome migrants, called it "a big step forward for Europe".
Countries, including Britain which will send the Royal Navy's helicopter-carrying flagship, pledged aircraft and boats to Operation Triton, an EU frontier operation off Italy. Funding for a similar operation off Greece was also to be increased.
Officials said the difference could be felt within days. Italy warned that, after nearly 2,000 deaths so far this year out of nearly 40,000 people making the crossing, a summer season was starting that could push total arrivals on its shores for 2015 to 200,000, an increase of 30,000 over last year.
"We face a difficult summer," said the summit chairman, European Council President Donald Tusk. He took pains to warn that there would be no quick fix for problems that saw more than 600,000 people seek asylum in the European Union last year.
Tripling annual funding to EUR120 million (US$130 million) puts Triton in line with Italy's Mare Nostrum mission. That rescued 100,000 people last year but was criticized by Germany, Britain and others for attracting more people to put to sea in leaky craft supplied by profiteering gangs of traffickers.