Lost at sea: EU values and the Southern Neighbourhood

Adherence to the values that the European Union (EU) purports to promote are often lacking in the EU and its member states’ actions. Nowhere is this clearer than its actions along its southern border, the Mediterranean Sea. From its actions and inactions in relation to migrants crossing the Mediterranean to its response to the war in the Eastern Mediterranean that followed the atrocities of 7 October 2023, the EU and its member states are scorning the values they purport to stand for.

For thousands of years the Mediterranean Sea was a bridge connecting settlements along its shores. Traveling by sea was the quickest and easiest means of transport. During the Roman Empire the Mediterranean was known as Mare Nostrum, our sea. Today it functions more as a Mare Grande that divides the EU member states and the ‘Southern Neigbourhood’. The non-EU member states on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean form a buffer zone beyond the deep waters of the Mediterranean to keep undesired migrants out.

From the perspective of the EU, the main function of the Mediterranean Sea today is not as a connector but as a wall protecting Fortress Europe. The EU does not need a physical wall along its southern border, except to protect the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. Migrants are kept out or die trying to reach European shores. Coming from across Africa and Asia and setting out from the southern shores of the Mediterranean, migrants know they may die trying to cross in the search for a better life. Whether they succeed is a game of Russian roulette. While many actors show their disdain for human life in this deadly game, the EU and its policies is at the root of the problem. Migration control is an essential aspect of all association agreements with Southern Neighbourhood states despite the possibly successful legal challenges to formally outsourcing asylum processing.

According to the International Organization of Migration (IOM) more than 30,000 people have lost their lives trying to cross the Mediterranean in the last decade, most of them in the central Mediterranean, attempting the perilous journey from Tunisia or Libya to Italy. 2023 was the deadliest year on record with more than 8,000 dead or missing, presumed dead. With less than one month left of 2024 more than 7,000 persons have died or been lost at sea trying to cross the Mediterranean. On 15 November 2024, 50 migrants from Guinea, Mali and Sudan went missing off the coast of Libya after the boat they travelled on capsized. Fourteen survivors were rescued. The incident didn’t even make the news.

Over the last decade more than half a million people were intercepted at sea and sent back. Having used their last savings for the crossing such returnees face a perilous future, despite the voluntary return programmes of IOM and others. The UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission on Libya found that Libyan authorities such as the Directorate to Combat Illegal Migration, the Stability Support Apparatus and the Libyan Coast Guard are implicated in crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights of migrants. The EU is arguably complicit in these crimes. The EU Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) ‘provides technical advice, capacity building activities at the operational and technical levels … and specialised training and workshops’ for Libyan migration authorities.

The other regimes along the shores of the Southern Neighbourhood are also propped up by EU aid. Gone are the hopes of the Arab spring. Stability and migration prevention, not democracy, is the key word in the assistance packets generously provided by the EU, always with a sizeable financial packet for migration control. For example, 152 million Euro for migration control to Morocco, 105 million Euro to Tunisia and 200 million Euro to Egypt.

Further south there is trouble for the EU’s migration policy. As part of a financial support package from the EU, in 2015 Niger introduced law 36-2015 which criminalised transportation of migrants through Niger to Algeria and Libya. In November 2023 the Niger military junta abrogated the law opening up for new flows of migrants along this route. Increasing numbers of migrants are likely to get stuck in Libya with disastrous results. 

While the EU is trying to stem the flow of migrants, the flow of arms from the EU to states into the Southern Neighbourhood is continuing. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported in March 2024 on arms export for 2019-2023. Germany and Italy were the main exporters of weapons to Egypt, the seventh largest weapon importer in the world and European states dominate the statistics on export to a region where conflict and authoritarianism is rife. 

Despite the atrocities committed there is no EU arms embargo against Israel. Josep Borell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy noted in February 2024 that ‘if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people [from] being killed’. While the flow of weapons to Israel from the EU may have decreased deep divisions among EU member states on the union’s approach to Israel remains. For example, there was division when many EU member states suspended support to the UN relief agency in Palestine (UNRWA) following accusations by Israel that some UNRWA staff members had been involved in the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October. There are various ways in which the EU could put pressure on Israel. The EU-Israel Association Agreement which entered into force in June 2000 remains in force. This is despite that it provides that ‘observance of human rights and democracy’ is the ‘very basis of the Association’. The Agreement can be denounced by either side; a step that would be much more costly for Israel than for the EU.  

The EU is at the crossroads. It is time to stand up for the most vulnerable everywhere. Human rights assessments are needed in relation to the policies adopted by the EU and its member states. Nowhere is this clearer than in relation to the Southern Neigbourhood.

Magnus Killander is the Academic Coordinator for the LLM/MPhil programme in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA) and a Professor of Human Rights Law at the University of Pretoria, where he has resided since 2002. Born in Sweden, his academic work spans international human rights law, the relationship between international and domestic law, the role and legitimacy of international law in domestic contexts, and the effectiveness of international human rights monitoring systems. He also specialises in the work of international organisations such as the UN, AU, and SADC, as well as comparative constitutional law in Africa.

The opinions expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the views of EU-VALUES Network.