EU Action Plan Against Migrant Smuggling (EUC Report)

Earl of Oxford and Asquith Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Oxford and Asquith (LD)]

My Lords, I shall confine myself to Operation Sophia, but first I should like to offer my own words of tribute to the excellent chairmanship of the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat. Operation Sophia has done some very creditable work in its search and rescue role, but as we have heard and as the report concludes, it is unable to perform its mission of preventing illegal migration, at least not until it is able to operate in Libyan waters much closer to the launch point of the trafficking. Since that is the case, we shall need to reconsider in due course what will be required in practice to stem the flow of migration across the central Mediterranean route, always assuming—it is a very big assumption—that we have the political support of the Libyan Government.

Most member states of the EU have a good understanding of what is involved in migrant trafficking, and for obvious reasons much of that knowledge is related to the operations of traffickers within the destination countries themselves—how they exploit the people under their control. But the problem we are facing in the Mediterranean and the central and western routes is of course a different one. How do we deter the flow of migration coming from the supplying states of north Africa and well beyond: Mali, Nigeria, Guinea, Eritrea, Somalia and so on? It is a long chain, as the noble Lord, Lord Patten, has said, and seems inexhaustible in its volume.

Our experience of trafficking in Europe has led us to understand how the market works, and how these people are exploited in prostitution, the construction industry and debt bondage. As Sophia has shown, those who are conducting the trafficking closest to our borders are seldom the ones who play a determining role. Often the people who steer the boats are migrants themselves. The beneficiaries and organisers of the trade can be stretched across great distances, far removed from the Mediterranean coast, and they perform diverse functions.

The trade is conducted by merciless criminals, to be sure, but their facilitators can take the form of corrupt border guards, police, embassies and politicians. We know that tribal communities and settled municipalities alike conspire to earn money along the line, exploiting in their own economies the trafficked migrants who are effectively temporarily enslaved before they are moved on to another destination in the line. Certainly there will be benefits, most of all in saved human lives, if the EU were able to interdict the traffic off the Libyan coast, but the evidence indicates that this will simply bottle up the problem in Libya and Morocco.

On deterrence, we can see that there is a much more complex process that will have to be addressed within a conceptual framework. Clearly for the success of their business the traffickers have to move their victims into a country. There has to be transport, an entrance point, the providing of identities and false documents, housing, which is often illegal, and work places, and financial mechanisms for foreign accounts, bribes and money-laundering. At every stage in these networks identifiable operational facilities are required by the traffickers, which act like choke points, against which some counteraction can be conducted. Indeed, some countries promote admirable educational programmes in the supply states themselves in an effort to inform potential victims of the dangers they face. In other words, there is an enormous process to be undertaken, a comprehensive migration policy, as the report concludes and as the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, also concluded.

The question in my mind is really this: clearly, phase 2B of Sophia, operating in Libyan waters, requires naval capabilities. There must be some doubt, however, as to whether it is really practicable to designate phase 3, even now, as a security and defence mission, something that will be seen throughout the region as a military mission. Unless it is to be purely ephemeral, going ashore and establishing a presence on Libyan territory in the foreseeable future carries some obvious risks—physical risks, certainly, but several political risks too, not least the one of acceptability.

To achieve any significant success in stemming the trafficking trade there will have to be close co-operation with the Libyan and other neighbouring Governments at all levels, including coverage of the domestic issues embedded deep within the culture and structures of Libyan society. We are not at the moment close to implementing phase 3, but I am not yet convinced that we should continue addressing that possible step in the context of extending Sophia’s remit under a quasi-military endorsement. The objectives, status and planning of onshore preventive activity will prove to be a large departure from what we have been doing so far, and it seems more appropriate to prepare for such a contingency within the framework of a civil programme.