Does Rome want to kill Operation Sophia? Paris secretly nods
(B2 in Vienna) The operation to combat trafficking in the Mediterranean, set up in June 2015, is no longer popular in Rome. And Paris is not prepared to die to save her. Will she survive the winter? Defense ministers, due to discuss at their informal meeting in Vienna today
The Italian government has cornered the review EUNAVFOR Med/Sophia operation by introducing a condition: Italy will no longer automatically accept to take in migrants and refugees picked up by European ships. It is campaigning to set up a system for coordinating and distributing people rescued at sea.
A condition for the existence of the operation
By withdrawing this authorisation, the government in Rome knew very well that it was jeopardizing the operation. The care by Italy of people (migrants or asylum seekers) rescued at sea during patrols was a specific condition set by several European countries from the start of Operation Sophia (EUNAVFOR Med) in the spring 2015, to provide naval assets for the operation. No country wanted, in fact, to find itself obliged to have to welcome people it would have collected on board. The United Kingdom in particular had made it a sine qua non express condition, France and Germany also.
Complicated future force generation
Rome knows very well that it will complicate future generations with force. But he doesn't seem to care. The Diciotti affair is, in this respect, very telling. Beyond the internal message, Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini wanted to send a message to his European allies: even for our own ships, there will no longer be an automatic reception. No need to look for a similar issue in the other files.
An operation unpopular with the government
It's no longer a secret. The Sophia operation is no longer really popular in Italy. Even if the Italian Foreign Minister, Enzo Moavero Milanesi, denies it: " Italy recognizes the fundamental contribution of the "Sophia" mission to the fight against human trafficking and is available for a possible extension of its tasks “, He says in a message sent on the eve of the informal meetings in Vienna of the Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs. In the eyes of the new Italian government, it combines certain design flaws. Its main fault is to have been wanted by the previous government and implemented by the High Representative of the EU (all from the Democratic Party, the sworn enemy of the 5-star movement). But it is not the only one: this operation was conceived at a time, in 2015, when saving lives at sea (after several shipwrecks) was conceived as a display of European value. Even if Sophia's formal objective is not rescue at sea, it is part of her raison d'être. And several countries (Germany, Ireland in particular) communicate on this operation only through this element. We must be clear: this operation would probably not have seen the light of day without this aspect.
If Rome wants to kill the operation, France will not defend it
In an internal diplomatic note, revealed by theExpress, the Minister for Europe, Nathalie Loiseau, believes that Operation Sophia is a " bad response to real challenges ". Above all, it constitutes a effective tool for saving the human lives of migrants in distress ". One reason that justifies Matteo Salvini seeing Sophia today “ with mistrust “, we explain at the Quai d’Orsay. " We must let him bear the moral cost of a possible stoppage of the operation (created at the request of Italy) "by resisting the urge to save" at all costs » an instrument that is not suitable. For Paris, the work against the smugglers is insufficient, the idea would rather be to set up a " international conference on the fight against human trafficking ».
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)