A parliamentary hearing about the sinking of a migrant ship on the Mediterranean in late February descended into chaos in the EP’s civil liberties committee on Tuesday, May 23rd. Several Italian MEPs snapped at a human rights NGO for accusing Rome of hindering rescue operations and implying that it was responsible for the tragedy.
The hearing, attended by representatives of Frontex, the Italian Coast Guard, and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), was organized in the European Parliament to discuss the events of February 26th, when a ship carrying about 200 migrants sank amidst harsh weather conditions off the coast of Cutro in the southern Italian region of Calabria.
At least 89 people, mostly Afghan and Pakistani nationals, lost their lives in the disaster, including 24 children, while—despite the harsh weather—81 people were rescued by a joint operation led by the Italian Coast Guard and Frontex, using a large number of motorboats, vessels, and a helicopter. The event later led Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to “declare war” on human traffickers.
Over the line?
While the primary aim of the hearing was to get an accurate picture from the front-line rescuers about what happened on that day, the debate quickly devolved into a shouting match between conservative and liberal MEPs—the full context of which was seemingly omitted from other reports. Juan Matias Gil, a representative of the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF), seems to have been the source of the mayhem, as he was roundly accused by parliamentarians of muddying the water by unnecessarily politicizing the issue.
Specifically, the initial outrage of Italian MEPs was prompted by the fact that the MSF representative Gil—invited despite the NGO not even operating in that area of the sea and only getting to the scene later to give first aid to survivors on the shore—suggested that the disaster was at least in part Rome’s fault for hindering migrant-saving NGOs work on the Mediterranean.
Gil started by saying that the problem goes beyond the 90-person drowning in Calabria, as over 25,000 migrants have died while trying to cross the Mediterranean since 2014. According to him, this was partly because European governments and frontline agencies do not fulfill their obligations under international treaties, leaving the lion’s share of the rescue work to NGOs, who are also being prevented from operating properly by recent policies of Italy’s conservative government.
“[NGOs] are being targeted, criminalized, defamed, and obstructed” by Rome, Gil claimed, saying that the number of rescued migrants dropped by 40% because of recently introduced deterrence policies. “We can expect many more deaths, because the targeting of our activities is normalized,” he added.
Italy strikes back
Understandably, these remarks did not fly easily with the right-wing Italian MEPs present in the room, who one by one called out the one-sided accusations of MSF.
“I thought this was a hearing, but what we heard was actually just a massive criticism of Italy and what it’s doing,” the center-right EPP’s Alessandra Mussolini said, adding that no other country is doing nearly as much to save lives on the Mediterranean. “It’s Italy that’s doing all the work, yet I had to listen to an hourlong tirade against Italy.”
“[Gil] came here to get involved in politics and make accusations,” another MEP, Susanna Ceccardi (ID) said. “It’s ridiculous for him to be making these statements, saying that the Italian government is directly responsible by preventing NGOs from operating in the area, [because] they never operated there at all,” the furious MEP added.
These sentiments were echoed by MEP Carlo Fidanza (ECR) as well, who also said it was “particularly inappropriate” to invite MSF, given that “they don’t really have anything to do with the tragedy” directly, and went further to talk about those he believes are really responsible for the deaths.
“We’ve heard some very serious statements … but what we didn’t hear from [MSF] at all is the word ‘traffickers,’” the MEP said before asking whether the NGO’s silence is a sign of complicity. “All too often, there is clear cooperation on the ground and at sea” between migrant traffickers and NGOs, he said, referring to past evidence of civil organizations picking up migrants just off the coast of Libya and shipping them straight to Europe while calling it a “rescue.”
At one point during his speech, Gil seemed to have even admitted to NGOs engaging in this practice, albeit only implicitly. “Our rescue is finished when people are disembarking in a place of safety, and it’s very clear, Libya is not a place of safety,” he said, adding that “if the Libyan coast guard arrives there first, our rescue is never complete, because [the migrants] will go back to [Africa].”
Schoolyard-level interactions
Needless to say, the Italian MEPs’ arguments—questioning whether MSF even belonged in the chamber—only prompted many of the leftist MEPs to instantly back the NGO and to reiterate, albeit more carefully, some of the accusations against the Coast Guard and Frontex for responding inadequately in the situation.
In turn, the hearing quickly devolved into parliamentarians shouting at each other from across the room, with the conservative Italian MEPs defending their country’s honor, while the socialist and liberal MEPs loudly criticized them for making this hearing about anything other than saving human lives.
“I’m completely shocked; Ms. Sippel is raising her middle finger to other members of the European Parliament,” the Czech MEP Tomás Zdechovsky (EPP) said, referring to what his socialist colleague presumably did off-camera. “You think you can get away with this? You should be before the ethical committee here,” he continued. “Calm the hell down, dear colleague.”
First responders also under fire
As the MEPs pointed out, Rome is not the only one experiencing a leftist witch hunt after the event. Both Frontex and the Coast Guard are under investigation since the incident, as NGOs and politicians question whether a better response time or communication could have prevented the accident.
But during the hearing, both Frontex Executive Director Hans Leijtens and Italian Coast Guard chief Gianluca D’Agostino dismissed the notions that it was their fault that led to the disaster, saying that all appropriate procedures were followed by the book.
“The vessel was sailing in an appropriate manner. And the sea was reasonable. It had a constant route, and the wind was behind it,” Leijtens said, talking about when Frontex first spotted the ship days before the disaster, without any apparent sign of distress. “If we know today what we knew then, I think we [would] not do [anything] different.”
D’Agostino even prepared a presentation to explain the magnitude of the task the Coast Guard has to deal with, showing that 105 thousand migrants arrived in Italy by sea last year—a 65% increase from the year before—and even more are expected in 2023. He also pointed out that human smugglers deliberately launch 20-30 vessels at the same time (some with between 700-900 people aboard), forcing authorities to stretch out resources and prioritize vessels.
“Italy is on the front line of all of this,” D’Agostino said. “We have been for twenty years, and we take our responsibilities very seriously. Because of that, we absolutely don’t accept gratuitous accusations.”
