Italy has blocked several ships and ultimately closed its ports to migrant ships. Following this Spain has also blocked ships from disembarking and called on Europe to solve the migrant crisis.Now even Emmanuel Macron has said that NGOs are breaking the rules and playing into the hands of human traffickers. Are these refugees or immigrants and does this spell the end of mass immigration into Europe?Support the show (http://timcast.com/donate)
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Italy has announced it is closing its ports to NGO ships.
Now, depending on where you are, left or right, you're going to have a different understanding of what these ships do.
To the left, these are refugee rescue ships.
They are patrolling the Mediterranean to save lives.
When these refugees' boats topple over, the NGOs are there to rescue them.
But to the right, these NGOs are actually working with human traffickers, going to the Libyan coast, picking people up, and ferrying them straight into Europe.
Today's news is part of a larger story, where over the past few weeks several different European countries have voiced their concerns over the migrant crisis, and have even turned ships away.
With the latest news that Italy is closing its ports, I have to wonder, what's going to happen to the migrant flow into Europe?
And does this mean it might actually come to an end?
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Now before we get into the news about the closed ports, let's look at the context of what's been happening this month.
From June 11th, Italy's Salvini claims victory over migrant ship refusal as Spain accepts vessel.
Italy's Deputy Prime Minister claimed victory over decision to refuse the docking of a migrant rescue ship carrying 629 people.
The Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, said Monday afternoon that the country would give safe harbor to the Aquarius after both Italy and Malta refused to let the ship disembark on its shores.
Sánchez said the ship will instead dock in Valencia.
Salvini had revealed the new government's stance against immigration on Sunday by refusing to allow the search-and-rescue ship Aquarius, which is carrying 629 migrants, to dock in an Italian port, saying Malta was near to the ship's location and that it should accept the vessel.
Malta refused, promoting a diplomatic rift within Italy and leaving the migrant vessel in limbo.
If it is true that Malta was closer, it's interesting that the Aquarius wanted to dock in Italy instead, because this plays into the concerns from many people on the right, that these NGO rescue ships are actually just ferrying people to Europe, not actually trying to rescue them.
The logic is this.
If someone needs to be rescued, you pick them up and bring them to the nearest port.
I believe that's international law.
According to Doctors Without Borders, they say, put humans' lives first.
Ahead of the European Council meeting next week, Mélenchon's Frontier calls on European governments to put human lives first.
They must facilitate swift disembarkation in the closest safe ports in Europe, where rescued people can receive adequate care and ensure those in need of international protection are able to apply for asylum or other forms of protection.
So there's the NGO argument that they need to go to a port where they can receive adequate care and apply for asylum.
So maybe that isn't Malta.
But nonetheless, Italy said no.
Now even though Spain agreed to take in the Aquarius, we saw this story on the 26th of June.
Spain says we can't be Europe's sea rescue service.
Second EU standoff on migrants as Madrid refuses to take 230 from NGO boat, Forcing Italy to cave in and accept some, despite Deputy PM's claim to have halted invasion.
Spain's Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez, said there must be a common answer to the crisis in the Mediterranean from various countries in the EU, and did not agree to take in the Mission Lifeline charity ship, which is now heading to Malta.
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said the ship would go to the tiny island off which it had been stranded since Thursday, adding that Italy would take in some of the migrants on board.
But the country's Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini tweeted that Italy had stopped an invasion after forcing two charity boats to dock elsewhere.
He said the illegal ship will finally be seized when it arrives in Malta, adding, For women and children truly fleeing war, the ports are open.
For all others, no.
And a few days ago, we saw this story.
France joins Italy's criticism of NGO migrant rescue ships.
How to save lives without becoming taxi services for people smugglers.
Charity-run rescue boats operating in the Mediterranean face a dilemma, and their activity is being increasingly criticized by politicians in Europe.
Organizations such as France's SOS Mediterranean, Germany's Mission Lifeline, or Spain's Proactiva Open Arms are driven by a logic of saving lives.
Without them, even more people would have perished than the roughly 1,000 already dead or missing in the Mediterranean this year.
But French President Emmanuel Macron has now added his voice to critics who see the NGOs as helping the violent gangs that make millions offering mostly African migrants a passage to Europe.
He said on Tuesday that Mission Lifeline had defied all the rules when it took migrants onto its boats last week when the Libyan Coast Guard was already intervening.
We cannot permanently accept the situation, he warned in comments in Rome, adding.
In the end, we are playing into the hands of smugglers by reducing the risks of the journey.
This is huge news because for the longest time it was people on the right claiming that human traffickers and smugglers were using NGO ships to make money.
That these NGO ships are going as close as legally possible to the Libyan shores and just picking migrants up and ferrying them to Europe.
The argument was that they were not working as search and rescue vessels.
They were actually working as a ferry service.
So it's interesting now to see that several European Union nations are calling out essentially the same thing.
That they have to be careful because they're playing into the hands of smugglers.
