The deaths of the Mediterranean: Italy calls and Europe does not respond?

14/05/14

A stream of humans continues to arrive from the Mediterranean coasts of Africa to land in Italy, the southern border of the European Union. People continue to die in the sea.

The Italians "good people", however, do not deny themselves and continue to risk their lives to save the poor migrants even at personal risk, exposed to contagious diseases such as TB and the scabies that are now certain to land on our lands together with refugees and perhaps even at risk of Ebola.

Between yesterday and the day before yesterday two other tragedies with not exactly quantifiable deaths, our Navy ships are coming back from Libya to Sicily, rusted under the saltiness, while the European Union is looking as if it were not its problem .

A Europe that asks Italy for immediate reforms in particular to lower the bureaucratic constraints in the management of the country and that in the face of the dead in the sea refers, instead, to the "next internal council" to discuss the problem of migrants.

An economic holding Europe, worried about the sovereign debt spread of the countries, moreover driven in the secondary markets by two or three states of the Union, rather than to protect their borders from an endless invasion.

A Europe that has within it an extremely expensive organization that is specifically dedicated to protecting borders, FRONTEX. An Agency for the management of operational cooperation at the external borders of the Member States of the European Union was established by Regulation (EC) No. 2007 / 2004 of the Council of 26 October 2004 (GU L 349 of the 25.11.2004), with the task of coordinating operational cooperation between the Member States on the management of external borders; assist Member States in the formation of national border guards, including by developing common training rules; prepare risk analysis; monitor the evolution of research into the control and surveillance of external borders; helping Member States facing circumstances that require enhanced technical and operational assistance at the external borders; provide Member States with the necessary support to organize joint return operations. (source http://europa.eu/about-eu/agencies/regulatory_agencies_bodies/policy_agencies/frontex/index_it.htm).

FRONTEX works in close liaison with other EU and EU bodies responsible for security at external borders, such as EUROPOL, CEPOL, OLAF, and cooperation in the field of customs and phytosanitary and veterinary checks, in order to ensure overall consistency of the system and should increase border security, ensuring coordination of Member States' initiatives to implement Community measures for the management of external borders.

Super paid officials, staff around the world with stratospheric time limits (not less than 300-400 Euro per day) but I do not think they are on board the ships of mare nostrum or have assignments in the operating rooms.

What are the provisions they give?

What are the analyzes translated into concrete risk plans?

No one tells us this even if it falls within their mandate.

Today the Union has asked Italy for clarity, the interior minister seems to have replied that Italy has provided every possible news and proposal. So where is the hitch?

We are facing a confused situation and in the meantime people die and our fellow Sicilians, Calabrians and Lampedusans are forced to bear an enormous burden, an endless effort and Italy will be destined to be invaded by needy people to whom we could not satisfy. needs.

People destined to guarantee their survival to become an easy source of recruitment for the underworld or even to join the "sleeping" terrorist cells, scattered in the West especially after those who hastily defined optimistically the "Arab Spring" as a breath of "democracy" ".

Everybody says they want to beat their fists on the table in Brussels but you still don't hear the noise, much less see the effects.

In Italy, meanwhile, it continues to go on only in words, calling for a confidentiality of everything unjustified because it affects the rights of citizens and perhaps also their security, such as that concerning the management of the two fusiliers of the navy and the loads of chemical weapons coming from Syria and headed to Gioia Tauro. In fact, no one tells us what was asked of Brussels and what they actually answered and how it will act a European that to call now very confusing is not risky.

With regret and sadness I am of the opinion that this is not the best way to give back to Italy its sovereignty and the dignity that competes for it as the cradle of history and traditions!

Fernando Termentini