Strong support for changes to Frontex

MEPs have approved new rules on search and rescue at sea by the EU’s border-management agency.

The plenary on Wednesday (16 April) approved by a sweeping majority amended rules on search and rescue at sea by the EU’s border-management agency, Frontex. The new rules, which had been agreed with the member states and are expected to take effect before the summer, are intended to help prevent migrant deaths at sea. They define saving lives and protecting fundamental rights as priorities for Frontex sea operations.

The legislation sets out binding rules on Frontex search-and-rescue operations and on where intercepted migrants should be disembarked. In language that was made tougher by the Parliament, it prohibits the push-back of vessels into non-EU waters.

Cecilia Malmström, the European commissioner for home affairs, had presented the Commission’s proposal last April; it gained new prominence after some 360 migrants lost their lives when their boat capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa in October. Carlos Coelho, a centre-right Portuguese MEP who drafted the Parliament’s position on the proposal, said that the rules would help in “reconciling our need to ensure security with our duty to protect human rights”. The Greens and the United European Left groups in the Parliament voted against the new rules, arguing that the improvements offered provided insufficient safeguards against push-backs. MEPs also included in the recital of the new regulation a call for member states not to prosecute crews for rescuing migrants in distress.

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