And then we have the news from today.
Migrant crisis.
Italy minister Salvini closes ports to NGO boats.
Mr Salvini has often accused the NGOs of encouraging the trafficking of migrants.
He told Corriere della Sera these NGOs were no longer legitimate.
He also hailed the agreement reached by European Union leaders in Brussels that Italy hopes will lessen its burden.
Thousands of migrants, mainly from African countries, have reached Italy.
The number is 95% lower than at the peak of the crisis in 2015, the EU says, but started to rise again recently.
Several Central European states have so far rejected an EU scheme to relocate 160,000 refugees from overcrowded camps in Greece and Italy.
Mr Salvini posted an image on his Facebook showing one of the rescue boats with the hashtag, close the ports.
His message read, I need to point out something important in these articles.
You can tell their bias based on what they call these people.
In the BBC article, you can see that they refer to them as refugees.
But CNBC calls them migrant ships.
And yes, it may be refugees in these camps, and that's what they're referring to, but often we see this.
Certain publications will refer to these people as refugees, other publications will refer to them as migrants.
In my opinion, based on my research, I think they're overwhelmingly migrants.
That means they are people coming from African nations in search of work.
and not seeking safety from violence or war.
But in order to understand some data, let's take a look at the UNHCR.
Here we can see a map showing that, as of this year, 17,781 have entered through what's called the Western Mediterranean Route.
The Central Mediterranean Route includes Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, and mostly enters into Italy, where we saw 16,520 people so far.
And the Eastern Mediterranean Route, is 13,435.
It's really important that you understand the difference in each of these routes for one simple reason.
The people coming into Europe are coming from various places, and it is obvious that people coming from Niger or Mali or wherever else aren't going to travel all the way over here and enter into the east.
When we're talking about the likelihood of actual refugees seeking aid, it's most likely going to be the eastern Mediterranean route entering Greece.
And I went to Greece, I was in Athens, and I interviewed many people, and most of them were from Middle Eastern nations like Afghanistan or Syria.
The concern arises with Libya, where most people believe it is Nigerians moving up into Libya to make their way into Europe.
But let's take a look at the actual numbers.
The largest percentage, at 19.5%, are coming from the Syrian Arabian Republic.
And I think it is fair to say that people fleeing Syria are refugees.
People who are fleeing Iraq are refugees.
And when we look over at the demographics of men, women, and children, Italy said women and children who are fleeing war, the ports are open.
But 62% of those entering Europe are men, in which case these people are going to be left out.
When it comes to Italy's ports.
This is a very, very complicated story.
There's an old UNHCR report that says, for the most part, most people entering Europe are economic migrants and not refugees.
But when we look at the numbers on their own website today, we can see that the numbers are dramatically down, and there is a decent portion of people coming from nations where we can assume They are fleeing war and violence.
But the story about paying human traffickers and smuggling people into Europe isn't new.
It's been going on for a while.
This story from just over a year ago.
Charities pay people traffickers.
Libyan Coast Guard's astonishing claim.
Cash handed to criminal gangs so they deliver refugees.
The story says refugee charities are paying smugglers to ferry migrants, Libyan official claims.
Allegation to raise concern that jihadists could be among the smuggled migrants.
But charities say they are only there to rescue migrants off North African coast.
To me this looks kind of like an astounding about-face for these European nations.
We know there was an upset in Italy, and now their policies have changed.
People seem to be fed up with this mass migration.
For a long time, activists were vilified when they said that NGOs were working with human traffickers to ferry people into Europe.
But now it seems that we're actually seeing politicians in the EU parrot that exact same rhetoric about a year later.
Going back to the local, we see the quote from Emmanuel Macron, the French president.
In the end, we are playing into the hands of smugglers By reducing the risks of the journey.
And although not as extreme as some of the right-wing rhetoric, he's basically saying what many people on the right did say.
That whether or not the NGOs are actually working with smugglers, that by going to the coast and picking people up, they are streamlining the process for these smugglers to guarantee passage into Europe and take payment from those The situation is not nearly as bad as it was.
In 2015, we saw over 1 million sea arrivals, with 3,771 people considered dead or missing.
Europe is facing a serious conundrum.
There is no amount of people dead or missing that is acceptable in this problem.
However, this is an extremely complicated problem, made worse by NGOs who actually streamline the process for human smugglers, made worse by human smugglers who guarantee these people safe passage when they can't actually do that and put them on rickety boats.
People are risking their lives to try and come into Europe, and many of them, perhaps the overwhelming majority, are simply doing it because they're looking for work.
Europe needs to solve this problem, As do some of these African nations.
And I don't know what the solution is going to be, but I will say it is shocking to me to see this change in demeanor from Europe.
Closing off the ports.
Spain, Italy, and France all criticizing the migration coming from Africa.
But let me know what you think in the comments below.
Do you think we might actually see Europe try and close off its ports to prevent this migration?
Or is this just a bump in the road and it's going to keep Carrying on again comment below.
