The EU has set out a package of measures to try to ease the migrant boat crisis in the Mediterranean.
Its
Frontex border surveillance service will be strengthened and a military
mandate sought to destroy people-smugglers' boats. An emergency summit
of EU leaders will be held on Thursday.
As the EU ministers met, fresh distress calls from migrant boats were received.
The crisis worsened at the weekend when hundreds of migrants were feared drowned as a boat capsized off Libya.
Libyan question
The
EU's foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said the 10-point
package set out at talks in Luxembourg was a "strong reaction from the
EU to the tragedies" and "shows a new sense of urgency and political
will".
"We are developing a truly European sense of solidarity in fighting human trafficking - finally so."
The measures include an increase in the financial resources of
Frontex, which runs the EU's Mediterranean rescue service Triton, and an
extension of Triton's operational area.
The EU had been
criticised over the scope of Triton, which replaced the larger Italian
operation Mare Nostrum at the end of last year.
The plan to destroy the people-smugglers' boats would need a civil military mandate signed off by the European Council.
Other points include:
Joint processing of asylum applications - within two months of their being lodged
Fingerprinting and recording of all migrants
An EU pilot project on migrant resettlement - this would be voluntary
Offer of return travel packages
Immigration liaison officers in key countries
Ms Mogherini stressed the need for action on Libya, where there was "no state entity to control borders". Analysis: Chris Morris, BBC Europe correspondent, Luxembourg
Some EU ministers have argued that patrols have to be expanded again,
that funding should be increased. Others suggest that camps could be
set up in North Africa to allow migrants to apply for asylum before they
have to cross the Mediterranean.
If there were easy answers they
would have been found already, but if the goal is to save lives there
really are only two choices.
Either you have to prevent people
leaving in the first place, or you have to rescue them when the
people-smugglers have cast them adrift. Q&A: Why is Libya the focus of the exodus? Human
smugglers are taking advantage of the political crisis in Libya to use
it as a launching point for boats carrying migrants who are fleeing
violence or economic hardship in Africa and the Middle East.
Ms Mogherini said: "We discussed all possible means of support for the formation of a government of national unity in Libya." UK PM David Cameron said Sunday was a "dark day for Europe", adding that "search and rescue is only one part. We need to go after traffickers, help stabilise these countries".
As the ministers met, Italy and Malta said they were working on rescues of at least two boats in distress.
Italian PM Matteo Renzi said one of the vessels was a dinghy off the
Libyan coast with about 100-150 people on board. The other was a larger
boat carrying 300 people.
Earlier, the Greek coastguard said a
vessel carrying dozens of migrants had run aground off the island of
Rhodes. Three people were killed and 80 rescued, it said.
'Game changer'
In
a joint news conference with Maltese PM Joseph Muscat in Rome, Mr Renzi
said military intervention in Libya was "not on the table" but that
there could be what he called "targeted interventions" against
people-smugglers.
Mr Muscat said Sunday's disaster off Libya, in which only 28 of some
700 migrants were rescued, was "a game changer", adding: "If Europe
doesn't work together history will judge it very badly."
UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein warned on Monday
that "Europe... risks turning the Mediterranean into a vast cemetery".
He
said EU policy was based on "short-sighted, short-term political
reactions pandering to the xenophobic populist movements that have
poisoned public opinion".
The UN says the route from North Africa to Italy and Malta has become the world's deadliest.
Up to 1,500 migrants are now feared to have drowned this year alone. Rescue operations in the Mediterranean Oct 2013-Oct 2014:
Mare Nostrum search-and-rescue Italian operation aimed to keep 24-hour
watch over the Mediterranean, especially the Sicily Strait, after more
than 300 migrants drowned off the Italian island of Lampedusa Nov 2014: Operation
Triton, a cheaper and more limited EU-led operation, began, based in
Italian waters, focusing on patrolling within 30 nautical miles of the
Italian coast
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