Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Europe’s moral compass, lost at sea

Gemma Bird 20th June 2023

The Greek migrant shipwreck was another preventable tragedy at the borders of Europe.

Hellenic Coastguard
A ship of the Hellenic Coastguard (Georgios Tsichlis / shutterstock.com)

The Mediterranean route between Libya and Italy has been described as the ‘world’s most dangerous maritime crossing‘. This was proved once again last week in the tragic shipwreck of a boat full of men, women and children, around 50 miles from the southern Greek town of Pylos.

The boat was being tracked by the Hellenic Coastguard, which said that those on board refused assistance repeatedly and wanted to continue to Italy. It was for this reason that no active rescue took place, according to the coastguard.

But activist groups, including Alarm Phone, an emergency hotline for refugees in distress in the Mediterranean, have contested this account. In an email to authorities, published by the investigative journalists We Are Solomon, Alarm Phone alerted authorities to the vessel’s location and reported that ‘several people, among them some babies, are very sick. The people on the boat said that they cannot go on.’

Mixed reports and timelines have continued to come out and survivors’ stories and experiences are starting to be reported. Alarm Phone claimed that Maltese and Italian authorities were also aware of the vessel’s situation and that ‘European authorities could have sent out adequate rescue resources without delay. They failed to do so because their desire to prevent arrivals was stronger than the need to rescue hundreds of lives.’

International lawyers and former members of the Hellenic Coastguard have said that authorities should have rescued the boat regardless of whether passengers requested help, not least because the vessel was unseaworthy and overcrowded. As the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in the UK has made clear, it is a duty—both moral and under international maritime law—to save lives at sea.

Pushbacks

This is far from the first time the Hellenic Coastguard has faced accusations of endangering asylum-seekers’ lives at sea. In March 2020, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, thanked Greece for acting as the European Union’s ‘shield’. She pledged to work in solidarity with the country to ensure that as a priority ‘order is maintained‘ at Greece’s external border, also an external border of the European Union.

What this means in practice has become clear with accusations and mounting evidence that the Hellenic Coastguard is conducting illegal pushbacks, preventing access to the right to claim asylum once a person has entered a state’s territory. Human-rights advocates, MEPs and other non-governmental organisations have repeatedly accused both the Hellenic Coastguard and Frontex (the European border and coastguard agency) of involvement in pushbacks.

In October 2022, a report by the EU anti-fraud watchdog, OLAF, published by German media, accused Frontex of covering up or failing to investigate serious allegations of human-rights violations. A video published by the New York Times last month appeared to show coastguard vessels abandoning at sea people who had landed in Greece. Again, this would be a violation of their right under international law to claim asylum, having landed on the island of Lesbos, in Greek territory.

If the Hellenic Coastguard’s account of the recent shipwreck is true, and those on board the vessel wanted to continue to Italy and avoid Greek territory, it’s important to consider why this would be the case. One reason might very well be the growing awareness of the risk of pushbacks.

These events suggest that Europe’s ‘shield’ is not prioritising saving the lives of those seeking safety, but rather, as von der Leyen said in that same press conference in 2020, making sure ‘order is maintained’ when ‘migrants that have been lured through false promises into this desperate situation’ find themselves at Europe’s door.

Deterrence policies

In 2016, Donald Tusk, then president of the European Council, warned people against making dangerous crossings to the EU. He said: ‘Do not come to Europe. Do not believe the smugglers. Do not risk your lives and your money. It is all for nothing.’

Statements like this wrongly suggest that people make these journeys out of choice, that a far easier alternative exists. But, as the Somali-British poet Warsan Shire put it poignantly, ‘You have to understand, no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.’

Making these journeys less safe will not prevent them from happening. The failure to rescue, the decision to push back, only puts the lives of people in boats at risk. It does not prevent other people making those journeys in the future.

Shipwrecks such as this are preventable, but only if EU policy moves away from its focus on closing borders and ‘maintaining order’, towards one of humanitarian action. This would mean the opening of genuinely safe routes for people seeking safety, that do not rely on them entering the territory of a state on a crowded, dangerous vessel to be able to make an asylum claim.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence

Gemma Bird
Gemma Bird

Gemma Bird is a senior lecturer in politics and international relations at the University of Liverpool and a senior research fellow at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research, University of Duisburg-Essen. Her research focuses on migration and humanitarianism.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u421983467f bb39 37d5862ca0d5 0 Ending Britain’s “Brief Encounter” with BrexitStefan Stern
u421983485 2 The Future of American Soft PowerJoseph S. Nye
u4219834676d582029 038f 486a 8c2b fe32db91c9b0 2 Trump Can’t Kill the Boom: Why the US Economy Will Roar Despite HimNouriel Roubini
u42198346fb0de2b847 0 How the Billionaire Boom Is Fueling Inequality—and Threatening DemocracyFernanda Balata and Sebastian Mang
u421983441e313714135 0 Why Europe Needs Its Own AI InfrastructureDiane Coyle

Most Popular Articles

startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer
u421983467 2a24 4c75 9482 03c99ea44770 3 Trump’s Trade War Tears North America Apart – Could Canada and Mexico Turn to Europe?Malcolm Fairbrother
u4219834676e2a479 85e9 435a bf3f 59c90bfe6225 3 Why Good Business Leaders Tune Out the Trump Noise and Stay FocusedStefan Stern
u42198346 4ba7 b898 27a9d72779f7 1 Confronting the Pandemic’s Toxic Political LegacyJan-Werner Müller
u4219834676574c9 df78 4d38 939b 929d7aea0c20 2 The End of Progess? The Dire Consequences of Trump’s ReturnJoseph Stiglitz

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

What kind of impact is artificial intelligence (AI) having, or likely to have, on the way we work and the conditions we work under? Discover the latest issue of HesaMag, the ETUI’s health and safety magazine, which considers this question from many angles.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
How are minimum wage levels changing in Europe?

In a new Eurofound Talks podcast episode, host Mary McCaughey speaks with Eurofound expert Carlos Vacas Soriano about recent changes to minimum wages in Europe and their implications.

Listeners can delve into the intricacies of Europe's minimum wage dynamics and the driving factors behind these shifts. The conversation also highlights the broader effects of minimum wage changes on income inequality and gender equality.

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Spring issue of The Progressive Post is out!


Since President Trump’s inauguration, the US – hitherto the cornerstone of Western security – is destabilising the world order it helped to build. The US security umbrella is apparently closing on Europe, Ukraine finds itself less and less protected, and the traditional defender of free trade is now shutting the door to foreign goods, sending stock markets on a rollercoaster. How will the European Union respond to this dramatic landscape change? .


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss European defence strategies, assess how the US president's recent announcements will impact international trade and explore the risks  and opportunities that algorithms pose for workers.


READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

KU Leuven advertisement

The Politics of Unpaid Work

This new book published by Oxford University Press presents the findings of the multiannual ERC research project “Researching Precariousness Across the Paid/Unpaid Work Continuum”,
led by Valeria Pulignano (KU Leuven), which are very important for the prospects of a more equal Europe.

Unpaid labour is no longer limited to the home or volunteer work. It infiltrates paid jobs, eroding rights and deepening inequality. From freelancers’ extra hours to care workers’ unpaid duties, it sustains precarity and fuels inequity. This book exposes the hidden forces behind unpaid labour and calls for systemic change to confront this pressing issue.

DOWNLOAD HERE FOR FREE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641