Three expert voices interviewed in the context of EU Foreign Policy Supremo Federica Mogherini’s request to the UN Security Council earlier this week to pass a resolution authorising military action against migrant smugglers operating in Libyan and international waters:
‘[Europe has] constructed the irregular migrant as a security object when 99.9 percent are not: they present no security risk. The more we started to close our borders, the more migrants were forced to start using smugglers. The biggest misunderstanding is that by attacking smugglers you solve the issue. You only increase the dependency of migrants on smugglers . . .
There are four million Syrians stuck in the Middle East with no future. If we believe they’re going to stay there quietly and wait for us to move them, we’re delusional. If we don’t organise it ourselves, the smugglers will. Many people are fleeing violence and conflict and it’s there that we need to think much harder about what we can do, because the ethical obligations that we have towards those people are very important.
http://www.irinnews.org/report/101478/should-europe-open-its-borders-or-shore-them-up