Council of Europe slams Italy on migration law

The Council of Europe (CoE) has urged Italy to scrap a decree seeking to regulate NGO migrant rescue operations at sea, describing it as a breach of international law in a letter sent on 26 January and made public on Thursday (2 February).

The new decree adopted by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government could potentially prevent search and rescue missions, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, wrote in a letter to Italian interior minister Matteo Piantedosi. 

The CoE is a human rights organisation with 46 member states based in Strasbourg and is not an EU institution.

“I am concerned that the application of some of these rules could hinder the provision of life-saving assistance by NGOs in the Central Mediterranean and, therefore, may be at variance with Italy’s obligations under human rights and international law,” Mijatović wrote.

About the Italian decree

One of the decree’s provisions that the CoE Commissioner contested is the obligation of the shipmaster to reach the port assigned for disembarkation without delay after the first rescue operation.

According to Mijatović, this could prevent multiple rescues by “forcing them to ignore other distress calls in the area if they already have rescued persons on board, even when they still have capacity to carry out another rescue”.

“By complying with this provision, NGOs’ shipmasters would, in fact, fail to fulfil their rescue duties under international law,” Mijatović said.

On 26 January, the Italian authorities assigned a place to disembark the Doctors Without the Borders ship ‘Geo Barends’ to La Spezia, a port in Northern Italy that was 100 hours of navigation from where the ship was located. 

According to the CoE Commissioner, the assignment of a port that is far away “prolongs the suffering of people saved at sea and unduly delays the provision of adequate assistance to meet their basic needs”. 

The Italian Ministry of the Interior firmly refuted the Council of Europe’s request that the decree be backtracked.

“The decree will not be withdrawn, absolutely, and is fully compliant with international treaties and conventions and national constitutional law. It establishes clear and precise rules of conduct for Sar activities at sea operated by private foreign ships that make interventions in foreign areas, never Italian,” Interior Ministry Undersecretary Nicola Molteni from the League Party told EURACTIV Italy.

Libya accords

The letter also condemns the ‘Memorandum of Understanding with the Libyan Government of National Accord’ that will be automatically renewed on Thursday.

This agreement “plays a central role in facilitating the interceptions of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants at sea, and their subsequent return to Libya,” Mijatović said, adding that there was “considerable evidence documenting grave human rights violations faced by refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in Libya”.

The question of migrant return will be at the centre of an EU summit in Brussels next week as the bloc seeks support to broker agreements with third countries to prevent migrant departures and agree on repatriations.

In a letter to national governments sent on 26 January, EU Commission Chief Ursula Von der Leyen asked EU governments to work together, among others, to strengthen controls at the EU’s external borders along with return procedures and reducing incentives for secondary movement. 

Federica Pascale contributed reporting.

[Edited by Benjamin Fox/Alice Taylor]